Entrepreneurship education and plagiarism : tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

Purpose – This paper seeks to contribute to entrepreneurship education research by exploring entrepreneurship students' views of plagiarism, and their ability to recognise and avoid plagiarism. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a questionnaire administered to 205 undergraduate university entrepreneurship students, combining self-reported data with behavioural measures. Findings – The results illustrate that, although entrepreneurship students have a clear conceptual understanding of plagiarism and how to avoid it, and they demonstrate an ability to accurately recognise material which needs to be referenced, they do not see use of non-referenced material as being in breach of academic guidelines. The students also perceive lecturers to be more concerned with plagiarism than the students themselves or the university. Research limitations/implications – The research identifies a clear divergence between students' claims about their ethical stance regarding plagiarism and their ability to recognise it as a breach of academic guidelines. Practical implications – The practical implications for entrepreneurship education are: first, the university needs to emphasise to entrepreneurship students that plagiarism is a breach of academic guidelines which will be treated as a serious offence. Second, the university, in partnership with lecturers, must adopt experiential learning approaches to improve plagiarism avoidance skills. Originality/value – The study supports previous research which identified that students held strong ethical views regarding plagiarism and claimed not to engage in it. However, this paper highlights the divergence between these claims and the students' ability to recognise plagiarism as a breach of academic guidelines – thereby highlighting the need to enhance academic guidelines on plagiarism.