How Do the Attitudes of Students Compare With the Attitudes of Salespeople? A Comparison of Perceptions of Business, Consumer and Employer Ethics

Does business experience create calloused and jaded employees? Are college students unrealistic in their perceptions and attitudes toward business and the ethical environment? These questions were the focal point of a study developed to compare ethical perceptions of salespeople and sales students. The primary purposes of the research entailed evaluations of the ethical attitudes of these two groups pertaining to their attitudes as consumers, perceptions of whether good ethics is good business, perceptions of their employers’ ethics, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The findings indicate that sales students’ attitudes toward the ethical environment are not unrealistic and that full-time salespeople are not necessarily calloused or jaded in their attitudes toward ethical standards.