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Who is Machiavelli?

In 1498, Niccole Machiavelli began his career as an active politician in the independent city-stateof Florence, engaging in diplomatic missions through France and Germany as well as Italy. After

more than a decade of public service, he was driven from his post when the republic collapsed.

Repeated efforts to win the confidence and approval of the new regime were unsuccessful, and

Machiavelli was forced into retirement and a life of detached scholarship about the politicalprocess instead of direct participation in it. The books for which he is remembered were

published only after his death.

Machiavelli originally wrote Principe in hopes of securing the favor of the ruling Medicifamily, and he deliberately made its claims provocative. The Prince is an intensely practical

guide to the exercise of raw political power over a Renaissance principality. Allowing for the

unpredictable influence of fortune, Machiavelli argued that it is primarily skill of the

individual leader that determines the success of any state. The book surveys various boldmeans of acquiring and maintaining the principality and evaluates each of them solely by

reference to its likelihood of augmenting the glory of the prince while serving the public

interest. It is this focus on practical success by any means, even at the expense of traditionalmoral values, that earned Machiavelli's scheme a reputation for ruthlessness, deception, and

cruelty.

Philosophy of Machiavelli

The study aimed at exploring the relationship between perceived parental behaviorsAnd childrens Machiavellian orientation (MO) and also between parents MO and

Childrens MO. For this an unselected sample of 300 Plus-Two class male studentsAged 15-18 years were administered Personal Data Sheet, Parental BehaviorInventory and Mach IV Scale. After data were obtained from them each subject wasGiven two forms of Mach IV Scale, one-marked M and another marked F to beFilled in by his mother and father respectively. The data analyzed by product momentCorrelation coefficient revealed that loving and permissive behaviors of parentswere negatively and significantly related with their sons MO. It was also found thatMO of parents and their sons were positively and significantly associated, providingsupport for modeling hypothesis.Machiavellian orientation (MO) in interpersonal relation is defined bymanipulation and exploitation of people for selfish ends with relative lack of

affect and without any concern for conventional morality and ideologicalcommitment (Christie & Gees, 1970). The Machiavellian, thus, stands forsome one who views and manipulates others for his selfish ends. AMachiavellian has nothing to do with conventional morality and has lowideological commitment. He views human beings as objects to bemanipulated and his views are more utilitarian than moral in interaction withothers. The term has been coined after Niccole Machiavelli, a great Italianpolitical thinker of fifteenth century who wrote two books The Prince and

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The Discourses. The ideas expressed in the books were associated withuse of guile, deceit and opportunism in interpersonal relation, and one who isfound to agree with those ideas is termed as Machiavellian. TheMachiavellian philosophy is that man is basically weak, fallible and gullibleand therefore a rational man should take advantage of this human

weakness to maximize his own gain by manipulating people. Machiavellianism is found more or lessin every individual but it is noted most obviously among politicians, administrator and heads ofinstitutions As regards personality characteristics, Machiavellians are distinguished by external locusof control orientation (Mud rack, 1990),dogmatism (Hunter et al., 1982), psychopath(Skinner,1982)moderate anxiety (Podrico,1987), high risk-caking (Rim, 1965), high ego strength anddominance and low friendliness and responsibility (Johan, 1995) and high leadership qualities(Bharathi & Senath, 1994). Their values are found to centre round power and utility (Ojai, 2007).Machiavellianism has wide spread use. Some have used it as an attitudinal factor (Bogart,1971),while others have termed it behavioral style (Geis & Moon, 1981, Tripathi & Sinha, 1981), butmajority of social scientists have frequently used it as personality disposition (Christie & Geis, 1970;Kuok & Marshella, 1977; Pandey, 1981). As a personality disposition it is affected by several socialand personal variables. One of the most crucial variables to influence this is parent-childinteraction. Every moment a child spends in contact with parents and family has some effect on his

present behavior and future potentialities (Sears et al., 1957). There are three aspects ofchildrearing which can be clearly distinguished. They are 1. childcare, i.e. feeding, weaning, toilet-training and bed-habit training, etc, 2. child discipline, which refers to the control of undesirable andantisocial behaviour; and 3. parental childrearing attitudes. The latter two are interrelated. Whileattitude is the cognitive aspect, discipline is the conative aspect. In fact parents attitudes and theirresulting behaviours towards children have been found to be of greater importance in thedevelopment of personality (Sears et al., 1957, Ojha & Parmanick, 1995). Parents behaviours rangefrom genuine affectionate acceptance to hostile rejection, extreme indulgence to carefree neglect,complete autonomy to licensed permissiveness (Piklinas & Albrecht, 1961, p. 115). Researcheshave discovered three relevant and important dimensions of parental attitudes viz., loverejection,autonomy-control and protectionneglect (de Boeck, 1976; Imperio & Chabot,1980; Ojha, 1993;Schaefer, 1965; Sims & Paolucci, 1975). Psychological literature is replete with studies regardingrelationship between parental behaviours and personality traits. But Studies dealing specifically withMachiavellian orientation are few and far between. Therefore the present study was undertaken toexplore the relationship of adolescents Machiavellian orientation (MO) with perceived behaviours ofparents and also the relationship between parents and childrens Machiavellian orientation.

THE IMPACT ON ETHICAL DECISION MAKINGThis research is designed to gain an understanding of how accounting students respond

To realistic, business ethical dilemmas. Prior research suggests that accounting students exhibit

Lower levels of ethical reasoning compared to other business and non-business majors. This

Study uses the Defining Issues Test, Version 2 (Rest, et al., 1999) to measure accountingStudents ethical reasoning processes. The Mach IV scale (Christie and Geis, 1970) is used to

Measure moral behavior. Eight ethical vignettes adapted from prior ethics studies represent

Realistic, business ethical scenarios.A total of sixty-eight undergraduate accounting students are used to examine three

Hypotheses. Literature suggests that individuals with lower ethical reasoning levels are more

Likely to agree with unethical behavior. Therefore, hypothesis one investigates the relationshipBetween ethical reasoning and ethical decision making. Literature also suggests that individuals

Agreeing with Machiavellian statements are more likely to agree with questionable activities.

Hypothesis two investigates the relationship between Machiavellian behavior and ethical

Decision making. Prior gender literature suggests that gender influences ethical decision making,

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With females being more ethical than males. Therefore, hypothesis three examines whether

Female accounting students agree less with questionable activities compared to males.

Results indicate that ethical reasoning is significantly correlated with students ethicalRatings on the business vignettes. Similarly, Machiavellian behavior is significantly correlated

with

Students ethical ratings. Consistent with prior gender literature, females agree less withQuestionable activities compared to male accounting students.