Cheating to Get Ahead

A recent study at Rutgers University concluded that of all the cheating students in the University today, none are cheating more than the business majors. Thinking about the reasoning for it I guess I can understand the motivation and rationale behind some of it. All one has to do is look at the recent history of what's been going on in the business world to know that this isn't all that uncommon. For example, it's all too frequently now that we hear about companies like Enron or WorldCom reporting that their books have been doctored and that the record profits they originally reported were actually record losses for the company. But what is the reason for it? Simple, making money for yourself is what motivates a lot of these guys. Many businesses these days have incentives for executives who perform or increase the profit margins of a company. Like professional athletes who get bonuses or pay increases based on performance, executives are also incentivized in a similar manner. However, the biggest difference is in the fact that athletes have to perform on the field to earn their pay; executives can achieve the same results with a spreadsheet and some creative number crunching.

But besides money is there any other motivation for this falsification or trend towards cheating in business majors? I think part of the motivation to cheat is to get ahead and stay ahead. With the best grades and best results, you are far more likely to land that plum job with the signing bonus and corner office. Previously it was probably enough to have a degree from a university with a reputable name but that name on the piece of paper hanging on your wall is no longer enough. More and more companies are finding that it isn't necessary to hire someone from Harvard if you're looking for Harvard material. Smaller universities and colleges are churning out students with just as much capability with just as much, if not more skill, than some of the traditional big name schools. Although this trend seems to be on the rise, there is still a bit of the 'old boys network' whereby grads of a particular alma mater may have more appeal for a recruiter than others.

That being the case, there is more motivation for students out there to cheat in order to have a better grade point average, higher academic credentials or even a more diverse class listing. Whatever the case, in business you can doctor your books and be a winner. Similarly, you can doctor your test scores and still yield the results you want. What are the consequences? Well, in the case of cheating on business exams, if you're not caught, probably nothing at all. This is because in the business world, depending on what kind of deal you make, you could single-handedly sink a company but if your contract leaves you in the clear, you have nothing to worry about. What do I mean by that? Well take a look at some of the recent scandals with companies like Enron and such. The executives in the company knew the end was near but they used their insider information to set themselves up to make a profit despite the knowledge the company was in big trouble.

These executives and business leaders encouraged the average worker to continue investing in the company and when the bottom fell out, the employees were the ones bearing the brunt of the loss and the executives were sitting smuggly in court smiling at having turned a profit while remaining relatively unscathed by the turn of events. This goes back to their college days where the only person likely to suffer is the person who doesn't cheat while the business student has everything to gain. In business there's no clear case of life or death. If you're a doctor and you cheat on your physiology exams, you're probably one of the most dangerous doctors out there. If you cheated in school you may have gotten the best grades but when it comes time to apply that supposed knowledge, you'll more likely end up maiming someone rather than saving them.

Similarly, an engineer or scientist can also deal in life or death circumstances. An aerospace engineer designing a plane will probably want to pay more attention rather than cheat because if they cheat, they may end up designing a plane which wouldn't be able to lift a feather. In that case, it could have disasterous results. I think the motivation of a lot of business majors to get ahead is solely based on the fact that they have that in-built desire to win at any and all costs. Some of the people I went to college with were very much in that vein where everything was a competition and if they lost they took it much harder than anyone else did. It certainly pays to be a winner but it also pays to be honest and ethical in your work.