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The effect of industrial training on ethical awareness of final yearstudents in a Malaysian public university
Maisarah Mohamed Saat • Rosman Md. Yusoff •
Siti Aisyah Panatik
Received: 9 January 2013 / Revised: 7 November 2013 / Accepted: 25 November 2013 / Published online: 5 December 2013
� Education Research Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 2013
Abstract Studies (for example, Dellaportas in Making a
difference with a discrete course on accounting ethics.
J Bus Ethics 65(4):391–404, 2006; Saat in An investigation
of the effects of a moral education program on the ethical
development of Malaysian future accountants, 2010) on
final year accounting students show that industrial training
has a positive impact on the ethical development in a way
that students improved in their ethical judgement after
attending a 6-month training. Thus, this research aims to
evaluate the influence of industrial training in the devel-
opment of ethical awareness among final year students
from a Malaysian public university. These students were
from multiple academic backgrounds—engineering, sci-
ence and social science. A pre and post study was adopted
in order to achieve the objectives. A set of survey was
distributed to students before and after they have attended
industrial training. In assessing students’ ethical awareness,
15 business-related and workplace ethical situations were
given and students had to rate their acceptance on these
situations from not acceptable (1) to most acceptable (7).
From the findings, it can be observed that although the
level of ethical awareness among students is fairly good,
industrial training has minimal impact in improving or
developing students’ ethical awareness. The impact is such
because students who undergone industrial training may
have observed certain behaviour that they thought are
acceptable in a workplace; this may have changed the way
students perceived their acceptance on the situations.
Keywords Ethical awareness � Industrial training �Pre and post study � Ethics
Introduction
The Malaysian higher education stakeholders have long
emphasised the importance of industrial training in higher
learning institutions. These stakeholders perceive training
as not only a platform in preparing students for jobs and
expose them to real situations, but also help develop key
competencies in students. A report issued by the National
Higher Education Research Institute of Malaysia (2004)
illustrates the effectiveness of industrial training of
Malaysian undergraduate students in both public and pri-
vate institutions, looking at the perceptions of students,
academia and industries. The report on 22 institutions
shows that industrial training is effective and essential in
developing key competencies expected by employers,
including communication, team working and technical
competency (National Higher Education Research Institute
of Malaysia 2004). In recognising the significance of the
industrial training in producing competent human resource
as well as increasing graduates’ marketability (Ministry of
Higher Education 2007), the Ministry of Higher Education
(MoHE) (now known as Ministry of Education) (MoE) has
issued an industrial training policy. Seven main objectives
are outlined such as (to name a few) exposing students to
the real working world, to provide a practical guidance on
their field of specialisation, to enhance students’ knowl-
edge and skills including moral and ethics, as well as
providing them with employment opportunities. Most
importantly, among its specific objectives is to embrace the
professional ethics values (Ministry of Higher Education
2007).
M. M. Saat (&) � R. Md. Yusoff � S. A. Panatik
Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
e-mail: [email protected]
123
Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2014) 15:115–125
DOI 10.1007/s12564-013-9306-5
However, studies on industrial training in Malaysia (for
example, Rahman et al. 2009) have little focus on the
ethical component. The limited research on the impact of
training on moral behaviour is the motivation for this
study. In addition, ethics is important as graduates need to
demonstrate behaviour that is consistent with the profes-
sional ethics and social responsibility, and this can be
acquired through training. As future engineers, managers or
professionals who are responsible to all walks of life,
graduates are expected to uphold the ethical values of the
profession. With the emphasis on ethics and industrial
training that MoE has highlighted in the mentioned policy,
the following question arises: Does industrial training have
a positive impact on students’ ethical values or ethical
awareness?
