**3. Results**

The first interview question sought to understand the participants' perceptions of the lack of ethics in the national context. The results of the interviews indicate that all participants felt that there was a high level of ethical deprivation, with eight of the 15 interviewees explicitly associating it with the word corruption. Terms related to political power, such as leaders, government, and state, among others, were mentioned by 33% of the participants. Lack of education was mentioned by 27% as having a direct impact on a lack of ethics. Three out of 15 respondents identified the lack of ethics as a major problem in the country, manifesting itself in several areas, including the academic and professional fields. Forty per cent believe that it is a matter of individual behaviour, which, as such, is strongly influenced by subjectivity and the tendency to relativize ethics, which leads to great complexity in its analysis, in line with Cortina's perspective [1] that there is a moral diversity from which reflection is necessary to motivate, from freedom; however, Rawls considers that society is well ordered not only when it is organised to promote the well-being of its members but also when it is effectively regulated by a public conception of justice [12], consequently, it is of vital importance to recognise that the criteria of justice and the common good far exceed individualistic bias.

In reference to the impact generated by the lack of ethics at the individual and community level, all the participants mentioned some kind of affectation; for example, they perceive that in the professional sphere, situations that violate ethics are evident and have become naturalised. On the other hand, 33% mentioned some kind of impact on the country's development caused by wrong political decisions. In relation to the above, Kliksberg [13] addresses the harmful effect of the lack of ethics in organisations as well as in public management, seeking to relocate, through the exemplification of real cases that show the relationship between corruption and the deterioration of the living conditions of society in general.

The interviewees believe that the situation would improve with a change at the individual level, which reaffirms ethics as a reflection and analysis of what is considered good and valuable in a given society, with individual well-being and the common good as a reference, and which requires "minimums" for human beings to develop with dignity. In Cortina and Martnez's terms, "the ethics of justice or ethics of minimums deal only with the universalisable dimension of the moral phenomenon, that is, with those duties of justice that are demandable of any rational being and which, in short, only make up minimum requirements" ([14], p. 117). Framed within this conception, we can mention certain discourses that show that the authors' aspiration is not fully internalised by two of the participants in this study. We refer to expressions such as "It is not something that is very important for people, myself included" and "I grew up thinking that certain situations were ethical, but in reality they were not", from which we cannot approach ethics from a static perspective but rather recognise its dynamism and systemic character.

The issue of corruption has been identified as a situation with which we have become familiar, to the point of behaviour that could be considered negligent, associating it with extreme individualism and laissez-faire thinking. It is necessary to raise awareness of the need to understand that there is a gap between "want" and "duty", and that it is essential to deepen and strengthen duty in order to ensure a good life in the community, as one of the interviewees stated, "what is right is not necessarily what you want to do".

#### *The Role of the University in Building an Ethical Culture from the Students' Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112341*

Another category investigated was the perception in relation to the role of the university in the strengthening of ethical culture, taking as a premise that ethical training begins in the family. One of the 15 interviewees considers that, due to the age at which one enters university, when there is already some degree of maturity, it is very difficult to modify behaviour. They also maintain that reflection on ethics should start at school or college, recognising that it is strengthened in the workplace. 87% of the participants consider that the university can strengthen the practise of ethics through experiences of an academic nature (related to the subjects) and also of a relational nature (student–teacher interaction). This perception coincides with the moral development theory of psychologist Kohlberg, who, based on Piaget's theory of evolutionary development, maintains that the development of moral conscience runs parallel to evolutionary development, with the post-conventional stage being the pinnacle of the development of moral conscience, in which social norms have been assumed to be beneficial for good living, strengthening a sense of otherness.

Regarding positive pedagogical experiences related to ethical reflection described by the students, 27% stated that they had not had this type of experience in their academic life, indicating that teaching concentrates on technical aspects and hard skills. 47% indicated that the approach of certain teachers in their subjects lent itself to this type of experience; for example, one student commented "I got more out of a simple lecture from my teacher talking directly to me about what should be ethical rather than a lecture on ethics in the auditorium". Another student mentioned as positive the analysis of ethical cases at the end of the chapters of his textbook, together with the teacher, and the use of anti-plagiarism software for the assessment of assignments. Seven of the 15 students said that they had not had any negative experiences, but one of them mentioned virtual classes as a negative experience since virtual assessment facilitates copying; on the other hand, two students referred to the negative effect of their lecturers' attitudes, such as unequal treatment of students or tolerance of academic dishonesty.

These assertions coincide with the thinking of Vallaeys, who refers to the responsibility of the university in terms of training the leaders of society, with the consequent need for the academy to reflect on itself in a contextualised manner, with a holistic vision being indispensable as it is immersed in the chronic problems of society, which is why the university's commitment requires articulating the various parts of the institution in the promotion of ethical principles, equitable development, and sustainable development [15].

The students also emphasise the importance of articulating ethics in the decisionmaking processes that are evident in research, thesis development, and projects spaces that allow them to demonstrate this dimension of behaviour by putting their knowledge into practice through practice and their relationship with society. Ford and Richardson [16] consider that the ethical decision-making process is of an individual and internal nature, while Porter and Córdoba argue that decision-making from a social responsibility perspective occurs at the organisational level [17].

In reference to the questions that sought to identify academic experiences that could contribute to strengthening the ethical culture among students, all the interviewees stated that it is of vital importance to link theory with reality, for which they suggested, on the one hand, active learning practises such as talks focused on their career, debates, conversations, and testimonies of professionals, and, on the other hand, activities that contribute to the development of critical thinking such as case studies, workshops, and contents that lend themselves to reflection in their subjects.

In the relational sphere, five students highlighted the role of the teacher in situations of informal education, understood according to Sarramona [18] as a continuous process through which people acquire and accumulate knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ways of discerning through daily experiences and their relationship with the


#### **Table 2.**

*Categories, subcategories, and study findings.*

*The Role of the University in Building an Ethical Culture from the Students' Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112341*

environment; they mentioned the need for teachers to be more rigorous in copying, to promote teamwork, equal treatment, and incentives for student contribution, as well as the teacher's example.

At the curricular level, the participants mentioned subjects such as accounting, entrepreneurship, legislation, administration, computer security, and networking as the subjects within their curriculum that strengthen the approach to ethics. In addition, 93% of the students stated that ethics training should be worked on in all subjects in a cross-cutting manner, from the beginning to the end of university education, through related ethical issues. Finally, 100% of students believe that it is possible to do ethical business.

In this sense, it should be acknowledged that what was stated by the interviewees coincides to a large extent with what Kliksberg [19] said in relation to the fundamental role of universities, a responsibility that requires going beyond the implementation of a subject that addresses ethics in degree courses but rather the urgent need to mainstream its teaching through the discussion of ethical dilemmas linked to the contents, based on reality.

Based on the urgency expressed by Kliksberg regarding the revaluation of ethics and its potential in the university, as it is responsible for professional and citizen training, as well as the implicit and explicit message of the students interviewed, it is appropriate to review pedagogical proposals that promote ethical dialogue, duly contextualised, in such a way that professional training and its subsequent exercise are inspired by an ethical position. Thus, Eurasqun [20] states that dialogic ethics calls upon the responsibility we have in relation to the world in which our children will live and to the improvement of the quality of life for all through a consensus that does not avoid conflicts but rather faces them from involvement and commitment rather than from regulations or prescription.

A summary of the results of the interviews by category can be found in **Table 2**.
