Toward an Analytical Model of Ethical Decision Making in Plagiarism

Plagiarism by students is a common and worldwide phenomenon with a significant impact on our society. Numerous studies on the pervasive nature of plagiarism among students have focused on the behavioral aspects of plagiarism and how to prevent it. Based on an empirical study of a sample of 463 eighth graders in Hong Kong, this article offers an analytical model to understand the ethical decision-making process in plagiarism among students. Using this model, students' plagiaristic behavior can be analyzed in terms of their moral judgment, moral intensity, and perceived risks.

[1]  S. Rettig,et al.  The risk hypothesis in predictive judgments of unethical behavior. , 1963, Journal of abnormal and social psychology.

[2]  H. Black,et al.  Black's Law Dictionary , 1968 .

[3]  L. Kohlberg.  Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization , 1969 .

[4]  H. Akaike,et al.  Information Theory and an Extension of the Maximum Likelihood Principle , 1973 .

[5]  I. Ajzen,et al.  Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. , 1977 .

[6]  I. Ajzen,et al.  Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research , 1977 .

[7]  G. Schwarz.  Estimating the Dimension of a Model , 1978 .

[8]  Harold G. Grasmick,et al.  The Deterrent Effect of Perceived Severity of Punishment , 1980 .

[9]  O. C. Ferrell,et al.  A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making in Marketing , 1985 .

[10]  James R. Rest.  Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory , 1986 .

[11]  S. Hunt,et al.  A General Theory of Marketing Ethics , 1986 .

[12]  A. Tymchuk.  Guidelines for ethical decision making. , 1986, Canadian psychology = Psychologie canadienne.

[13]  L. Treviño.  Ethical Decision Making in Organizations: A Person-Situation Interactionist Model , 1986 .

[14]  M. Schlossberg.  Ethics in Psychology: Professional Standards and Cases. , 1986 .

[15]  Larry Eberlein.  Introducing ethics to beginning psychologists: a problem-solving approach , 1987 .

[16]  H. Bozdogan.  Model selection and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions , 1987 .

[17]  Michael Bommer,et al.  A behavioral model of ethical and unethical decision making , 1987 .

[18]  R. Bagozzi,et al.  On the evaluation of structural equation models , 1988 .

[19]  Jan-Bernd Lohmöller,et al.  Latent Variable Path Modeling with Partial Least Squares , 1989 .

[20]  Alan J. Dubinsky,et al.  Analyzing ethical decision making in marketing , 1989 .

[21]  Thomas Mallon,et al.  Stolen Words: Forays into the Origins and Ravages of Plagiarism , 1989 .

[22]  T. Jones.  Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model , 1991 .

[23]  I. Ajzen.  The theory of planned behavior , 1991 .

[24]  O. C. Ferrell,et al.  The impact of perceived risk and moral philosophy type on ethical decision making in business organizations , 1992 .

[25]  W. DeSarbo,et al.  An Empirical Pooling Approach for Estimating Marketing Mix Elasticities with PIMS Data , 1993 .

[26]  F. Sileo,et al.  An A‐B‐C‐D‐E Worksheet for Promoting Beneficence When Considering Ethical Issues , 1993 .

[27]  P. Simpson,et al.  Softlifting: A model of motivating factors , 1994 .

[28]  Paul Goldstein,et al.  Copyright's Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox , 1995 .

[29]  J. Vogelsang.  Plagiarism--an act of stealing. , 1997, Journal of perianesthesia nursing : official journal of the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses.

[30]  Miguel Roig,et al.  Can undergraduate students determine whether text has been plagiarized? , 1997 .

[31]  Wynne W. Chin.  The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling. , 1998 .

[32]  Gale G. Hannigan.  Librarian as Patient: A View from the Other Side. , 1998 .

[33]  P. Love,et al.  Factors influencing cheating and plagiarism among graduate students in a college of education. , 1998 .

[34]  Patricia Keith-Spiegel,et al.  Ethics in Psychology : Professional Standards and Cases , 1998 .

[35]  B. Whitley,et al.  FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH CHEATING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS: A Review , 1998 .

[36]  Gregory L. Anderson.  Cyberplagiarism: A look at the Web term paper sites , 1999 .

