Prison Field Trips: Can White-Collar Criminals Positively Affect the Ethical and Legal Behavior of Marketing and MBA Students?

Abstract

Marketing educators bear some responsibility for teaching ethics and legal issues to their students. Visits to white-collar criminals in a federal prison camp are one method of achieving this task. This article develops and empirically assesses ten objectives for such a visit by MBA and undergraduate marketing classes. Undergraduates rated the experience higher on “ helped me see that I am vulnerable to temptation to do the wrong thing” and “ encouraged me to avoid making poor ethical decisions” than graduate students, while graduate students rated “ helped make the course more relevant” higher. Also, students with less work experience gained a greater appreciation for the importance of business ethics as a result of the visit. There were no differences in terms of age or gender. Implications of the findings, future research suggestions, and implementation guidelines for those interested in taking their students on a prison visit are provided.