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Ethics in Small Minority Businesses

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Abstract

The management literature is replete with studies on business ethics. Unfortunately, most of these studies have dealt exclusively with ethics in large businesses. Although a handful of studies can be found on small business ethics, none has paid attention to the issue of ethics in small minority businesses. Similarly, several studies on ethics have utilized the Wood et al. (1988) 16-vignette ethics scale, although reliability and validity issues associated with the scale have never been fully addressed. In this study, a purification (via content analysis) of the above mentioned scale was performed. Three reliable factors were extracted from the purified scale. They were used to investigate the ethics in small minority businesses. The study found an association between business ethics and demographic and company-related variables. In the case of age of respondents, findings ran counter the usual relationship of age being positively related to ethical attitudes. The implications of these findings are also discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration & Economics, Benedict College, 1600 Harden Street, Columbia, SC, 29204

    Fred O. Ede

  2. Norfolk State University, USA

    Bhagaban Panigrahi & Jon Stuart

  3. Hampton University, USA

    Stephen Calcich

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  1. Fred O. Ede
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  2. Bhagaban Panigrahi
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  3. Jon Stuart
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Ede, F.O., Panigrahi, B., Stuart, J. et al. Ethics in Small Minority Businesses. Journal of Business Ethics 26, 133–146 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006309212031

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