Business ethics trends of x and y generations: An empirical study

The aim of this study is to determine whether the trends of business ethics of employees of X and Y generation are differentiate. Furthermore, it is another aim of the study to determine whether the trends of business ethics differ according to demographic characteristics (gender, marital status, number of children, primary occupations, positions in the workplace, total working hours in the work life, working hours in the institution, educational status and monthly income) of participants. The generation is defined as a community of people born and growing in certain years, experiencing the same socio-economic, political and cultural events and having similar beliefs and values. Business etcihs is expressed as the beliefs, values and attitudes that people have about what is right and what is wrong. The data were obtained by surveys from employees in a public instituion in our country. In addition to the demographic questions in the survey, the ethical trends scale and the values that play an important role in ensuring the ethical climate have taken place. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS program. As a result of the analyzes, there was no significant difference beetwen the X and Y generations. However, according to the positions of the participants in the workplace and their educational status, a significant difference was found in terms of teleological ethics of business ethics. In this study, it was examined whether the importance of ethical principles in providing ethical climate in terms of marital status and gender of participants is different. As a result of the analysis, women give more importance to the principles of respect, positive human relations, importance to human rights and care to privacy more than men, in order to ensure ethical climate in management. In addition, it was found that married employees gave more importance to the principles of the affection and frugality more than single employees in order to providing ethical climate in management. On the other hand, no significant difference was found between the marital status and gender of the participants the other principles.