The Importance of Academic Integrity in a Business Environment

This essay explores the concept of academic plagiarism, defining it as the use of others' work without proper attribution and emphasizing its detrimental effects in a professional business environment. It delves into different types of plagiarism, including direct, self, mosaic, and accidental plagiarism, highlighting the importance of academic integrity as a commitment to honesty, trust, and fairness. The essay argues that academic integrity is crucial for professionalism in business, as it fosters trust among colleagues and clients, promoting ethical conduct and responsible behavior. It concludes by underscoring the negative consequences of plagiarism, such as dismissal from academic institutions, and reiterates the importance of adhering to principles of honesty, fairness, and responsibility to maintain academic integrity and achieve success in the competitive business world. The essay also references relevant literature to support its arguments.

WHAT IS ACADEMIC
PLAGIARISM AND WHY IS
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
RELEVANT TO
PROFESSIONALISM IS A
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Academic plagiarism refers to as a concept which occurs if a writer uses more than four
words similar in repetition from any of the printed sources without any change is termed as
academic plagiarism. It is an intentional attempt to copy others work in order to represent other
people work in their own name (Cronan, Mullins and Douglas, 2018). But this is not good in
professional business environment. It is mainly because of the reason that in the competitive
world there is tough competition and many a times people takes wrong steps to fight the
competition. Therefore, to face the competition within the business environment the people must
work with academic integrity which is very essential in this globalized and competitive world.
The present assignment will focus on academic plagiarism and reason for which academic
integrity is necessary within the professional business environment.
MAIN BODY
Academic Plagiarism
In simple words plagiarism can be defined as the presentation of someone else idea or
any work or piece of writing under the name of the person using the work without the permission
of the person who has originally completed the work earlier. This plagiarism is mainly done in
writing profession and in educational field. In writing profession one writer can copy material
form other writer, from some other published or unpublished data, from different websites and
many other sources (Lipson, 2019). For educational purpose the children copy their assignment
directly from internet through different types of websites.
Plagiarism is a matter of fact because of the reason that it is a breach of academic
integrity. Integrity refers to a principle of honesty which the writers need to have while doing
any writing work because it is not ethical to copy other work and provide in market in name of
other. Now- a- days plagiarism is increasing very rapidly because everyone wants to save there
time and for this they just copy and paste in their work. There are many different types of
plagiarism which person can do. First is direct plagiarism wherein the whole work is copied in
the same form without any changes. The other type is self plagiarism which occurs while the
student submit its own work previously done by him or fer only or mixes some par of earlier
work and some new work (Vehviläinen, Löfström and Nevgi, 2018).
The third type is mosaic plagiarism which occurs when student or other person uses
phrases without sourcing them or writes synonyms instead of original words of author's language

and keeps the other things similar. This is also known as patch writing as only some portion from
a word are removed or there synonyms are added instead. The last type of plagiarism is
accidental plagiarism wherein the person forgets to cite the sources or either wrongly misquote
the source or unintentionally paraphrases the source by using same words which leads to
plagiarism (Newton, 2016).
Relevance of academic integrity
Academic integrity is defined as demonstration of commitment, honesty and moral values
while working in an academic set up. Basically it means avoiding plagiarism and this integrity
makes sure that the appropriate credit is given to the person whose work has been used instead of
saying that the work is done by the other person. Integrity basically means that doing the right
thing even if anyone is not watching (What is academic integrity and why is it important? 2019).
Academic integrity is very necessary for professionalism within business environment
because of many different reasons. The major reason is that if a person works with integrity than
other people can have complete trust on the another person. This is trust is very necessary
because of the reason that if the client does not have trust on the other person with whom he is
dealing then the work will not be accomplished in the proper way.
For students to work in professional business environment it is very necessary to have
moral and ethical values attached to then as it reflects their personality and character and their
credibility at their workplace. Therefore, it is necessary for these people to maintain the
academic integrity as there is tough competition in the professional business world. However, for
maintaining the academic integrity there are some values which student and other professionals
can follow to have a successful life in the competitive business world.
The major principle is honesty that is the person needs to be honest with its working and
should not lie with any person. The another principle is trust that is the person should be
trustworthy so that any person can believe on him other and can share their work with another
person. The third value or principle is fairness of the work. It is necessary because of the reason
that if the work is not done fairly then it will not result in accomplishment of the work properly
and effectively. Also, it is necessary that if the person has used the work of some other person
then it should be mentioned and the credit must be given to the deserving person (Bretag, ed.,
2016). The last principle which needs to be followed if academic integrity needs to be
maintained is taking the responsibility. The underlying reason behind this is that if a person uses

the work of some other person then it needs to have full responsibility of that work. That is if
anything goes wrong then all the responsibility is of the person who has used the work of other
person (Reisinger, Rutledge and Conklin, 2016).
CONCLUSION
With the study of the assignment it can be concluded that academic plagiarism is not a
good practice to be followed in the academic work as it is not ethical and morally correct. Also
this may lead to many problems for the student or person doing plagiarism as it is not a good
practice. Rather the students can be dismissed from their college or universities. For decreasing
the act of plagiarism concept of academic integrity is promoted. The present report highlighted
the meaning and different types of plagiarism like direct, self plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism and
many other different types. At last the assignment highlighted the relevance of academic
integrity and its principle like honesty, fairness, trust and many other.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bretag, T. ed., 2016. Handbook of academic integrity. Singapore: Springer.
Cronan, T.P., Mullins, J.K. and Douglas, D.E., 2018. Further understanding factors that explain
freshman business students’ academic integrity intention and behavior: Plagiarism and
sharing homework. Journal of Business Ethics. 147(1). pp.197-220.
Lipson, C., 2019. Doing honest work in college: How to prepare citations, avoid plagiarism, and
achieve real academic success. University of Chicago Press.
Newton, P., 2016. Academic integrity: a quantitative study of confidence and understanding in
students at the start of their higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education. 41(3). pp.482-497.
Reisinger, K.B., Rutledge, P.C. and Conklin, S.M., 2016. Study drugs and academic integrity:
the role of beliefs about an academic honor code in the prediction of nonmedical
prescription drug use for academic enhancement. Journal of College Student
Development. 57(1). pp.65-78.
Vehviläinen, S., Löfström, E. and Nevgi, A., 2018. Dealing with plagiarism in the academic
community: Emotional engagement and moral distress. Higher Education. 75(1). pp.1-
18.
Online
What is academic integrity and why is it important? 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.bauer.uh.edu/current/academic-honesty.php>