Article summary
Abstract
Public universities are expected to uphold ethical governance and institutional accountability, yet
the convergence of administrative power and promotion ambition systematically generates ethical de
viation. Drawing on three major theoretical frameworks — Keltner et al.'s power-approach model,
Bandura's moral disengagement theory, and Ashforth and Anand's normalization-of-corruption thesis
this study proposes a four-stage conceptual model situated within the context of Bihar's public univer
sities. The model demonstrates how structural power, promotion-oriented instrumentalism, and weak
accountability mechanisms may contribute to the normalization of ethically problematic organization
al practices. The available literature indicates limited psychologically grounded research examining ad
ministrative ethics within Bihar's university system. This study therefore addresses a significant lacuna
in both Indian higher education research and the organizational psychology literature as applied to
regional institutional contexts, representing one of the few psychologically grounded analyses in this
domain.