This pre and post study investigates the effect of indus-
trial training on students’ ethical awareness. It also attempts
to determine whether demographic profile such as gender,
race and discipline of study has influence on the effect of
ethical awareness. In addition, this study also seeks the
ethical experience students had during industrial training. In
the context of this study, industrial training refers to a stu-
dent’s placement in an organisation to undergo a supervised
practical work in relevant industries, within a period of time
as required by the education programme (Ministry of Higher
Education 2007). The society is the main interest in this
study in that the findings will indicate whether the training
provided by the industry and the university will motivate
and develop one’s level of ethicality. The findings on how
students’ background (namely gender, race and discipline)
relates to ethical awareness are important as this will give an
indicator on the ways higher learning institutions could
improve their ethics education. For example, a certain ethnic
group or race may not be aware of some ethical issues, and
this should be well-addressed in the ethics class. Lavish gift
giving is acceptable as it is an important part of Chinese
business culture. In addition, an engineer’s ethical point of
view in a flaw on a product design may be different from a
businessman point of view. The society at large is counting
on the higher learning institutions and its stakeholders
(industries) to ensure that business and matters involving
them are run within a just and ethical environment. In
addition, the findings of this study make an important con-
tribution to the learning outcome of the training and the
literature. Firstly, it provides insights into the benefits
offered by attending training, a development in ethical
awareness in particular, which is vitally important given that
this is an area that is still under-research. Secondly, it
examines students’ ethicality in a country which has com-
mitted itself to improving the ethicality of the entire nation
(Vision 2020 The Way Forward). The findings of this study
will also alert the industry on their responsibility of ethical
role modelling.
The following section discusses a moral theory and past
studies on ethical awareness among students with relation
to industrial training. Subsequently, the method used to
conduct the study is explained followed by the reports of
findings. The paper then concludes with a brief discussion
and proposes some practical recommendations.
Literature review
In explaining ethical awareness, this study adopts Rest’s
four-component model (Rest 1984) of moral development.
Rest proposes that in behaving morally, a person goes
through four components; moral awareness, moral judge-
ment, moral intention and moral character and emphasises
on factors such as education, religion and social environ-
ment which affect moral development. The first compo-
nent, moral awareness is a component, where an individual
generally has the ability to recognise that there is a moral
issue in a situation or recognises the ethical content of a
decision-situation. This is important as it serves as a kind
of triggering mechanism that begins the ethical decision-
making process (Sparks and Merenski 2000). The terms
‘moral perception’, ‘moral awareness’ and ‘moral recog-
nition’ have also been used to describe this component
(Gautschi and Jones 1998; David et al. 2001; Lowry 2003;
Wu 2003; Conroy and Emerson 2004). A person is said to
be able to identify the party(s) involved in a particular
situation, is aware of how various actions would affect the
parties concerned and can imagine the cause–effect chains
of events (Rest 1984). It is an immediate response to a
particular situation which involves constructing different
possible scenarios for a situation and imagining how dif-
ferent actions might impact the participants in the partic-
ular situation (Myyry 2003).
Moral awareness is also a component that involves an
individual undertaking a role, but it is necessary that the
person realises that violating some moral norm, or allowing
unethical situations to occur, can ‘affect the needs, interest,
welfare and expectation of others’ (Rest 1984: 21). How-
ever, Rest (1984) asserts that not everyone has the ability to
interpret situations or be sensitive to unethical situations.
Thus, disparity exists in how sensitive an individual is to a
particular moral situation. In other words, a person highly
sensitive in one situation might be relatively insensitive in
another (Myyry 2003). Sparks and Merenski (2000) also
argue that ethical awareness is content-specific, an indi-
vidual who demonstrates great ethical awareness in one
situation may be quite ethically insensitive in another. This
is because individuals exercise role-taking when con-
fronted with ethical dilemmas or ethical situations. Hoff-
man (2000) proposed three types of role-taking, self-
focused, other-focused and the combination of the two.
116 M. M. Saat et al.
123
Self-focused role-taking is when people imagine how they
themselves would feel in the situation, while other-focused
role-taking is when they imagine how another person is
feeling. The combination of both roles is when people shift
back and forth between self-focused and other-focused
role-taking.
Most importantly, Rest stresses that recognising ethical
issues does not only involve cognition but also affection.
According to Rest (1984), this component involves ‘trying
to understand our gut feeling on the matter’ (Rest 1984: 21)
as empathy, anger or anxiety may be present prior to
reflecting or contemplating on a social situation. Although
affection helps in interpreting questionable situations, it
may not be a useful guide for making moral judgement.
Therefore, affection must interact with cognition when
identifying the moral course of action to take and the
consequences a situation can have on all parties.
