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This article reviews 1 decade of research on cheating in academic institutions. This research demonstrates that cheating is prevalent and that some forms of cheating have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This research also suggests that although both individual and contextual factors influence cheating, contextual factors, such as students' perceptions of peers' behavior, are the most powerful influence. In addition, an institution's academic integrity programs and policies, such as honor codes, can have a significant influence on students' behavior. Finally, we offer suggestions for managing cheating from students' and faculty members' perspectives.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 169.230.243.252 on Sun, Abstract: This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethicsrelated attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culturebased dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. n ecent research has focused on understanding the factors that influence ethi lxcal conduct in organizations. Most ethical decision making models propose that ethical conduct is influenced by a combination of individual characteristics such as values and cognitive moral development, and contextual factors such as reward systems, rules, and codes (e.g., Ferrell, Gresham, and Fraedrich, 1989; Jones, 1991;Trevino, 1986). Although individual characteristics are clearly important, the role of contextual factors seems important from a practical perspective because managers have more control over the work environment than they do over individuals' values or moral development. Further, given the significant resources being invested in organizational ethics initiatives, research is needed to investigate the relationship between "ethical context" and employee attitudes and behaviors.In the descriptive business ethics literature, ethical context has been represented primarily by two multidimensional constructs, ethical climate (e.g., Victor andCullen, 1987, 1988) and ethical culture (Trevino, l990). These constructs C)1998. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 8, Issue 3. were developed more or less independently and were based on somewhat different assumptions and literatures. Although both constructs have been theoretically associated with individual ethical conduct, empirical support for these relationships is lacking. A number of other issues co...

Little is currently known about cheating among graduate business students. We collected data from more than 5,000 business (mostly MBA) and nonbusiness graduate students at 32 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada during the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 academic years to test a series of hypotheses regarding the prevalence of graduate business student cheating and reasons why these students cheat. We found that graduate business students cheat more than their nonbusiness-student peers. Correlation results found cheating to be associated with perceived peer behavior, as well as the perceived certainty of being reported by a peer, and the understanding and acceptance of academic integrity policies by students and faculty. But, regression analysis results suggest that perceived peer behavior has the largest effect. Drawing from these findings and past research on undergraduate students, we propose strategies that business schools and faculty can use to promote academic integrity in graduate business programs.

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Academic integrity is an issue of critical importance to academic institutions and has been gaining increasing interest among scholars in the last few decades. This article discusses data obtained over the last three years from over 80,000 students and 12,000 faculty in the United States and Canada. While documenting that cheating on tests and exams and plagiarism are significant issues on our college and university campuses, it also offers some thoughts on possible strategies to encourage greater levels of academic integrity among students.

Little work has been done on academic dishonesty in the Middle East. This research investigates the nature of the relationship between contextual factors and academic dishonesty using a sample from three private universities in Lebanon, and compares the results to a sample from seven large universities in the US. Using the basic model of McCabe et al. (Research in Higher Education 43(3):357-378, 2002), we found additional evidence for the strong role perception of peers' behavior plays in understanding student decisions concerning academic integrity. Cross cultural comparisons of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors regarding academic dishonesty were pivotal in this research. Our results support the view that Lebanese university students are strongly influenced by the norms of the collectivist society in which they are raised as compared to the more individualistic society found in the United States.