[37]  Melodie R. Phillips,et al.  Cybercheating: Has Morality Evaporated in Business Education?. , 2000 .

[38]  C. Campbell,et al.  Cheating Goes Hi-Tech: Online Term Paper Mills , 2000 .

[39]  D L Rubin,et al.  Targeting adolescent risk-taking behaviors: the contributions of egocentrism and sensation-seeking. , 2000, Journal of adolescence.

[40]  A. Lathrop,et al.  Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era: A Wake-Up Call , 2000 .

[41]  Donald L. Mccabe,et al.  Cheating: Why Students Do It and How We Can Help Them Stop. , 2001 .

[42]  Ellen Krupar,et al.  Mouse Click Plagiarism: The Role of Technology in Plagiarism and the Librarian's Role in Combating It , 2001, Libr. Trends.

[43]  B. Tan.  Understanding consumer ethical decision making with respect to purchase of pirated software , 2002 .

[44]  Frank Huber,et al.  Capturing Customer Heterogeneity using a Finite Mixture PLS Approach , 2002 .

[45]  Patrick M. Scanlon,et al.  Internet Plagiarism among College Students. , 2002 .

[46]  Chris J. Park,et al.  In Other (People's) Words: Plagiarism by university students--literature and lessons , 2003 .

[47]  Dennis F. Galletta,et al.  Software Piracy in the Workplace: A Model and Empirical Test , 2003, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[48]  Gail Wood,et al.  Academic original sin: Plagiarism, the Internet, and librarians , 2004 .

[49]  David A. Thomas.  How Educators Can More Effectively Understand and Combat the Plagiarism Epidemic , 2004 .

[50]  Joseph Gibaldi,et al.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , 2004 .

[51]  James T. Neill,et al.  Who cheats at university? A self-report study of dishonest academic behaviours in a sample of Australian university students , 2005 .

[52]  Donald L. Mccabe.  Cheating among college and university students: A North American perspective , 2005 .

[53]  Wendy Sutherland-Smith,et al.  The tangled web: Internet plagiarism and international students’ academic writing , 2005 .

[54]  Jennifer R. Sharkey,et al.  Cyberplagiarism and the Library , 2005 .

[55]  Paul Hellyer,et al.  Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed. , 2005 .

[56]  W. McCarthy,et al.  Danger and the Decision to Offend , 2005 .

[57]  E. Kiehl.  Using an ethical decision-making model to determine consequences for student plagiarism. , 2006, The Journal of nursing education.

[58]  Donald D. Carpenter,et al.  The Theory of Planned Behavior as a Model of Academic Dishonesty in Engineering and Humanities Undergraduates , 2007 .

[59]  D. Sisti,et al.  How Do High School Students Justify Internet Plagiarism? , 2007 .

[60]  Michael F. Young,et al.  Does Moral Judgment Go Offline When Students Are Online? A Comparative Analysis of Undergraduates' Beliefs and Behaviors Related to Conventional and Digital Cheating , 2007 .

[61]  M. Sarstedt.  A review of recent approaches for capturing heterogeneity in partial least squares path modelling , 2008 .

[62]  Guofang Wan,et al.  Digital Cheating and Plagiarism in Schools , 2008 .

[63]  Rudolf R. Sinkovics,et al.  The Use of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling in International Marketing , 2009 .

[64]  Christian M. Ringle,et al.  Finite Mixture Partial Least Squares Analysis: Methodology and Numerical Examples , 2010 .

[65]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  Response-Based Segmentation Using Finite Mixture Partial Least Squares - Theoretical Foundations and an Application to American Customer Satisfaction Index Data , 2010, Data Mining.

[66]  Dwayne D. Gremler,et al.  Reframing Customer Value in a Service-Based Paradigm: An Evaluation of a Formative Measure in a Multi-industry, Cross-cultural Context , 2010 .

[67]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  An Introduction to a Permutation Based Procedure for Multi-Group PLS Analysis: Results of Tests of Differences on Simulated Data and a Cross Cultural Analysis of the Sourcing of Information System Services Between Germany and the USA , 2010 .

[68]  M. Sarstedt,et al.  Uncovering and Treating Unobserved Heterogeneity with FIMIX-PLS: Which Model Selection Criterion Provides an Appropriate Number of Segments? , 2011 .