Determining the Differences and Similarities Between Christian and Secular Universities in Preparing Students for Ethical Leadership in Corporate America: A Qualitative Content Analysis Study

Abstract

This descriptive study explored the differences and similarities between Christian and secular universities’ approaches to educating and developing ethical business leaders for work in the marketplace. This study used a qualitative content analysis to analyze and compare published curriculum descriptions of Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs at select Christian and secular higher educational institutions.A review of the precedent literature presented the foundations for Christian education in ethical business leadership. A literature review was also conducted on the current state of business leadership in the United States and the secular approach to business ethics education. This allowed the business leadership curriculum to be approached from a comparative standpoint, assessing ethical themes, specific topics, and level of emphasis in the approach taken to develop ethical business leaders. The results of the study revealed the distribution of the MBA program’s general themes, specific topics, and the level of emphasis placed in each category. This research found increased levels of ethics, ethical decision-making, ethical awareness, and character development content in the required MBA program coursework at Christian universities. Furthermore, secular universities placed nearly all their decision-making emphasis on the use of analytics and quantitative considerations. Meanwhile, Christian universities included ethical considerations in their coursework associated with decision-making.