The influence of professional ethical beliefs on academic dishonest with the theory of planned behavior

Chun-Hua Hsiao,1,2 1Department of Business Administration, Vanung

University, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan 1,2Institute of Business and Management, National

Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

maehsiao@gmail.com

Chyan Yang 2 2Institute of Business and Management, National Chiao

Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

professor.yang@gmail.com

Abstract—To exam the influential factors of cheating intention, we adopted the theory of planned behavior (TPB) by adding professional unethical beliefs to enhance its predictive power. A self-administered survey of 280 business part-time students with full-time profession from a northern university in Taiwan was investigated. Results indicated that perceived behavioral control toward cheating and professional ethical beliefs have greater impact on cheating intention than subjective norm and attitude have.

Keywords- cheatng; ethics; stttude; the theory of planned behavior

I. INTRODUCTION Cheating, a very serious form of academic dishonesty, is

recognized as a highly rampant and ongoing problem in high education. However, the serious result of cheating has been underestimated. The relationship between academic dishonest and unethical behavior in business has been confirmed [28] [29]. Therefore, addressing academic integrity and curbing its prevalence are critical to any country.

As business ethical issues have become more vital for colleges of business, researches in the area of ethical behavior and academic dishonest also have caused great interest. One of the reasons is because these unethical behaviors will spill over into the workplace. According to Ethical Research Center, one third of workers report regularly observing ethical misconduct in the workplace [31]. More seriously, major business scandals such as the case of Enron and WorldCom have brought catastrophic impact on people’s jobs, property, and trust in business leaders. Secondly, today’s college students will soon play important roles in the business world, therefore, their ethical perceptions and behaviors in college should receive more attention and under scrutiny. Prior researches have shown a link between cheating in college and subsequent dishonest behavior in the workplace [9][29] (Crown & Spiller, 1998; Sims, 1993). Thus, to find out reasons behind students’ cheating in college would help educators to curb this prevalent behavior and build right ethical judgment on students to withstand immoral enticement.

For the past decades, researches on academic dishonesty mostly focused on the following issues: how to measure cheating among college students, what individual variables (e.g. age, gender, GPA, and participation in extracurricular activities) and situational variables (such as peer cheating behavior, peer disapproval of cheating behavior, honor codes, and perceived severity of penalties for cheating) are related to cheating, and whether students’ cheating behavior in college will be carried over to workplace [27][22][15]. Among those studies, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) is recognized as the most widely used and parsimony model to predict and explain actual behavior [1], even in measuring and predicting undesirable behaviors such as academic cheating and other unethical behaviors[32][6][13].

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether these factors (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, and professional ethical belief) help to explain cheating intention of business part-time students with full-time job. We hope that this modified version of the theory will provide empirical implication for both educators and business owners in developing interventions designed to stop students from unethical behaviors either in school or in workplace.

II. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is a well-researched model which is widely used in explaining and in predicting human behavior across a variety of disciplines [2]. According to this mode, people usually do what they intend to do and human behavior is a function of one’s intention to emit a certain behavior. Behavioral intention (BI) is considered as the only proximal antecedent of any action and caused by three conceptually independent determinants.

Attitude (AT) appears to be the first antecedent of behavioral intention. In general, an individual will intend to perform a certain behavior when he or she evaluates it positively or favorably [2]. But one may want to know why students still cheated even they had known that cheating was wrong. McCabe [24] found that most students who admitted to engage in cheating behavior would adopt neutralizing attitudes to justify or rationalize their cheating behavior. For

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example, if they think their cheating behavior won’t hurt anyone [11] or if they believe their actions are acceptable under certain situations [21], such as to pass a course, or by the asking of close friends [18]. Thus, it is expected: Hypothesis 1: The attitude toward cheating would positively

affect the intention to engage in such behavior.

