Predicting students unethical behaviour: Do attitudes lead towards intentions?

Abstract

In the last several years, the amount of research on the lack of academic integrity and unethical behaviour of students has increased. On the one hand, technological development has spurred unethical behaviour, while on the other hand it has enabled better control of the same behaviour. This raises the question if the students behave unethically and why, and which factors influence their unethical behaviour. The research was conducted on a sample of 622 university students. The aim of the study was to determine if students’ personal attitudes on unethical behaviour influence their intentions to engage in unethical behaviour, i.e. the aim is to determine the connection between the attitudes and the intended behaviour. The results of the regression analysis show a statistically significant positive correlation between the students’ general personal attitudes toward unethical behaviour and their future intentions toward unethical behaviour. This leads to the necessity for control and supervision regarding unethical behaviour and a stricter approach to such behaviour, which would ultimately result in the reduction of intentions toward further unethical behaviour among students.

Keywords

• attitudes
• intentions
• unethical behaviour
• marketing
• theory of planned behaviour