(Business 2.0) – At a recent faculty meeting, I listened as a colleague described in painful detail the amount of time she spent trying to do something about an MBA student suspected of cheating on an exam. Her advice to the rest of us? Don't bother. Then, at a faculty-student dinner, several students complained about the school's efforts to pull the plug on the Free Rider Home Page, an underground website where students post solutions to case studies and problems for their counterparts to access. And another griped about how difficult it is to follow the honor code because professors enforce different policies and it's all too confusing.

That got me thinking about a few questions raised by the recent financial scandals: What role does higher education play in all of this? Can you trace elements of the Enron debacle to Jeff Skilling's and Andy Fastow's days at business school? It's an intriguing question considering that a new study from the Aspen Institute suggests that only one in five B-school students believe an MBA will teach "a lot" about how to handle ethical conflicts.

One familiar argument holds that if people haven't learned ethics and values by the time they're adults, it's naive to expect higher education to step in and save their souls. The counterargument says that teaching moral philosophy and various ethical frameworks in universities can help shape students' careers. But I'm not buying either one. Universities can influence how people behave, but they do that mostly through the subtle messages they convey about appropriate and inappropriate behavior and its consequences--not by what's taught in class.

Look at what most students "learn" about cheating. Because universities set out to educate--not punish--their students, sanctions for plagiarism (and other forms of misconduct, such as theft and driving under the influence) are typically light. At Stanford, the most common penalty for a conduct violation in 2001-02 was a one-quarter suspension and 40 hours of community service.

On top of that, very seldom do students report the misconduct of fellow students--even when honor codes require them to--because, well, what rising B-school star wants a reputation as a snitch? Professors also have little incentive to pursue violations, since the judicial process at most universities is so arduous. That's partly why, according to a study by Rutgers professor Don McCabe, a third of faculty members don't report cheating. Another national survey found that 75 percent of 2,100 students admit to having cheated at least once.

According to Laurette Beeson, Stanford's judicial affairs adviser, cheating is more prevalent than it was 20 years ago for several reasons. First, students feel more pressure from parents and peers to get the grades that'll get them the best jobs. Second, the Internet has made it easier to copy material, whether it's an MP3 or another student's paper. Third, students are responding to a shift in attitude: Everyone's doing it. Why shouldn't I?

The parallels with corporate America are obvious. There's more pressure to cheat--to meet expectations, budgets, and investors' demands. And cheating is easier to pull off. Investment banks and accounting firms are only too ready to show companies, for a fee, how to bend accounting regulations and tax laws. Then there's the presumption that everybody is doing it. "Don't be a Boy Scout" is heard far too often by execs who object to skirting ethical boundaries.

My diagnosis: There's too much of the ends justifying the means. Turning in someone else's work may help meet a deadline or get a higher grade, but it represents a separation of the identity of the person from his or her work. Work shouldn't just be something to be performed in order to get something, but a reflection of someone's skills and character.

There was a time when most companies also took pride in what their employees did and how they did it--not just in the results, tallied up on a financial Ouija board. Returning to this notion seems to be one step on the road to recovery. But hey, what do I know? I still do my own writing.

Business 2.0 columnist Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.