According Ajzen [2], subjective norm (SN) refers to the

perceived social pressure that significant others (parents, spouse, classmates, friends, etc.) desire the individual to perform or not perform a behavior. Any person or group served as a reference group could exert a key influence on an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and choices, because an individual may conform to his/her referent groups. Beck and Ajzen [6] found that subjective norm is the direct influential of cheating intention. In the study of McCabe and Treviño [25], contextual factors such as peer cheating approval or disapproval of cheating behavior was the strongest influential factor of cheating behavior. Nonis and Swift [28] found that students were more likely to engage in dishonest acts if they believed that dishonest acts were acceptable to other peers. In agreement with the above finding, Whitley [32] reported that if students perceived that social norms permit cheating behavior, they were more likely to cheat. Thus, we can expect that: Hypothesis 2: The subjective norm toward cheating would

positively affect the intention to engage in such behavior.

Perceived behavioral control (PBC) was added to the

model of TRA under the circumstances that facing unexpected obstacle and lacking resources to perform certain intended behavior, and this makes a major difference between TRA and TPB. Accordingly, PBC refers to the perception of easy or difficulty to engage in certain behavior in term of ability to capture perceived/actual skills, resources, and opportunities [2]. It can reflect past experience as well as anticipated impediments and obstacles [6]. For instance, if people believe that they have very limited resources or opportunities to engage in a certain behavior, they are unlikely to do so even though they have a very strong intention or desires.

As in the case of cheating, more and more college students consider cheating an academic skill, which is as important as reading, writing, and math. Furthermore, academic dishonesty is often assumed to depend on the opportunity to cheat [23]. More evidence can get from Whitley’s study [32] that the more effective in skill of cheating, the more likely that students would cheat. Thus, it can be expected: Hypothesis 3: The perceived behavioral control toward

cheating would positively affect the intention to engage in such behavior.

The relationship between academic integrity and business behavior has long been investigated for the continuing interest in ethical behaviors both in and out of the business environment. Researches have shown that students who are academically dishonest often transfer this kind of dishonest behavior into professional environment such as theft from employers [16] (Hibert, 1985), shoplifting [6], abusing substances [7], and cheating on income taxes [10]. From the evidence of high correlation between academic dishonesty and professional dishonest behaviors, it is logical to infer that cheating behaviors in college may carry over as a way of life after graduation. However, with the trend of continuing education especially in business school among professionals, the causal relationship between professional unethical and academic dishonest might be a focus interest. Since the assumption that past dishonest behavior in school can be an indicator of future dishonest behavior in workplace has been confirmed [14][29][28], and both behaviors are interrelated. For instance, in a study of MBA students, most subjects admitted to commit a wide range of academic dishonesty; at the same time, they also committed a wide range of work-related dishonest behaviors [29]. Therefore, we want to know whether dishonest behaviors or unethical beliefs in workplace (such as improper usurpation of public property or others’ credit) [17] can be carried over to school while those professionals go back to college for advanced study?

Some researchers suggest that there are certain common factors behind an individual’s decision to engage in deviant behaviors including academic dishonesty and dishonest behaviors in workplace [8]. In fact, evidence concerning direct influence of moral concepts on behavioral intention is obvious [19]. Furthermore, to enhance explanatory power of the theory of planned behavior on academic cheating, additional variables such as moral issues are suggested [6]. Accordingly, moral belief was found to be negatively correlated with cheating intentions [20][26]. From above studies, we include the factor of profession unethical beliefs to refine our model to predict the cheating intention. Thus, it is hypothesized: Hypothesis 4: The professional unethical beliefs of students

with full-time professions would positively affect their intention to engage in cheating behavior.

III. METHOD

A. Subjects The subjects under investigation in this study are made

up the first year of part-time students in business school at a university in northern Taiwan. Most of these evening or weekend students have full-time jobs in every profession during the daytime. A total of 280 questionnaires were distributed, and 219 usable questionnaires were collected by the researchers resulting in an effective response rate of 78%. Age ranged from 18 to 49 years with average age of 25 years old and standard deviation is 7 years old. More than 56% of respondents had cheated at least once. Male and female

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students composed 44% and 53% of the sample, respectively. 71% of the respondents have full-time job; 79% of the respondents have got married.

