Information Ethics Among College Students – Selected Countries Analysis

Information technology (IT) is often unintentionally used by individuals in a way that is harmful and with severe consequences for the individual, teams, organizations, or the community. This research evaluates whether college students’ perceptions of information ethics (IE) issues lead to different behavior reflected in IT misuse. Rest’s (1986) decision-making model was utilized to conceptualize IE perception as an antecedent of IE behavior. We used cluster analysis to identify groups with similar patterns of IE perceptions on a sample of 1,648 college students in seven countries. Based on the results, four groups of students with different IE perceptions were identified andlabeled as legalists, moralists, pragmatists, and anarchists. The analysis suggests that these groups vary in socio-demographic characteristics, perceive IE differently, and report different behavior and IT misuse. The findings imply that teachers should adapt IE curricula to specific groups of students. Furthermore, in the corporate world, managers should consider group behavior and account for factors that affect it, such as lower computer knowledge. International managers should be aware that some groups tend to behave more unethically in relation to IT, and that those groups are overrepresented in certain countries.