Abstract:

The paper looks at ethical and unethical issues in higher education. A lapse in ethical leadership could be described as a period of unethical, corrupt, or illegal behaviour by a leader. Ethical issues are a global challenge. Most ethical research focusses on students not on leadership. The purpose of the paper is to assess interventions to mitigate unethical conduct of leaders in higher education institutions in order to promote good governance. Unethical conducts in the institutions of higher education exceed the favourable ones. It is important to note that leaders in higher education intuitions come across countless ethical issues and dilemmas. There is a vast body of literature on ethical leadership in business and government, but research shows that there is very little done on this specific topic. Hence, there are so many scandals on media about unethical conduct in higher education. As this topic is under researched that calls for concern and perpetuates unethical behaviour. Higher education institutions need to introduce interventions that will promote ethical conduct by building characters of university leaders. Leaders in higher education should demonstrate ethical traits and take a responsibility as human beings, as citizens and public servant, as educators, as educational administrators and as educational leaders. The paper will also reveal the response of the selected institution, which is Durban University of Technology, to unethical leaders. This paper will address the following question: What are ethical interventions necessary to mitigate unethical conduct in higher education? Constructivism paradigm will be used in this study which enables the research to employ the case study research design. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted to gather data for the study. The intention is to interview all DUT HoDs and Programme Coordinators. However, data saturation will determine the exact number of participants to be interviewed. Therefore, conclusions will be drawn after empirical data has been collected and checked against theoretical data. The corruption control theory will be used.

Keywords:

Ethical conduct, ethical leadership, ethical dilemmas unethical conduct and interventions.