After recognising a moral issue exists, Rest argues that
the second component, moral judgement takes place which
a person visualises the course of action and the possible
consequences, an individual tries to reason out why a
particular action is taken in a moral sense purportedly. Rest
(1984) claims that when making moral judgement, a person
develops cognitively using an advanced ‘understanding of
the purpose, function and nature of social cooperation’
(Rest 1984: 22). When moral justification and judgement
have been recognised, the next step in the component is
deciding or imagining a desired outcome (Rest 1984). In
other words, this component refers to the moral intention or
orientation of the individual. It is either a conscious or
unconscious reconsideration of principles (Woodbine
2002) in relation to the degree of commitment in taking a
particular course of action, choosing one moral value over
another, and taking personal responsibility for the out-
comes of their actions (Rest 1986). And lastly, one per-
forms what one believes to be a moral action. The person
will persist with the task, having courage, overcoming
fatigue, avoiding temptations and implementing subrou-
tines to support a moral choice. This highlights that in
addition to the generally extensive judgment process
required in a moral conflict, emotions will also influence a
particular moral action (Woodbine 2002). This study,
however, focuses on the first component, moral awareness,
as it is important to determine to what extent these future
leaders are aware of the moral issues surrounding them. In
order to react ethically to the moral issues, they need to
have good moral awareness.
Myyry (2003) highlights that Rest’s model is situation-
specific in a way that different situations promote different
kinds of interpretations and moral judgements, heighten the
importance of some values compared to others and
encourage an individual to implement a moral act or dis-
courage action. Since this study is in a Malaysian setting
where the nation is collective in nature, actions may be
taken after considering the social perspective.
Work characteristics also influence ethical decision
making. Some work requires role-taking which ‘takes
account of the perspective of others’ (Trevino 1986: 611)
or involves frequent moral conflict. Thus, Trevino (1986)
suggests that when the work requires an individual to
engage in complex role-taking and they see a situation
from different angles, the person is likely to be more
sensitive and make substantial progress in their moral
development. This is supported by other studies where
additional role-taking promotes one’s awareness to others
(Loviscky et al. 2007). Similarly, if a person needs to deal
with moral conflicts in his everyday work, he is more likely
to advance in his moral development. In conclusion,
Trevino (1986) suggests that in order for a person to deal
with pressures and perform their tasks within an organi-
sational culture, educational institutions and organisations
should play an important role in supporting ethical growth
in individuals.
Very limited studies have been conducted on the ethical
development with the intervention of industrial training.
Saat (2010) has conducted a pre and post research on
industrial training, investigating the ethical development of
accounting students. She attempted to investigate the
effects of experience during industrial training on ethical
development, particularly ethical awareness and ethical
judgements. Using 15 business-related ethical scenario and
Defining Issues Test (DIT), Saat (2010) has found that, in
general, practical training experience improved their ability
to make judgements about what is right or wrong but
unable to improve their ethical awareness. Among reasons
of the decline in ethical awareness was the experience
students had. Responses in the study indicate that students
asserted some form of unethical behaviour that they have to
deal with, particularly on clients’ fraudulent act (example,
being asked by clients to modify accounts, adjust expenses
accounts for tax purposes, gift giving and offers to host
lunch).
In the engineering curriculum, effective ethics education
has been extensively discussed and a call for a compulsory
and sound ethics component was made more than a decade
earlier (Zandvoort et al. 2000; Herkert 2000, 2001; Porra
2000; Kline 2001). Researchers and educationist assert that
both stand-alone course and embedding ethics in all cour-
ses (across the curriculum) along with integrating engi-
neering ethics with science, technology and society will be
a good start to an effective engineering ethics education.
They also agreed that using ethical codes, ethics theories
and case study in discussing ethical issues should be
implemented.
Past studies on ethics education also investigated the
influence of demographic background on ethical responses,
The effect of industrial training 117
123
but with mixed results. A study in Saudi universities
comparing ethical values of business and engineering stu-
dents reveal that the former tend to be more ethical than the
latter (Al-Kahtani 2007). Engineering students appear to be
more tolerant of unethical behaviours such as hiding
information from customers and accepting or giving gifts.
In addition, Al-Kahtani (2007) also found that engineering
students did not agree that communicating misconduct to
the instructor is important; in other words, they are less
likely to whistle-blow. In investigating the influence of
gender, Swisher (2000) found that female public adminis-
tration students were significantly having better ethical
judgement as compared to the males. However, Ranjan
et al. (2003) have found that male students, on average,
appear to have a significantly higher level of moral inten-
sity than female students.
