International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR) (An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research) International Journal of Engineering, Business and Enterprise Applications (IJEBEA) www.iasir.net IJEBEA 14-105; © 2014, IJEBEA All Rights Reserved Page 1 ISSN (Print): 2279-0020 ISSN (Online): 2279-0039 Ethical Orientation in Management Education – Evidence from the Indian National Capital Region Pallab Sikdar 1 , Amresh Kumar 2 , Munish Makkad 3 Research Scholar (Dept. of Management) 1, 2 , Professor (Dept. of Management) & Director 3 Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Noida, A-7 Sector-1, Noida-201301 (UTTAR PRADESH), INDIA _______________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Our research is an attempt to identify the ethical dimension of management students across Indian national capital region of Delhi. It deciphers the underlying drives which lead the B-school students to adopt unethical conduct within academic settings. A structured questionnaire was developed towards identifying three dimensions in the context of B-school students - their awareness of what constitutes unethical behavior, the reasons prompting the students to resort to unethical practices in academic settings and probability of their future corporate behavior reflecting unethical conduct. Ethics is majorly viewed as one or other form of moral objectives perceived by respondent group. Inspite of general agreement that presence of ethical conduct in academic settings is important, diverse unethical conducts exists in varying degrees within academic settings. The awareness as to what constitutes Plagiarism is found to be alarmingly low among students. The B-schools may look towards employing suggested means of evaluation and plagiarism detection for thwarting academic cheating practices. Future researches can identify linkage between current ethical orientation of B-school students and their future conduct at respective workplaces. Future researchers may consider frequency of resorting to individual cheating methods towards deriving a classification of academic cheaters. Keywords: Ethics, Academic Cheating, B-School, Magic Broom Acquired Syndrome __________________________________________________________________________________________ I. Introduction According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary ‘Ethics’ refers to moral principles that control or influence a person’s behavior. In other words, the inherent principles within an individual guiding his action in response to a situation constitute the ethics. Ethical orientation remains of paramount importance at various levels of individual dealings and hence is a factor to be emphasized upon by all the elements within a societal setup. Over the past decade ethical issues in business have gained considerable significance in the developed countries and more recently in the emerging nations. With the advent of free-market, deregulation and privatization of the Indian economy, the ethical issues in business perspective have been accentuated. It is evident from inclusion of specific corporate governance code towards executing listing agreement with stock exchanges in India (Kumar Mangalam Birla Committee). During the initial phase when management education in India was gaining ground, there existed few institutes of repute, both public and private, who ensured imparting holistic and cutting edge education majorly culminating into attractive employment opportunities. The corporate houses were competing with a view to attracting talents by offering higher pay packages. Such a belief was termed as ‘Magic Broom Acquired Syndrome’. Over a period of time this led to a notion among aspiring students that an MBA degree is an instant gateway to hallowed corporate organizations. But as all good trends come to an eventual halt, it was not much different here as well. In the present times, an MBA degree no longer commands the status of panacea of all ills unlike the traditional belief. This has been the result of rapid influx of private education institutes, resulting from implementation of AICTE report recommending thrust on setting up of additional B-schools, offering numerous conventional and hybrid management programs with scant regard towards quality of such programs and their capacity to conduct such programs in terms of faculty competency and infrastructure. In many instances faculties neither having sound industry nor adequate teaching experience are recruited to teach courses which require sound industry experience on the part of faculties. The intense competition amongst existing and mushrooming institutes has led them to focus all their energies in maximizing intakes, many a times by hook or crook. While this may give short term revenue benefits to the institute, but it hurts the long term standing of its students and its own image in the society as well as in the eyes of prospective recruiters. Thus, when the management institutes are themselves not ethical in terms modus-operandi, they can’t be expected to either inculcate or enforce ethical standards in their enrolled students. The total absence of ‘ Magic Broom A cquired Syndrome’ with respect to a management degree has led to rise in unethical malpractices within the B-School setup. Due to constant influx of management institutes, the students graduating from these institutions are not able to differentiate themselves