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© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2015
Tracey Ann Bretag
Handbook of Academic Integrity
10.1007/978-981-287-079-7_60-1
Strategic Internationalization in Higher
Education: Contexts, Organizations, and
Implications for Academic Integrity
Brian L. Heuser
1
, Allie E. Martindale
1
and David J. Lazo
1
(1)Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University,
230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
Brian L. Heuser (Corresponding author)
Email: brian.l.heuser@vanderbilt.edu
Allie E. Martindale
Email: allie.martindale@vanderbilt.edu
David J. Lazo
Email: david.j.lazo@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract
National and institutional priorities for internationalization in higher education often greatly shape the
context for academic integrity. To be sure, tertiary internationalization itself does not cause academic
corruption, but it does significantly expand the possibilities for how different forms of fraud and
corruption can be exchanged within and between institutions and systems. Such possibilities also
expand the range of options for individual actors to leverage weaknesses in other systems for their
own unscrupulous benefit. In the same ways that globalization has expanded possibilities for
economic development, internationalization brings with it dramatically enhanced educational
opportunities. And as with the different systems of financial globalization, where higher education
systems are underdeveloped, the propensity for corrupt practices in academia greatly increases, often
because of the lack of regulatory and compliance mechanisms at the institutional or systemic levels.
Furthermore, significant differences in social and academic norms pose additional challenges related
to the interpretation and practice of academic integrity. At the same time, it is possible that
isomorphic pressures exerted by more secure and accountable systems can, over time, help to bring
about much needed institutional reforms to safeguard academic integrity.