PurposeThe worst scandals of the world's top companies have turned the attention of researchers towards the function of academic institutions in ethical training of future business leaders because the issue of dishonest behaviour of students becomes very severe, when they exercise the same practice at their place of work. Therefore, the understanding of the factors that affect student's decisions to engage in academic dishonesty is important for academic institutions, in order to reduce its occurrence. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of individual factors, situational factors and ethical factors on academic dishonesty behaviour of students in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire‐based field survey was conducted with 500 students across four universities in Pakistan.FindingsIt has been found that individual, situational and ethical factors affect on rationalisation of academic dishonesty and this rationalisation shapes actual conduct of academic dishonesty. Moreover, lack of well‐defined policies of the academic dishonesty in higher education is a major determinant of academic dishonesty among students.Practical implicationsThe results provide a strong implication for academics. By discouraging such behaviour, academic institutions can help ensure the integrity of the degrees they offer, and help to level the fair grade competition among students.Originality/valueThe research provides a profound investigation of individual, situational and ethical factors as predictors of students’ academic dishonesty. The study is pioneering in its nature to explore two common forms of academic dishonesty, i.e. plagiarism and dual submission among university students. Furthermore, the study used rationalisation of academic dishonesty as a determinant of the actual act of academic dishonesty.

No abstract