B. Measures The study used existing validated scales. Backward

translation was used to ensure consistency between the Chinese and the original English of the instrument. The initial version of the survey instrument was then refined through a pre-test with 30 subjects with some items moderately re-worded. The second pre-test with 46 subjects was then conducted and analyzed statistically by applying exploratory factor analysis. The reliabilities of all items are then above 0.7. All items were measured with Liker-type scale ranging from 1, “strongly disagree”, to 5, “strongly agree”.

IV. RESULTS

A. Measurement Model Following recommended two-stage analytical procedures

[3], confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using LIREL 8.51 was conducted to assess the reliability and validity of the measures. The overall goodness-of-fit indices shown in Table 1 indicate a satisfactory fit of the measurement model.

Content validity is established by ensuring consistency between the measurement items and the existing literature. This was also accomplished by consulting senior professionals and a pre-test of the instrument. Convergent validity is assured by examining composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) from the measures (Hair et. al., 1998). As shown in Table 1, our composite reliabilities (CR), ranging from .61 to .91, all exceed the recommend threshold of .50 [12]. Furthermore, the average variances extracted (AVE) range from .53 to .71, which are also above the acceptable value of .50. In addition, Table 2 exhibits the loadings of the measures in our research model. As expected, all paths in the measurement model are loaded significantly at a level of 0.01 (the lowest t value is 8.76).

Discriminant validity is achieved by conducting a series of chi-square difference tests using measures of each pair of constructs [3]. By using the Bonferroni method under the overall 0.01 levels, the critical value of the chi-square test is χ2(1) =1.827[5]. Since the chi-square difference statistics for paired constructs all exceed 1 .827, discriminant validity is successfully achieved.

TABLE 1. STANDARDIZED LOADINGS AND RELIABILITY

Indicators Standardized Loading

AVE CR Cronbach’s α

0.79 (t=13.39) 0.61 0.67 0.86 0.87 (t=15.41) 0.79 (t=13.32)

AT1 AT2 AT3 AT4 0.66 (t=10.51)

0.61(t= 8.76) 0.53 0.61 0.77 0.67(t= 9.61)

SN1 SN2 SN3 0.88(t=12.63)

PBC1 0.70(t=10.88) 0.54 0.77 0.77

0.87(t=14.38) PBC2 PBC3 0.61(t= 9.22)

0.75(t=12.65) 0.71 0.88 0.87 0.84(t=14.91)

BI1 BI2 BI3 0.93(t=17.42)

0.66(t=10.69) 0.62 0.91 0.9 0.77(t=13.24) 0.82(t=14.50) 0.82(t=14.42) 0.81(t=14.05)

PUE1 PUE2 PUE3 PUE4 PUE5 PUE6 0.84(t=15.06)

Note: AT= attitude toward cheating; SN= subject norm toward cheating; PBC= perceived behavior control toward cheating; BI= behavioral intention toward cheating; PUE= professional unethical beliefs χ2

142=271.18 (p-value<0.001), GFI= .88, AGFI= .85, NFI= .89, NNFI= .93, RMR= .057, RMSEA= .065,

B. Structural Model The technique of structured equation modeling is used to

examine the causal structure of the proposed model in this study. The results of the analysis are depicted in Figure 1 and summarized in Table 2. Again, we use LISREL 8.51 to evaluate model fit and the significance of the hypothesized paths. The results of goodness-of-fit indices are all under the acceptable levels (χ2/df =271.76/142=; RMR = .057; RMSEA = .065; NFI = .88; NNFI = .93; CFI = .94; GFI = .94; AGFI = .84).

