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ABSTRACT
This three-part study examined how four-year U.S. universities with baccalaureate programs in aviation management include ethics instruction in their curricula. Part One justified the need for ethics education and developed hypotheses to evaluate the status of ethics instruction. Statistical tests in Parts Two A and Two B established that ethics is not widely included in aviation curricula. Part Three continues by probing for deeper understanding of current practice. It was found that little is being done to increase ethics instruction, as no sense of urgency exists to bring about change. Recommendations to improve ethics coverage include proactive involvement of those currently interested in the subject, cooperative relationships between academia and the aviation industry, and a phased program to increase the level of ethics inclusion in aviation curricula. Ideas for future study are suggested.
INTRODUCTION
It has been said that the term, business ethics, is an oxymoron. Looking at the long and growing list of corporate ethics scandals in the past several years would certainly reinforce this idea. If one were to look at discoveries made about corporate behavior in the aviation world, one could easily find additional support for this adage.
For instance, the now defunct ProAir, a Seattle-based air carrier, was charged with falsification of training and maintenance records, intentional cover-up of maintenance records, failure to report accidents and incidents to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and numerous other things (AirJet News, 2000). Fine Air, a Miami-based cargo carrier now known as Arrow Air, was found guilty of obstructing justice and making false statements during the NTSB investigation of its 1997 DC-8 crash in Miami (Wilson, 2000). A sampling of many ethical violations by individual airline and airport employees includes pilfering passenger luggage (Leveque, 2003), participating in drug smuggling (Loney, 1999), and intentionally damaging aircraft to get more work (Skolnik, 2002). Can anything be done to reverse such trends?
Three earlier installments in this series of articles on ethics education in collegiate aviation management programs explained: (a) the need for studying ethics and some suggested hypotheses for investigating inclusion of ethics in aviation curricula (Oderman, 2002); (b) a survey and statistical description of current practices used by aviation departments to include ethics in their...