Strategic Internationalization in Higher Education: Contexts, Organizations, and Implications for Academic Integrity

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.