Ethical behavior in the work environment and its effects on academic misconduct

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to analyze the effects that ethical behavior in the work environment has on attitudes towards cheating in the academic environment among accounting sciences students.
 Methodology: A survey was carried out with students from a public HEI, totaling 140 participants. For data analysis, structural equations and factorial analysis were used as technique.
 Results: The findings show that, in addition to ethical behavior in the workplace, there are other variables that lead students to have academically dishonest attitudes. In this way, ethical behavior influences the unethical behavior of accounting students at the HEI studied, and, although with still small effects, the experiences lived and taken as ethical in the professional environment tend to be related to an evasion of dishonest attitudes in the academic sphere, that is, a better corporate ethical rank results in a smaller presence of cheating behaviors in academia.
 Study Contributions: The study contributes to reflection on the improvement of students' behavior in the work environment and how this affects the academy, showing the importance of discussing ethics in professional and educational environments. It reveals the importance of ethics not only in the academic environment, but also in the business environment, so that there is a convergence between both.