Students' Perceptions of Forest Industries Business Ethics - A Comparative Analysis of Finland and the USA

Abstract

It has been recognised that personal values have a significant impact on views of business ethics. The basic purpose of this paper is to describe and compare student perceptions of business ethics in Finland and the USA. Another objective is to examine the value dimensions of students and the interrelationships between these values and views of business ethics. The following results have been found in this study: 1) US students generally represent more individualistic and harder values, whereas the Finnish students represent more collectivistic and softer values; 2) US students are less concerned about the weight of multiple responsibilities in the forest industries than their Finnish counterparts; 3) the Finnish students represented a stronger shareholder view than their US counterparts; 4) the differences in business ethics perceptions between genders and study directions mainly reflected the varieties in value backgrounds; 5) there is a direct interrelationship between values and perceptions on business ethics.