By examining the standardized path coefficients, they are all significant at .01 levels except for the paths from subjective norm to behavioral intention which are significant at .05 levels. As a result, all paths are significant and in the expected direction. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 are supported as they have been in many studies applying TPB to explain behavioral intentions. More specifically, attitude (b=.16; p<.01), subjective norm (b=.16, p<.01), and perceived behavioral control (b=.39; p<.0001) all positively influence behavioral intention toward cheating. Among the three antecedents of intention, perceived behavioral control toward cheating has the greatest effect on behavioral intention. On the other hand, attitude toward cheating has the least impact on behavioral intention. Hypothesis 4 is supported (b=.25; p<.001), indicating that the unethical beliefs has critical impact on cheating intention. The present study reveals that the model accounts for 53% of the variance in the behavioral intention.

TABLE 2. PATH COEFFICENTS AND t VALUES

Hypotheses Standardized Coefficient

t Value

H1 (AT→BI) 0.16** 1.89 H2 (SN→BI) 0.16** 2.46

H3 (PBC→BI) 0.39*** 4.23 H4 (PUE→BI) 0.25*** 3.65

Notes: * p< .05; ** p< .01; ***p< .001

V. DISCUSSION Academic dishonest is a rampant phenomenon, but

definitely not a minor problem, nor can be ignored. Previous

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investigations of academic dishonesty have tended to focus on full-time students without any professions, only with very limited research on MBA students. In consideration of the trend of continuing education and more and more professionals attend university for advanced education, their ethical behaviors both in school and in workplace should received more attention. This paper has highlighted major factors including professional ethical beliefs in affecting cheating intention by adopting the theory of planned behavior of Ajzen [2]. Our research model is well supported and all hypotheses are confirmed.

By examining the standardized direct effects of the above four antecedents on cheating behavioral intention, we found that perceived behavioral control toward cheating has a decisive influence on the behavioral intention, then followed by professional unethical beliefs, and subjective norm control respectively. Attitude appears to be the least influence on cheating behavioral intention. Consistent with the finding of Beck and Ajzen [6], when involving elements of resources and opportunities over which an individual has only limited control, perceived behavioral control has greater influence on intentions to perform the behaviors. As cheating is considered as an academic skill and its importance is no less than writing or math, we are facing with students who are more acceptable with cheating behaviors and more skillful in it with the help of technology. Therefore, the entire faculty in college should intervene into this situation, such as constantly articulating regulations of penalty in cheating behavior in advance. Other ways of strategies can also implemented to discouraged students’ cheating intention—including reporting and making public the case of cheating, avoiding the form of multiple choice exams or using multiple versions during exam, avoiding large and crowed classrooms, or bring bcell phones with oneself.

The importance of professional ethical beliefs on cheating intention is confirmed in the current study. Unethical conducts in school (e.g. cheating) and in the workplace (e.g. lying) are intercorrelated. While not all business employees are business school graduates, business school should take the responsibility to educate students in ethics education or ethical training to help them build moral standard and judgment. Hopefully, they may contribute the environment of business in the mean time or in the near future.

This study also supports the hypotheses that subject norm and attitude toward cheating are related to the cheating intention of college students with professionals. This finding suggests that students are more likely to cheat if their peers perceive cheating behavior is acceptable, or they can justify the behavior to stay in school or to help classmates due to their asking. Again, a series of ethics education is essential to reinforce and change students’ ethical standards. Also the lake of enforcement of penalties for cheating behavior may give students’ excuses to rationalize cheating. Therefore, college should make clarification of institutional policy about academic integrity to increase the atmosphere of academic integrity culture and to keep institutional reputations.

One major contribution in the current paper is to identify the role of professional ethic beliefs. As prior researchers suggested, moral issue is necessary in explaining and predicting undesired behaviors such as cheating. in Not only did it have great impact on cheating intention only minor to perceived behavior control has, but it did aid the predictive power of the theory of planned behavior. For future research, longitudinal studies is strongly suggested to follow up students’ cheating intention or unethical intention, and to see whether it will change due to any intervention from school policy. Secondly, there is a need to determine whether faculty’s attitude or school integrity culture can impact cheating behavior. Other intervention strategies are also suggested to test the long-term effectiveness.

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