A Case of Academic Misconduct: Does Self‐Interest Rule?*

Abstract

Most analyses of academic misconduct focus on students’ integrity and what is taught at the universities. Surprisingly little attention is paid to the role of faculty members. This article presents an unusual case of academic misconduct that provides an opportunity to examine the actions and rationalizations of the students and faculty members involved in the event as well as the broader university context. The case is unusual in that the instructor initiated and facilitated the academic misconduct. The analysis of the misconduct and the subsequent events suggest that self‐interest rules and concerns for wider interests are all but silent. While the case presents a somewhat dismal view of the integrity of some accounting faculty members and future accountants, it provides interesting insight into self‐interest, rationalization, social context, and both students’ and faculty members’ integrity. The analysis discusses the mechanisms used to prevent and manage faculty member misconduct, along with limitations of self‐regulation and student reports as forms of control. The article also considers how accounting educators can encourage future accountants to act with integrity and concludes that in order to achieve that goal, accounting educators must serve as role models who act honestly.

Demonstrating the Need for Effective Business Ethics: An Alternative Approach

“…Some researchers have considered exactly this sort of factor in considering the impact of teaching vignettes on students' attitudes (Day et al 2010) and found that the characteristics of the instructor have an impact on students' attitudes toward dishonesty. In one extreme case, the instructor facilitated cheating by students (Jones and Spraakman 2011). The victim of fraud, particularly in the manipulation of financial reports, is often an anonymous public.…”

Accounting Ethics Education Research

“…Early research on accounting ethics education relied on interpretive analysis while research in the latter period relied on complex or sophisticated models of analysis such as (regressions, experiment, ground theory, meta-analysis). Early research tends to question the value and extent of ethics education (Hiltebeitel & Jones, 1991;Levy & Mitschow, 2008;Loeb, 1988;Ponemon, 1993;Smith et al, 2005) while later research tends to focus on the ethics of the individual and ethical decision making (Costa et al, 2016;Faello, 2017;Fiolleau & Kaplan, 2017;Ghazali, 2015;Ramirez, 2017;Waldron & Fisher, 2017), and perspectives on ethics education from the practicing profession (Caglio & Cameran, 2017;Loeb, 2012;Rockness & Rockness, 2010;Wilson et al, 2016) and from educators and instructors (Jones & Spraakman, 2011;Liu et al, 2012;Miller & Shawver, 2018). Similarly, teaching pedagogies changed over time to include case studies, role-plays, games, video presentations and novels, influenced in part by the introduction of learning technology platforms such as a web base multimedia-orientated teaching module (McManus et al, 2012).…”

What is Ethical About Grade Inflation and Coursework Deflation?

“…Crumbley (1995) coined the term pander pollution (PP) behavior, defined as the purposeful intervention by a professor inside and outside the classroom with the intention of increasing SET scores and which is counterproductive to the learning process. Two examples include allowing students to copy from other students in an in-class exam and providing the exam ahead of time in multiple-section classes (Jones and Spraakman 2010). Another example of PP behavior is Duke University's Cathy Davidson plan to get out of the grading business by turning over the grading to the students (Jaschik 2010).…”