Does a university education influence students' moral orientation? A survey of Italian business students

Sven-Olof Yrjö, Collin and Assia Liberatore

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2025, vol. 15, issue 3, 282-307

Abstract: There is a concern that business students evolve moral standards containing egoistic values: entering their education with more egoistic values, and then, during their education, which is assumed to be geared towards egoistic models, develop them further. We present a slightly more developed conceptual model of the education process and use survey material from two Italian universities where we contrast business students with students in humanities subjects on their moral orientation, specifically idealism and relativism. We find that business students have lower levels of Idealism when they enter, thus corroborating the hypothesis of entry egoism. However, that difference could not be found among students who had been subject to the education process, thus rejecting the idea of business students receiving more egoistic values during their education.

Keywords: moral orientation; idealism; relativism; university students. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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