Study: Majority Of Graduate Business Students Admit To Cheating

Creating a culture of integrity should curb cheating and cultivate character

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (September 18, 2006) – Graduate students are cheating at an alarmingly high rate and MBA students are doing so at even higher levels, according to a new research report co-authored by a Smeal College of Business professor.

Linda Treviño, Franklin H. Cook Fellow in Business Ethics at Penn State's Smeal College, and her colleagues Donald McCabe of Rutgers and Kenneth Butterfield of Washington State examined survey results from 5,331 students at 32 graduate schools in Canada and the United States. They found that 56 percent of graduate business school students admitted to cheating one or more times in the past academic year compared to 47 percent of non-business students.

Polices, rules, and the potential for getting caught had little to do with the students' decisions to cheat, according to the research. Rather, the authors found that, for business students, the perception that other students were cheating was the most powerful influence on their own behavior.

To counteract the perception that dishonesty is permeating U.S. college classrooms, the authors recommend that college administrators work with faculty and students to create what they call a "culture of integrity and responsibility" in their schools.

Building an ethical community requires more than individual faculty efforts, such as creating multiple versions of exams; even though such efforts can send an important message that a particular professor takes academic integrity seriously.

"In an ideal culture of integrity and responsibility, faculty and administrators engage students in an ongoing dialogue about academic integrity that begins with recruiting, continues in orientation sessions and initiation ceremonies, and continues throughout the program," they write. "If students see their peers behaving with honesty and integrity, designing academic integrity policies, living up to pledges regarding integrity, and educating other students about the importance of academic integrity, then cheating should be less likely."

At Smeal, Treviño has worked with students and administrators to design an academic honor code that emphasizes the promotion of academic integrity among students as a community value. James B. Thomas, dean of Smeal College, will chair an Honor Committee composed of students and faculty, which will proactively guide academic integrity.

The committee will also appoint Review Boards to investigate and judge academic honor code violations. Students have been instrumental in development of the code and they will play a substantial role in its implementation.

The new code is being piloted in the MBA program this fall semester and plans continue for implementation in the undergraduate program.

"The practical implication for business schools is that honor codes … reduce the burden on faculty to monitor and enforce regulations concerning cheating and help cultivate students' character by holding them responsible for sustaining the ethical community," the authors write.

"Academic Dishonesty in Graduate Business Programs: Prevalence, Causes, and Proposed Action" will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Academy of Management Learning and Education.

McCabe is professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School and Butterfield is associate professor of management and operations at the Washington State University College of Business.