Higher Education Corruption Research Articles

Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education

Bribery is a complex and critical issue in higher education (HE), causing severe economic and societal harm. Traditionally, most scholarship on HE corruption has focused on institutional factors in developing countries and insights into the psychological and motivational factors that drive HE bribery on the micro-level mechanisms are virtually non-existent. To close this research gap, this study investigates the connection between study-related burnout and university students’ willingness to offer bribes to their lecturers to pass important exams. Conducting a vignette-based quasi-experimental replication study with 624 university students in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands we find that university students in three countries differentiate sharply between different shades of bribery and that a majority accept using emotional influence tactics to pass (failed) exams. In contrast, offering a helping hand or money (i.e., darker shades of bribery) to their lecturer was less acceptable. Study-related burnout is associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in these darker shades of bribery and students’ commitment to the public interest is but a weak factor in preventing unethical behavior. In summary, this study provides solid empirical evidence that university students are likely to use emotional influence tactics violating both the ethical codes of conduct and the formalized bureaucratic procedures of HE examination, particularly if they suffer from study-related burnout. However, the accelerating effect of burnout on bribery is conditional in that it only holds for darker shades of bribery. HE institutions may benefit from implementing the four-eye principle and from launching awareness campaigns that enable lecturers to better recognize these tactics and engage students in creating a transparent environment for testing, grading, and collaboration that is resistant to bribery.

University autonomy in Ukraine: Higher education corruption and the state

University autonomy in Ukraine: Higher education corruption and the state

Protesting Putin or protecting rights? Media reflections on reflective student activism

ABSTRACTThis paper considers new challenges for Russian universities and the state, including flourishing and widespread corruption, politicization and state pressure, and student activism, and hypothesizes on how these three may be linked. To do so, this paper uses systematic research of media accounts from 2007 to 2012 in order to investigate student activism and its possible links with corruption and university politicization. This paper develops a theoretical extension that explains the corruption and coercion mechanism as applied to student activism, and places emphasis on higher education corruption and state pressure applied to universities. This study concludes that students are more interested in fighting for their economic rights and fulfilment of contractual obligations by the universities, while remaining politically inactive. This is normal for modern Russian society, where market reforms in higher education gain momentum, while democratic changes in the country remain very slow.

Higher Education Corruption in Ukraine: Opinions and Estimates

The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees the right of education. The law says “the state guarantees free access to preschool, secondary, professional, vocational, and higher education in the state and municipal educational institutions.” In reality the positions of the free, state-funded higher education have been seriously undermined by the growing corruption in admissions, grading, and graduation. The president of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, pointed out corruption in education in his address to the students at Kiev National University on March 9, 2007: “We are talking about the way to eradicate corruption in higher education institutions, starting from the entry examinations; how to create an independent system of conducting competitive examinations; how to make it possible for the state funds that now extend to 54 percent of all students in higher education institutions to support those specialists requested by the state who come through truly transparent and honest competition.” Symbolically, in June 2007 the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine hosted a conference in Kiev titled “the major corruption schemes in the education system and the ways to eradicate them.”

Vouchers, Tests, Loans, Privatization: Will They Help (Fight) Higher Education Corruption in Russia?

Vouchers, Tests, Loans, Privatization: Will They Help (Fight) Higher Education Corruption in Russia?

Glossary of Higher Education Corruption with Explanations

Glossary of Higher Education Corruption with Explanations

Glossary of Higher Education Corruption

Glossary of Higher Education Corruption

Vouchers, Tests, Loans, Privatization: Will They Help (Fight) Higher Education Corruption in Russia?

Vouchers, Tests, Loans, Privatization: Will They Help (Fight) Higher Education Corruption in Russia?

Higher Education Corruption in the World Media: Prevalence, Patterns, and Forms

Higher Education Corruption in the World Media: Prevalence, Patterns, and Forms

Higher Education Corruption in Ukraine as Reflected in the Nation's Media

Higher Education Corruption in Ukraine as Reflected in the Nation's Media

Corruption in Higher Education

Many observers have noted that corruption in higher education is widespread in the states of the former Soviet Union. Little empirical evidence is available, however. This article examines some theoretical approaches to the study of corruption, and presents empirical data on corruption in higher education from Russia and Azerbaijan, collected by the authors, in the light of these theoretical positions. While both states examined here have a common political heritage, higher education corruption appears to be of a diverging character in the two states. We suggest that social capital offers a helpful theory in understanding the varying levels of corruption encountered in the two states. Social capital theory also perhaps suggests that significant reductions in the extent of corruption will not be achieved by purely technical means (such as changes in organisational arrangements), but require a broader approach to achieve a strengthened civil society....