Ethical misconduct in the business school: A case of plagiarism that turned bitter [Book Review]

Journal of Business Ethics 49 (1):75-89 (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

As a result of the public demand for higher ethical standards, business schools are increasingly taking ethical matters seriously. But their effort has concentrated on teaching business ethics and on students' ethical behavior. Business faculty, in contrast, has attracted much less attention. This paper explores the context and the implications of an alleged case of plagiarism in a master's dissertation submitted to a university lacking both an ethical code of conduct and a formalized procedure to deal with academic misconduct. The events evolved into a bitter political process in which the more ethically aware members of faculty challenged efforts to cover-up. Here the focus is on the motives and behavior of faculty members involved in this case rather than the alleged plagiarist's. The role played by the main actors involved in the process in examined using the theory of moral development and the organizational politic perspective. The paper discusses the mechanisms available to raise ethical awareness and prevent academic misconduct, and the limitations of self-regulation and self-monitoring that prevails in the university system. It also examines the impact of ethics instruction and faculty ethical standards on students' behavior and concludes that ethics instruction can only be effective when the principles taught are in line with daily actions of their instructors.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Exploring Business School Ethics.Johannes Brinkmann & Ken Peattie - 2005 - Journal of Business Ethics Education 2 (2):151-169.
A framework for teaching business ethics.Alfonso R. Oddo - 1997 - Journal of Business Ethics 16 (3):293-297.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
50 (#282,559)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?