THE INFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC ASPECTS UPON BUSINESS ETHICS IN ROMANIAN INDIVIDUALS

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to analyze the existence in Romania of a correlation between the level of business ethics and three variables (age, gender and background). In order to achieve this objective, we studied the scientific literature which tries to define ethics and business ethics, its characteristics, the elements which influence it. In the case study designed within this paper, the presence of business ethics as entrepreneurial quality in Romanian individuals is analyzed based on the data collected from the responses provided by 1460 respondents in a questionnaire. The variables refer both to the level at which business ethics is found in the behaviour of Romanians, and to their gender, age and background. The database thus put together was processed with the Microsoft Excel Programme and the statistics software SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The analysis shows that almost half of the respondents (43.56%) have a very high level of business ethics, being followed by those whose level of this entrepreneurial quality is high (29.11%). Those with an average level of business ethics represent 13.42%; 7.88% represent individuals with low level of business ethics, and 6.03% are those with a very low level of this entrepreneurial quality. Then we studied the relations between the occurrence of business ethics in the behaviour of the respondents and their age, gender and background. We carried out statistical tests which would support or reject the existence of some tighter or weaker relations between business ethics and the three variables. Of the three variables analyzed in relation to business ethics, it was proven that the latter is in correlation with all of them. This means that age, gender and background have a major contribution to acquiring this entrepreneurial quality. The results of this research can represent a major source of information for the political decision makers who have to implement measures for helping those living in rural areas, for supporting the youth, and for fighting gender-based discrimination

Keywords

• business ethics; entrepreneurial quality; Romania; age; environmental origin.