Research method
The population of final year students from a Malaysian
public university was studied. A pre and post test (before
and after industrial training) was conducted to evaluate the
influence of industrial training in the development of eth-
ical awareness. The industrial training coordinators in each
faculty were identified and contacted in November 2011,
and consent was sought from these coordinators to
administer or distribute the pre-test survey to students. In
other words, students completed the pre-test survey man-
ually and were administered by the researcher. A total of
1,264 completed, and usable surveys were collected and
analysed during December 2011. For the post test con-
ducted in June 2012, students had to complete similar
survey via online and 334 usable surveys were analysed.
This results to 27 % rate of response from the pre test. The
majority of students attended 28 weeks of training. Before
the actual data were collected, a pilot test was conducted to
identify shortcomings in the survey. A total of 30 students
answered the survey and responded that they understood
the situations given.
Both pre- and post-test survey (refer ‘Appendix’) con-
sists of ethical scenarios to measure the ethical compo-
nents. In assessing students’ ethical awareness, 15
business-related and workplace ethical situations were
given, and students had to rate their acceptance on these
situations from not acceptable (1) to most acceptable (7).
The business situations are related to the engineering
environment where these future engineers will have to deal
with because engineers are increasingly involved in start-
up companies and had to make business decisions as well
engineering decisions (Hooker 2000). In other words,
engineers must be prepared to face business ethical issues.
The majority of the situations are adapted from
Longeneckers (1989) while the workplace ethics situations
(item 2, 5, 13 and 14) are self-designed as promoting a
workplace environment that support ethical behaviour is
important (Herkert 2000). In analysing the 15 scenarios,
mean scores were used to determine their level of aware-
ness in both pre and post tests. To match their responses,
the researcher either used their email address, identity card
number or mobile number provided. Paired t test was used
to determine the changes made before and after industrial
training (pre and post tests). In addition to the analysis in
achieving the research objectives, t test and ANOVA were
also run to see the difference of ethical awareness between
gender, academic background and race. The reliability of
the instrument used in pre- and post-test survey is high with
Cronbach Alpha of 0.806 and 0.812, respectively.
Findings
A total of 1,264 students have participated by completing
the pre-test survey. Table 1 illustrates that gender of
respondents are almost equally divided while the majority
of them are Malay with a good fraction of Chinese stu-
dents. Few Indian students and other races also participated
in this study. Two students did not state their race group.
Ethical awareness
Paired t test was run on 334 students who responded to
both pre- and post-test surveys. Table 2 reports the means
of responses to the 15 ethical situations before and after
they attended industrial training. The Cronbach’s alpha
coefficient for the 15 items is 0.806, indicating satisfactory
internal consistency reliability.
Results show that students’ ethical awareness has sig-
nificantly improved in one situation, indicating that after
Table 1 Demographic profile
Frequency Per cent
Gender
Male 531 42.0
Female 733 58.0
Race
Malay 780 61.8
Chinese 392 31.1
Indian 49 3.9
Others 41 3.2
Discipline
Engineering 603 30.6
Science 274 21.7
Social Science 387 30.7
118 M. M. Saat et al.
123
attending training, they are inclined not to accept the issue
on misuse of medical certificate. It is also found that
industrial training seems to give a negative impact on
students as their ethical awareness declines after training.
Students have more acceptance on ethical issues involving
misuse of office supplies, gender discrimination, tax eva-
sion, marketing scam, misuse of office hours, cronyism and
product design flaw. The deteriorating of ethical awareness
is significant in two situations: misuse of office supplies
and cronyism. Do students’ observations during industrial
training make them perceive these actions to be more
acceptable?
Table 2 Means of ethical situations in pre and post survey
Mean SD Mean diff. t Sig. (2 tailed)
Padding expense account
Pre 2.50 1.623 .018 .167 .867
Post 2.48 1.428
Misuse office supplies
Pre 2.10 1.437 .210 -2.168 .031*
Post 2.31 1.418
Gender discrimination
Pre 2.57 1.583 .105 -.961 .337
Post 2.67 1.464
Tax evasion
Pre 2.56 1.568 .126 -1.226 .221
Post 2.69 1.505
Not whistle-blow cheating exam
Pre 3.42 1.573 .045 .424 .672
Post 3.38 1.391
Steal info
Pre 3.53 1.681 .085 .740 .460
Post 3.45 1.586
Marketing scam
Pre 3.14 1.795 .141 -1.147 .252
Post 3.28 1.601
Gifts giving
Pre 3.13 1.575 .087 .851 .396
Post 3.04 1.307
Misuse office hours
Pre 3.66 1.701 .039 -.316 .752
Post 3.70 1.579
Cronyism
Pre 2.41 1.507 .281 -2.467 .014*
Post 2.69 1.557
Product design flaw
Pre 2.11 1.470 .123 -1.180 .239
Post 2.23 1.413
Copyright
Pre 3.34 1.690 .009 .075 .940
Post 3.33 1.590
Misuse medical cert
Pre 4.25 1.768 .266 2.195 .029*
Post 3.98 1.692
Punch in for a friend
Pre 3.29 1.644 .171 1.474 .141
Post 3.12 1.573
Keep incorrect change
Pre 2.21 1.507 .027 .255 .799
Post 2.19 1.356
* Significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
Table 3 Means of ethical situations in pre and post survey between
genders
Male (n = 109) Female (n = 225)
Mean Sig. Mean Sig.
