Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Philosophies among Hungarian Business Students

Abstract

This study attempts to identify a relationship between the perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the business philosophies (Machiavellianism moral objectivism legalism ethical relativism social Darwinism) among Hungarian business students. The goals of the investigations are (1) to explore the perception of CSR (2) to analyze which business philosophies describe the students and (3) to characterize typical patterns by means of cluster analysis. The data collection was performed by means of a self-administered voluntary online survey including the Attitudes Toward Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) instrument. Grouping effects were tested with non-parametric analysis of variance cluster analysis used the K-Means method. The research sample consisted of 865 responses. Machiavellianism was found to be the most dominant business philosophy among the respondents. The cluster analysis shows three patterns