University students' Islamic work ethics and their attitude towards business ethics: evidence from Asia

Abstract

The current study investigates the st udents’ attitude towards business ethics and Islāmic work ethics (IWE) in four Asian Muslim countries i.e. Pakistan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (K SA), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia. It also examines the differences in attitudes towards business ethics and Isl āmic work ethics across gender and education levels. The participants were university students of the selected countries. Self-administered questionnaires i.e. Attitude towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) and IWE were used to collect data, applying convenient sampling method. Overa ll, 537 usable questionnaires (Pakistan-158; KSA-119; UAE-152 and Malaysia-108) were included in the data for analyses. The results of the analysis imply that females scored higher on attitude towards IWE and males scored higher on attitude towards business ethics. Furthermore, graduate students were more inclined towards IWE, but there were no significant differences in attitudes towards business ethics across education levels. The differences across the c ountries indicated that Malaysia was at the top and Saudi Arabia was at a lowest level for IWE, whereas Pakistan was high and Saudi Arabia was low on attitudes towards business ethics.