Student Cheating Gone International: The Role of Social Networks and Cultural Intelligence in Affecting the Fate of the Deviant

Abstract

The continuing internationalization of business education offers MBA students a unique cross-cultural environment in which to develop their business acumen. This pluralistic context can produce uncertainty regarding appropriate ethical norms among the cohort and uncertainty in how students react to peers who are perceived to violate ethical norms. In this paper, we explore the violation of ethical norms through peer reactions to academic cheating and examine the effects of peer ostracization on perceived cheaters’ overall academic performance. We further explore how cultural intelligence may help cheaters avoid their peers’ social sanctions. In a three-part longitudinal study of an international MBA cohort, we predicted and found that cheating led to diminished academic performance, mediated by a reduction in friendship ties. Moreover, we found that cultural intelligence moderated the loss of friendship ties, attenuating the negative effect of reduced friendship ties on performance. In general, our findings suggest that peers can apply effective social sanctions to those they perceive as violating social norms, but that the impact of such sanctions may be lessened by the deviant individuals’ cultural intelligence.