Ethical use of artificial intelligence based tools in higher education: are future business leaders ready?

Abstract This study examined the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence-based Tools (AIT) in higher education, focusing on graduate business students. Drawing from a diverse sample of students from the United States of America (USA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the research explored how cultural values shaped perceptions and behaviors towards ethical use of AIT. Structural Topic Modeling (STM), a machine learning technique to identify themes in open-ended responses, was used to assess the influence of culture as a covariate. Culture was classified into ten clusters comprising a group of countries, and findings were interpreted using Hofstede’s cultural framework. The study revealed significant variations in ethical perceptions across cultural clusters. For example, students from the Southern Asia cluster viewed the use of AIT to answer questions as more ethical, while students from Latin Europe were less likely to perceive it as ethical. Conversely, students from Latin Europe were more inclined to consider the use of AIT to understand concepts as ethical, compared to their Southern Asian counterparts. The findings highlight the importance of understanding cultural perceptions when integrating AIT in higher education. Addressing a significant gap in the existing educational literature, this research contributes to the broader discussion on the ethical implications of AI in education and offers practical strategies for fostering a culturally sensitive and inclusive approach while utilizing a novel methodology within the field.