Padding expense
account
Pre 2.67 .180 Pre 2.42 .423
Post 2.40 Post 2.52
Misuse office supplies Pre 2.26 .728 Pre 2.02 .014*
Post 2.32 Post 2.30
Gender discrimination Pre 2.94 .561 Pre 2.39 .096
Post 2.81 Post 2.60
Tax evasion Pre 2.92 .420 Pre 2.39 .029*
Post 2.76 Post 2.65
Not whistle-blow
cheating exam
Pre 3.56 .783 Pre 3.36 .748
Post 3.50 Post 3.32
Steal info Pre 3.94 .542 Pre 3.34 .644
Post 3.81 Post 3.27
Marketing scam Pre 3.36 .908 Pre 3.04 .169
Post 3.39 Post 3.24
Gifts giving Pre 3.37 .358 Pre 3.01 .733
Post 3.19 Post 2.97
Misuse office hours Pre 3.97 .256 Pre 3.52 .174
Post 3.69 Post 3.71
Cronyism Pre 2.62 .311 Pre 2.30 .023*
Post 2.83 Post 2.62
Product design flaw Pre 2.33 1.00 Pre 2.00 .148
Post 2.33 Post 2.18
Copyright Pre 3.43 .712 Pre 3.29 .705
Post 3.51 Post 3.24
Misuse medical
certificate
Pre 4.37 .300 Pre 4.19 .050*
Post 4.13 Post 3.91
Punch in for a friend Pre 3.39 .182 Pre 3.24 .413
Post 3.10 Post 3.12
Keep incorrect change Pre 2.56 .520 Pre 2.04 .822
Post 2.43 Post 2.07
* Significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
The effect of industrial training 119
123
Table 3 reports the mean difference of students’ ethical
awareness in pre and post test. Among male students, their
responses show an improved awareness (decreased means)
in ten situations, but the improvements are not significant.
On the other hand, female students show an improvement
in only six situations, but the improvement is only signif-
icant involving misuse of medical certificate. It is also
found that female students also display a significant
declined awareness on issues involving misuse office
supplies, tax evasion and cronyism. It is observed that male
students had lower awareness (higher means) in the pre
test; thus, after training (post test), they were more inclined
to improve in their awareness as compared to their female
counterpart.
Table 4 shows comparison between pre and post survey
based on students’ discipline. Science and social science
students were grouped as non-engineering due to the small
size of each group. Results show that non-engineering
students have significant declining awareness in issues of
misuse of office supplies and cronyism. It is also found that
there is no significant difference between races in the
development of ethical awareness. Since different disci-
pline indicates different nature of work or type of training
in different type of industries, it is expected that there may
be some differences in the ethical perceptions among
respondents after undertaking industrial training. However,
this is not the case for this particular group of respondents.
In other words, further analyses (t test and ANOVA) did
not show significant differences of means (pre and post)
between the groups. In other words, the nature of work or
venue in which students were attached to did not influence
their ethical awareness. Meanwhile, there are no significant
changes (run t test) after students attended industrial
training when compared between these two cohorts.
Experience during industrial training
In the post-test survey, students were also asked about their
experience involving ethical concern. Students have to
explain the ethical situation(s) they encountered during
training. Only 297 responded to this open-ended question.
However, there are some situations where these respon-
dents appeared to observe rather experience. The ethical
situations experienced or observed can be categorised into
seven types of situations which are discrimination, disci-
pline, conflict of interest, bad role modelling, misuse of
office facilities, misuse office hours and communication.
These are illustrated in the following Fig. 1.
