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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 briber...

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Autores principales: Weißmüller, Kristina S., De Waele, Lode
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8638650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34876773
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1
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author Weißmüller, Kristina S.
De Waele, Lode
author_facet Weißmüller, Kristina S.
De Waele, Lode
author_sort Weißmüller, Kristina S.
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description 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. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1.
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spelling pubmed-86386502021-12-03 Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education Weißmüller, Kristina S. De Waele, Lode Res High Educ Article 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. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1. Springer Netherlands 2021-12-02 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8638650/ /pubmed/34876773 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Weißmüller, Kristina S.
De Waele, Lode
Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title_full Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title_fullStr Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title_full_unstemmed Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title_short Would you Bribe your Lecturer? A Quasi-experimental Study on Burnout and Bribery in Higher Education
title_sort would you bribe your lecturer? a quasi-experimental study on burnout and bribery in higher education
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8638650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34876773
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-021-09669-1
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