Abstract

For achieving self-reliance, self-employment, wealth and job creation through entrepreneurship, ethical issues should be seriously taught and imbibed among business owners. This study was conducted in Rivers State to determine the business ethics needed for an effective entrepreneurship practice as perceived by business educators. Survey research design was adopted in this study. The population of the study consisted of 690 managers of small and medium enterprises and a sample size of 230 respondents was randomly chosen. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by two experts from the field of measurement and evaluation and business education. Cronbach alpha reliability test was used to determine internal consistency of the instrument and reliability coefficient value of 0.87 was obtained. Mean and standard deviation were used in analyzing data related to the research questions and z-test was to test null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Based on the findings, it was concluded that business ethics enable entrepreneurs to maintain high ethical standard by creating a company credo, develop a code of conduct, being fairly and consistence in course of carrying out daily business activities.