Ethical capacity under pressure: a developmental behavioral-ethics framework explaining technology-enabled academic misconduct

Why do students exposed to identical technological opportunities make very different ethical choices? Drawing on achievement-goal theory, resilience research, the fraud-diamond framework, and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study develops a behavioral-ethics framework in which technology-enabled academic misconduct (TEM), the unauthorized use of online assignment-assistance services and generative AI, is theorized as a manifestation of ethical capacity, a theoretical construct rather than a directly measured variable. Survey data from 728 undergraduate business students were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Mastery-approach goal orientation was associated with greater resilience (β = .23) and lower burnout (β = –.34) and rationalization (β = –.15); rationalization was the strongest correlate of both unethical intention (β = .56) and TEM (β = .26). Findings should be interpreted as associative rather than causal given the cross-sectional design.