Academic Dishonesty: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of U.S. and Chinese Marketing Students

Abstract

Chinese as well as American business colleges are attempting to improve morality of their students due to recent scandals in both countries. This study investigates several beliefs and values, opportunism, and certain demographic variables that might contribute to the academic dishonesty of American and Chinese marketing students. The findings suggest that American marketing students who are young, tolerant, detached, relativistic, less religious, opportunistic, and negative tend to believe that academic dishonesty is more acceptable than do their counterparts exhibiting the opposite characteristics. Chinese marketing students who are male, detached, relativistic, less religious, opportunistic, and behaviorist oriented tend to perceive that academic dishonesty is more acceptable than do their counterparts. The results also reveal that the Chinese marketing students are more tolerant and detached than are the American marketing students, and they are less sensitive to the acceptance of academic dishonesty than are the American students.

Context-Dependent Cheating: Experimental Evidence from 16 Countries

“…However, corruption indices measure perceptions and not actual behaviors. Further, variations across countries in academic dishonesty (Rawwas et al, 2004) and tax evasion (Alm et al, 1995;Cummings et al, 2009) reinforce the impression that cheating is both abundant and diverse around the world. In the same line, recent research in behavioral and experimental economics has shown that a large fraction of individuals are prone to cheating (Ariely, 2012;Gneezy, 2005).…”

Effect of Dispositional Traits on Pharmacy Students’ Attitude Toward Cheating

“…[3][4][5][6] Given the numerous incentives, cheating occurs across disciplines and beyond college into diverse professions. [7][8][9][10][11][12] Several studies suggest that cheating is prevalent and steadily increasing in health disciplines that place significant emphasis on high ethical standards, integrity, and professionalism, such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing. 7,[12][13][14][15][16] Baldwin and colleagues reported that 39% of medical student respondents witnessed some type of cheating among classmates during the first 2 years of their medical education, 67% had heard about cheating, and 5% admitted cheating during medical school.…”

Initial Development of a Learners’ Ratified Acceptance of Multibiometrics Intentions Model (RAMIM)

“…As a consequence of these concerns, researchers emphasized the need to conduct studies that investigate students' ethical decisions making (McCabe& Pavela, 2004;Pincus & Schmelkin, 2003;Rawwas, Al-Khatib, & Vitell, 2004). Additionally, organizational behavior literature provides support that employees' code of conduct awareness and their ethical decision making are potential contributing constructs to their use of IS (Cronan et al, 2005;Kreie & Cronan, 1998).…”