Ethical Decision-Making among Business Students in Brazil & US: Statistical Study

Problem Description:

This Statistical Analysis homework aims to examine how cultural differences affect ethical decisions in business students from Brazil and the United States. The independent variables are Brazilian and American students. The dependent variables are ethical choices (subdivided with intervening variables of Relationship Incentives and Financial Incentives). The national culture has the following intervening variables: collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, performance orientation, humane orientation, gender, and educational level.

Solution

Reliability Statistics

Reliability Statistics

The acceptable value or bench mark for Cronbach’s alpha is at least 0.7, from the reliability statistics presented above, it can be concluded that there is a strong internal consistency or reliability between the responses of matched items.

Hypotheses based on the theoretical framework and the review of previous studies done on cross-cultural differences between Brazil and United States, this study raises the following hypotheses:

Correlations

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The correlation coefficients presented in the table above shows strength and direction of the relationship between financial incentives and relationship incentives for both Brazil and United States.

There is a significant, strong and positive relationship (r= 0.886, p= 0.000) between financial and relationship incentives for American participants, also, There is significant, strong and positive relationship (r= 0.682, p= 0.000) between financial and relationship incentives for Brazilian participants. However, a negative, insignificant and weak relationship exists among financial and relationship incentives of Brazil and America.

There are significant differences between the ethical choices that Brazilian and American students make on the hypothetical scenarios of business ethics.

American students will have higher scores of ethical choices than Brazilian students.

Between-Subjects Factors

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics table above shows that the mean score of financial incentives is 2.92 with a standard deviation of 0.79 for America and 2.89 with a standard deviation of 0.37 for Brazil. Also, the mean score of relationship incentives is 3.17 with a standard deviation of 0.62 for America and 2.86 86with a standard deviation of 0.33 for Brazil.

Multivariate Tests

• Design: Intercept + Country
• Exact statistic

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

• R Squared =.000 (Adjusted R Squared = -.005)
• R Squared =.094 (Adjusted R Squared = .089)

Since the p-value for FI (0.831) is greater than significance level (0.05), we do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that American students do not have higher scores of ethical choices (Financial incentives) than Brazilian students.

Similarly, since the p-value for RI (0.000) is less than significance level (0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that American students significantly have higher scores of ethical choices (Relationship incentives) than Brazilian students.

Female students will have higher scores of ethical choices than Male students.

Between-Subjects Factors

Descriptive Statistics

Multivariate Tests

• Design: Intercept + q0005
• Exact statistic

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

• R Squared = .132 (Adjusted R Squared = .121)
• R Squared =.112 (Adjusted R Squared = .101)
• R Squared = .004 (Adjusted R Squared = -.008)
• R Squared =.001 (Adjusted R Squared = -.011)

The p-values for RI (0.001) and FI (0.002) are less than significance level (0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that female students have higher scores of ethical choices (both financial and relationship incentives) than Male students in America. However, the p-values for RI (0.001) and FI (0.002) are less than significance level (0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that female students have higher scores of ethical choices (both financial and relationship incentives) than Male students in Brazil.

Graduate students will have higher scores of ethical choices than undergraduate students.

Between-Subjects Factors

Descriptive Statistics

The means score of RI and FI for American undergraduate students are 3.32 and 3.14 with standard deviations 0.66 and 0.79 respectively. Also the mean score of RI and FI for American graduate students are 2.88 and 2.52 with standard deviations 0.32 and 0.41 respectively.

Similarly , The means score of RI and FI for Brazilian undergraduate students are 2.91 and 2.95 with standard deviations 0.33 and 0.32 respectively. Also the mean score of RI and FI for Brazilian graduate students are 2.85 and 2.90 with standard deviations 0.22 and 0.27 respectively.

Multivariate Tests

• Design: Intercept + q0002
• Exact statistic

Tests of Between-Subjects Effects

• R Squared = .069 (Adjusted R Squared = .057)
• R Squared = .093 (Adjusted R Squared = .081)
• R Squared = .005 (Adjusted R Squared = -.007)
• R Squared = .004 (Adjusted R Squared = -.009)

Since the p-values for RI (0.018) and FI (0.006) are less than significance level (0.05), we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that undergraduate students have higher scores of ethical choices than graduate students in the United States. Also, Since the p-values RI (0.514) and FI (0.572) are less than significance level (0.05), we do not reject the null hypothesis and conclude that Graduate students do not have higher scores of ethical choices than undergraduate students in Brazil.