public opinion of corporate crime: the thoughts of undergraduate businessand administration students

Abstract

This research addresses public opinion on corporate crimes and illegalities. Current business and administration students may well face, once employed in management positions, situations that require decisions, often with damaging consequences. This requires a thoughtful and ethical approach regarding the actions to be taken and their consequences. The objective of this research is to characterize the views of undergraduate business and administration students on corporate crime, with the aim of understanding what drives this audience’s current views of important issues associated to the theme. This is a quantitative study undertaken through a structured questionnaire. The results show that, in general, the students have an average level of knowledge of the subject and, as regards severity, they consider “the use of child and slave labor” as the most serious among corporate crimes and illegalities. Furthermore, it became clear that respondents consider street crime as more serious than corporate crime.