Importance of professional ethics and corporate social responsibility within business studies curriculum within context global economy

¹ EKA University of Applied Sciences, Latvia
² EKA University of Applied Sciences, Latvia

^* Corresponding author: velga.vevere@gmail.com

Abstract

Businesses today have to juggle between the need to survive due to increased competition and the pressure to become socially and environmentally responsible business entity. Consistent with the intensification of discussion about the importance of embracing CSR among businesses, the issues now has expanded to the concern over the future of CSR. In view of this, the future of CSR will depend on how the future generations perceive the importance of embracing CSR in business operations. The purpose of the current study is to research the business students’ perception of importance of ethics and corporate social responsibility courses within their curriculum. The quantitative research design is applied in the study – the target group survey using 7-point Likert scale questionnaire, nonprobability purposive sampling (n=131). The research question posed in the current article is the following: Does business students’ attitude towards CSR and ethics depend upon taking these courses as part of BBA and MBA curriculum? The result of the study – the mapping of students perceptions and attitudes towards ethical aspects taught at the university. The practical implications of the current study are of improvement of BBA and MBA curriculum to meet the needs of the 21st century in the globalized business environment.