Miscommunication
Almost one-third of the responses pertaining to ethical
experience are about miscommunication between supervi-
sors and the employees or trainees. Communication is a
pertinent issue in ethics and vice versa as when a person
makes a statement, he or she is making appeals to the truth
of the statement, the rightness (moral) and the truthfulness
or sincerity of the statement (Meisenbach 2006). This
shows that the listener has the right to understand what the
speaker tries to convey; if the listener misunderstand or
miscommunication occurs, disputes may result to negative
consequences and may lead to immoral behaviour (for
example, dismissing an employee who does not understand
instructions, but believed to be disobeying instructions).
Students claimed that they experienced or observed mis-
communication as a lot of times disagreement occurred and
this probably due to unclear instruction from the
Table 4 Means of ethical situations in pre and post survey between
type of students
Engineering
(n = 159)
Non-engineering
(n = 175)
Mean Sig Mean Sig
Padding expense
account
Pre 2.53 .912 Pre 2.49 .633
Post 2.51 Post 2.42
Misuse office supplies Pre 2.10 .376 Pre 2.11 .047*
Post 2.22 Post 2.38
Gender discrimination Pre 2.63 .878 Pre 2.52 .144
Post 2.60 Post 2.74
Tax evasion Pre 2.39 .288 Pre 2.72 .602
Post 2.55 Post 2.79
Not whistle-blow
cheating exam
Pre 3.45 .910 Pre 3.40 .544
Post 3.44 Post 3.32
Steal info Pre 3.55 .713 Pre 3.51 .540
Post 3.49 Post 3.41
Marketing scam Pre 3.02 .380 Pre 3.26 .457
Post 3.19 Post 3.38
Gifts giving Pre 3.08 .495 Pre 3.18 .490
Post 2.97 Post 3.09
Misuse office hours Pre 3.65 .562 Pre 3.70 .728
Post 3.76 Post 3.64
Cronyism Pre 2.44 .222 Pre 2.39 .047*
Post 2.65 Post 2.69
Product design flaw Pre 1.96 .065 Pre 2.25 .846
Post 2.23 Post 2.22
Copyright Pre 3.26 .812 Pre 3.42 .655
Post 3.30 Post 3.35
Misuse medical cert Pre 4.35 .133 Pre 4.17 .074
Post 4.06 Post 3.89
Punch in for a friend Pre 3.23 .544 Pre 3.32 .138
Post 3.12 Post 3.10
Keep incorrect change Pre 2.17 .690 Pre 2.26 .419
Post 2.23 Post 2.14
* Significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
120 M. M. Saat et al.
123
supervisors or the employees/trainees who did not under-
stand the instructions. Consequently, supervisors were not
happy with the result/outcome of the instructions. Dis-
agreement may also happen when things are not spelt out
clearly. And this will result to misunderstanding as the
employees/trainees may understand this way, but the
supervisor may understand it otherwise. ‘I had a problem
when the instruction between upper-level and lower-level
manager is different’, ‘…conflict about different instruc-
tion given to me’. Disagreement and misunderstanding
then may result to discouragement and unethical behaviour
such as getting work late or absent from work.
Misuse office hours
Approximately 18 % who responded about their ethical
experience have stated that they observed misuse of office
hours among employees. Examples of responses include ‘I
see some staff do personal work during working hours’,
‘…surfing other things (personal) during working hours’,
‘surfing internet, come late, take a long time for lunch’.
Misuse office facilities
About 13 % of respondents testify that they observe
employees who use office facilities for personal use. Stu-
dents’ comments include ‘I see staff took stationery, stapler
and papers and bring (them) home’, ‘One of the staff took
A4 papers for their children to make drawings’ and ‘The
workers used the office resource for their personal use’.
Surprisingly, a student claimed that ‘Supervisor use and
teach intern to use company assets for own purposes’.
There is also cheating behaviour which the student
observed, for example ‘Account executive takes 5 % of
salesman commission to treat all the employees for tea
without knowledge (of) the salesman’.
Bad role modelling
Students reported that they experienced bad ethical role
modelling from the colleagues, for example staffs asking
the student to clock in for them and arriving late for work.
Examples of responses include, ‘Employee(s) ask me to
punch their punch card when they came late’ and ‘they
come late to work’. Quoting one student:
There are employees who always ask for other people
to do his/her work while he/she is happily surf(ing) the
internet and make social network during office hours
and not completed all tasks assigned - task to repair
his/her own belonging to accommodate her/his satis-
faction in office hours using company’s properties
In addition, the employees were also found lying to the
management. According to a student, ‘One of the
employees wants(ed) to go to the clinic. Then, he or she
asks (me) to tell the boss they have worked to do outside
the company’. Other bad role modelling include
‘…employees did not respect their leader’, ‘gossips among
employees’, ‘employees cheated on their overtime claims’,
and ‘…extended lunch time…’.
