The influence of management development programmes on ethical leadership

Abstract: The increase in corruption in South Africa and other African countries should prompt theorists and others alike to find workable solutions to deal with corruption. Theorists have found that a focus on ethics within education is likely to lead to a decrease in corruption. Ethics should therefore be prominent in management development programmes as graduates are often future business leaders. This study followed the research design of both a descriptive and an explanatory study. It was a qualitative research seeking to compare and analyse the effectiveness of ethical training in the management development programmes offered by two prominent public universities in Gauteng by means of interviews with lecturers, students and industry representatives involved in ethical education in the master’s programme. It was found that while ethics training did form part of the curricula, its effectiveness was limited. This study proposes several recommendations for improvement with the hope that a renewed focus within these programmes will result in a decrease in unethical behaviour