I took my undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, where we took the concept of honor, and the Honor System, very seriously. UVA is highly regarded for its strict (and completely student-run) honor system, with one sanction for students found guilty of an honor violation: expulsion. The idea behind that was simple. When a new student applies to UVA, the application materials explain to them how the concept of honor fits into university life, and the applicant acknowledges their understanding of that. Then, when they are admitted, their orientation includes a very positive, student-led discussion about the university community’s expectations for honor and the benefits of adhering to those principles. Of course, the orientation also explains the penalty for failing to meet those expectations, so students know what happens if they are dishonest. If they lie, cheat, or steal, and are found guilty of an honor violation by their peers, then out they go. The rest of the student body does not want a liar in their midst. In fact, the University has even taken back degrees from graduates if it is determined they committed an honor violation while they were a student.

Since then I have taught at two other universities that purport to have strong honor systems, though both have multiple possible sanctions rather than simply expulsion. Their logic is that the honor system provides a means of education, and if someone makes a mistake and acts dishonestly, then a system of probation or suspension, along with counseling (all dependent upon the nature of the offense), provides a way to rehabilitate that behavior and help them learn how to be an honorable member of the community. If someone cannot learn, and has repeat offenses, then they can be expelled, but otherwise the school will try to teach them what their parents obviously didn’t.

Personally, I think the second approach is a load of crap.

Cheating on a project or stealing ideas from someone else is not really what you could call a “mistake.” A mistake is something you do because you do not know any better, or because you are not paying attention; turning left when you should have turned right, for instance, or dialing the wrong number, or mixing up measurements. On the other hand, doing something that you know you are not supposed to do is a deliberate act, and your only “mistake” was allowing yourself to get caught.

The pressure to come up with new ideas can lead to unethical behavior among your employees. Whether it’s a looming deadline, a desire to look better than their colleagues, or just a fear of having nothing new come to mind, there may be some incentive to bend (or break) the rules of ethical behavior and steal someone else’s work. You need to ask yourself how many chances to give someone who acts unethically. If you are trying to create an environment of trust, does a violation of that trust warrant firing someone, or do you prefer to educate them and giving them another chance (and taking the risk they will do it again)?

I would suggest that the stronger the approach you are going to take, the more careful you also need to be about distinguishing between deliberate actions and true mistakes. Knowledge work and creative industries in particular have plenty of opportunities for unethical behavior, but also plenty of opportunities for unintentional plagiarism. An employee who presents an idea that sounds awfully similar to something you saw on a website may have simply seen the same thing and absorbed it into their subconscious, making it part of their general knowledge and subsequently using it in their work. An employee who has copied text from a website and pasted it into their own work, formatting the text to match their own document, has done something deliberate. Those are two different things, and how you deal with them should be different, too.

It’s up to you how many chances to give someone before letting them go. If it were up to me, they would be gone after the first time they did something deliberate. You may have a different attitude, but if so, then you are deciding that a certain amount of dishonesty among your employees is OK with you.

You also have to think about your own legal liability. Your firm is accountable for your employees’ behavior, and if they violate intellectual property laws or financial regulations, your company may face civil suits or criminal charges. You may think that, since cheating within the company may not have the same legal liability as cheating your customers, it’s not as important, BUT if you let people think it’s OK to cheat others within the company, they are not going to see anything wrong with cheating others from the outside. If you do not create a culture of ethical behavior within your company, then you are responsible for anything that goes wrong.

Remember, just because it’s the first time you have caught them does not mean it’s the first time they have done it. A zero-tolerance policy for deliberately dishonorable behavior probably will not stop all dishonesty in your organization, but it will help create an environment of trust. At the same time, emphasizing the benefits of a trusting and ethical environment can encourage collaboration among your employees when no one feels threatened that their ideas will get ripped off.