Ethical behaviour experienced/
observed
Discrimination• Gender • Hierarchy
Miscommunication • Disagreement • Misunderstanding
Discipline
Misuse office hour • Social network • Longer breaks
Conflict of interest
Bad role modelling
Misuse office facilities
Fig. 1 Types of ethical
behaviour experienced/observed
The effect of industrial training 121
123
A student clearly had a bad ethical role modelling as he
responded ‘…come late to work, make a call for personal
matter, using computer to surf social network…’ and the
behaviours the student observed have probably influenced
her/his ethical stand. The previous feedback on ‘Supervisor
use and teach intern to use company assets for own purposes’
also show negative role modelling during industrial training.
Conflict of interest
Students reported that among unethical behaviour, they
observed to include conflict of interest involving gifts giving,
treats from suppliers and having a supervisor who is studying.
Students claimed that they observed and experienced receiv-
ing gifts or received lunch/dinner treat from suppliers which
may impair the integrity of their work. A number of students
also complained that their supervisors were doing part time
study and, in some way, students feel that the supervisors have
neglected their duties particularly in supervising the students.
Discipline
Respondents in this study also claimed that they observed
discipline issues at work particularly involving attendance.
Among responses are, ‘…a practical student asks me to
punch their card’ and ‘employee came late to the office’.
Discrimination
Students claim that there was discrimination by the manage-
ment on the tasks assigned to the Juniors. Female trainees were
also discriminated as claimed by some students. Responses
include ‘They will listen to the idea of others first than a junior
worker’, ‘…work assigned is different to female’ and ‘…the
manager is bias towards female worker…’.
The above-mentioned types of situations correspond with
the declining ethical awareness found in the pre and post test.
Results show that the significant decline on awareness is
misuse of medical certificate, and this reflects the discipline
of the employees. Respondents’ ethical awareness also
decline in office supplies issue, which corresponds to the
misuse office facilities situation type, gender discrimination
(discrimination), cronyism (conflict of interest) and misuse
of office hours. Therefore, it can be argued that what students
observed or experience may alter their ethical awareness. It
can also be concluded in this situation that students could
actually learn from ethical conflict or ethical dilemma.
Discussion and recommendations
Apart from paper qualifications, working experience has
become an important consideration in the job market and is
undoubtedly fundamental to the training of a professional
(Saat and Ahmad 2009). Higher learning institutions are
now providing students with the opportunity to translate
the knowledge gained into practice through industrial
training. In other words, more Malaysian university stu-
dents have the advantage of attaining a stimulating expe-
rience through industrial training. The training session aims
to develop the skills required by the industry, and this
seems to become an important role to provide quality and
ethical professional in the future (Omar et al. 2008).
A pre and post study on the effect of industrial training
on the ethical awareness of Malaysian students shows a
fairly good level of ethical awareness; however, industrial
training has minimal impact in improving or developing
students’ ethical awareness. The impact is such because
students who undergone industrial training may have
observed certain behaviour that they thought are acceptable
in a workplace; this may have changed the way students
perceived their acceptance on the situations. Therefore, the
inclination to accept misuse of office supplies after students
attended industrial training may be a result from their
observation. This is supported by the responses students
made with regard to their experience or observation on
ethical issues during their training. The issues involve
discrimination, discipline, conflict of interest, bad role
modelling, misuse of office facilities, and misuse office
hours and communication. Apparently, the unethical
experience and observation during industrial training have
some influence on their ethical awareness. This is consis-
tent with the claim made by Kohlberg (1984) that obser-
vation has a strong influence on moral. Moreover, the
ethical issues of misuse of office facilities or misuse office
are not new. For example, Wyatt and Phillips (2005)
claimed that the misuse of internet is a serious problem in
the workplace as their findings show a quarter of time spent
on internet is for personal use and may reduce productivity.
This is due to little awareness on ethical implication and
inadequate supervision. According to Trevino (1986), it
may be caused by pressure of scarce resources; for exam-
ple, due to low pay, employees may resort to misuse office
facilities or materials, or take extra job during office hours.
