Ethical сodes as a management tool for higher educational institutions in Russia

Abstract

Purpose: to generalize the current practices of developing and utilizing ethical codes in Russian universities and their applications as a management tool. Methodology: A comparative analysis of the Russian legislation and a monitoring of information from the universities’ websites on the ethics codes and/or ethical commissions in force was done. Findings: the authors produced a systematic analysis of current situation implementation of ethical codes in the universities of the Russian Federation with emphasis on the role of ethical commissions. Due to a lack of the established general rules, the issues of ethics codes and ethical commissions are treated by each university on its own discretion. It gives rise to several problems related to the unified legal status of students as well as academic staff and complicates the managing the higher education system in Russia. Originality and contribution: analysis of regulating ethical standards in both federal legislation and the local normative acts of the universities was done. The study revealed a lack of the adequate regulation of ethical standards in the academic institutions on behalf of the legislator and the leadership of top universities in the country. The authors suggest creating a unified ethical code of a university student as a tool for managing operation of Russian universities.