Student Evaluations of Academic Integrity and Business Behaviors in Private and Public Universities

This article investigates the potential influence of college environment on student attitudinal and behavioral development. The influence of academic integrity issues is compared between students attending private and public universities. Student attitudes toward ethical business behaviors and academic issues such as the likelihood of academic dishonesty detection, the perceived effects of academic cheating, peer norms and past behavior are examined. The two groups report a very different pattern of responses. Students at private universities report lower cheating, plagiarizing, and committing other acts of dishonesty compared to students in public universities. Students in private universities are more aware of students being punished for academic dishonesty. A lower level of academic dishonesty detection and punishment is associated with the public universities. Students attending the private universities are more likely to consider academic dishonesty socially wrong and harmful. Results indicate business faculty in both settings are rated the highest on the ethical behavior scale compared to the general education faculty at both institutions. Students at the public universities are more likely to accept unfair competitive business behaviors. The study extends the influence of academic integrity to institutional characteristics and provides a measurement tool to understand how academic integrity issues impact business decisions. The results contribute to an understanding of the academic environment underlying the education and the potential behavior of future business practitioners. Insights and implications for the academic environment are reviewed