Based on the analysis of ethical awareness, this study
concludes that an effective formal ethics education is
essential before students attend industrial training. Uni-
versities may have incorporated ethics education as a
stand-alone subject or through embedded ethics in other
subjects; however, an effective stand-alone ethics course
focusing on the ethical principles of relevant discipline is
recommended. This is significant to the students who
would undertake their training as they need to be aware of
the moral behaviour that they would anticipate and awaits
them ‘out there’. From the interactions with the members
of the organisation, students will have to expect that they
122 M. M. Saat et al.
123
would face some way of ethical dilemma or ethical conflict
in the workplace, and they may observe some kind of
unethical behaviour that triggers their ethical thinking. As
Trevino asserts, in reality, ‘ethical or unethical behaviour is
not a product of fixed individual characteristics, but results
from an interaction between the individual and the situa-
tion’ (Trevino 1986: 610).
Unethical behaviour or ethical conflict in a workplace
setting is not uncommon. It may be conflicts or behaviour
related to clients, supervisors or colleagues. Results of this
study show that the types of ethical behaviour students
experienced or observed are discrimination, discipline,
conflict of interest, bad role modelling, misuse of office
facilities, and misuse office hours and communication.
Therefore, these are some elements that should be exposed
to students in the ethics education with the intention that
students can differentiate the right and wrong when they
experience ethical conflict during the training.
As future engineers, managers or professionals who are
responsible to a wide circle of stakeholders, graduates are
expected to uphold the ethical values of the profession.
This is emphasised by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher
Education (MOHE) (2007) indicating that ethics is
important as graduates need to demonstrate behaviour that
is consistent with the professional ethics and social
responsibility, and that, this can be acquired through
training. More importantly, the Malaysian government is
promoting ethicality for the whole nation as emphasised in
their 2020 Vision Statement (Vision 2020 The Way For-
ward) with the push by MOHE to mandate industrial
training supporting the governments initiative.
This pre and post study has filled in the gap of studies
that look into the influence of industrial training on ethical
awareness. Although it was conducted quite comprehen-
sively within a single university, caution should be drawn
in making generalizations from this study as it does not
represent the population of final year university students.
There are also limitations which include factors that may
impair students’ ethical awareness. Factors may include the
type of organisation or type of organisational culture.
Although requested in the survey, the majority of students
did not state the industry where their training took place.
Alternatively, this can be gauged from the employees of
where students undertake their training. Therefore, future
studies are recommended to investigate on the type(s) of
organisation or placement that may have impaired stu-
dents’ ethical stands. In addition, it is recommended that
future studies also look into the culture of organisation as
organisation with a strong ethical culture will most likely
influence the trainees. The nature of work or the working
environment may also be the factors that influence stu-
dents’ ethical stands. Future research is suggested to
explore on these issues. Another limitation is the failure of
including control group. Most pre and post type of research
use control group to better explain the implication of study;
however, since most Malaysian higher learning institutions
are now making industrial training a compulsory compo-
nent in the education programme, this study has found that
the size may be too small to be compared. Maturation
effect during training is not studied and therefore appears
to be another limitation of this study.
Appendix
Not
acceptable
Most
acceptable
1. An executive makes RM5,000 travelling expense claims though only RM3,000 was spent. He argued that if the
director can do the same, then there is no harm he takes the action
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. A clerk often takes office supplies (i.e. pens, pencils, papers) to accommodate her children’s schooling needs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. A human resource manager received application for a supervisor’s position from two equally qualified
applicants but hired the male applicant because he thought that some employees might refuse being
supervised by a female
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. A small business received one-fourth of its gross revenue in the form of cash. The owner reported only one-half
of the cash receipts to avoid paying too much income tax
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. You notice a friend has cheated in the examination. You know that he needs good grades to secure his
scholarship since he comes from a poor family and sick parents, so you let his action unreported
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. A company Chairman found that a competitor had made an important scientific discovery, which would sharply
reduce the profits of his own company. He then hired a key employee of the competitor in an attempt to learn
the details of the discovery
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. As part of the marketing strategy for a product, the producers changed its colour and marketed it as ‘new and
improved’, even though its other characteristics were unchanged
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. A company director knows that sending expensive Hari Raya gifts to clients’ purchasing officers might
influence, and the purchasing officers may be punished if caught receiving the gifts. However, he continued
sending gifts as it was common practice and changing it might result in loss of business
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The effect of industrial training 123
123
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