Impacts of globalisation on the academic profession : emerging corruption risks in higher education

In an environment in which higher education is treated as an aspect of economic policy, universities are coming under increasing pressure from governments and transnational institutions to become more entrepreneurial and responsive to the market. This new order of academic work has been described as ‘academic capitalism’, and its demands often clash with the traditional structures and values of the university. Researchers and policy-makers are only beginning to understand how the clash of old and new in the academic workplace affects corruption risks. While evidence of corruption is difficult to collect, much is known about the structural factors that tend to increase its likelihood. Five key structural changes in twenty-first-century academia, outlined below, are known in social science research to be linked with dishonest and corrupt behaviour. These emerging corruption risks require further empirical study to understand how the changing structure of universities might affect the ethical behaviour of academics and university administrators.