Ethical judgments across cultures: A comparison between business students from Malaysia and New Zealand

This study compares the attitudes to ethical dilemmas of first year busines s students in Malaysia and New Zealand by using a series of scenarios or vi gnettes. Between subject manipulations were made to the scenarios given, ba sed on expected cultural differences suggested in the literature. In partic ular, Hofstede's (1980, 1983 and 1991) work was used as a framework to iden tify dimensions based on differences in national culture. The results indic ated some differences in responses based on both nationality and ethnic ori gin. Differences were also found as a result of the manipulations within th e scenarios. However, a lack of any interaction effects between the manipul ations and both nationality and ethnic origin indicated that cultural diffe rences did not lead to different responses to the manipulations.