A Survey of Management Educators’ Perceptions of Unethical Faculty Behavior

Abstract

To help academic associations in management develop, refine, and implement a code of ethics, we conducted a survey of management educators' perception of the ethicality of 142 specific behaviors in teaching, research, and service. The results of the survey could be used to inform ethics committees of these associations regarding the level of acceptability of such conduct. The potential value of our study for the Academy of Management or similar management associations lie in our (1) systematically involving the members in building support for the code of ethics, (2) assessing members' ethical judgments on both cross-sectional and longitudinal bases so as to identify areas needing particular attention in ethical training, (3) providing an extensive list of specific examples of questionable and potentially unethical behaviors so as to make it easier to implement the code, and (4) providing a template survey document for potential use in involving more stakeholder groups in the development of codes of ethics.

Academic Integrity in Social Sciences

“…While findings show that academics in management (Gao et al 2008) and economics (Laband and Piette 2000;Necker 2014) agree on the nature of a range of behaviors, there is still substantial disagreement on the morality of various behaviors related to teaching and research. Such behaviors include acceptance of gifts, disclosure of student grades, administration of student evaluations when a negative response is expected, self-plagiarism, simultaneous submission of a manuscript to different journals, review of a known colleague's manuscript, objective evaluation of a friend for tenure and promotion, and recruitment practices based on gender, religion, ethnicity, race, age, sexual orientation, or disability (Gao et al 2008).…”

“…Such behaviors include acceptance of gifts, disclosure of student grades, administration of student evaluations when a negative response is expected, self-plagiarism, simultaneous submission of a manuscript to different journals, review of a known colleague's manuscript, objective evaluation of a friend for tenure and promotion, and recruitment practices based on gender, religion, ethnicity, race, age, sexual orientation, or disability (Gao et al 2008). Moreover, some differences appear to be attributable to academic and disciplinary background.…”

Faculty response to ethical issues at an American university in the Middle‐East

“…For the purpose of developing, refining and implementing codes of ethics relating to academic associations in management, a survey of management educators was conducted by Gao et al (2008). The perception of the ethicality of 142 specific behaviors in teaching, research, and service was considered.…”

Selected Ethical Issues in the Analysis and Reporting of Research: Survey of Business School Faculty in Malaysia

“…A code of ethics, however, can only serve as a general guide to ethical conduct because not all researchers are members of professional associations and enforcement is difficult. As some researchers pointed out, the most extreme penalty a professional organization such as the AOM can impose for ethical code violation is membership termination, which may or may not be an effective deterrent (Gao et al 2008). Additionally, because detailed explanations of ethical issues are not contained in a code of ethics, such a code is unlikely to provide much educational value or help deter unethical behavior among researchers who lack the required knowledge or judgment to behave ethically (Sieber 1994, p. 369).…”