ETHICAL REFLECTIONS AND PATHWAYS FOR STRENGTHENING ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: INSIGHTS FROM THE HARBIN UNIVERSITY AND WUHAN UNIVERSITY CASE

In the era of the knowledge economy, academic resources—such as research funding, project approvals, publication outlets, and institutional recognition—have become increasingly scarce and strategically valuable. The expansion of public administrative authority and the instrumentalization of academic evaluation within higher education have created conditions under which administrative discretion can be converted into private gain. Educational administration represents an activity deeply intertwined with ethics. The moral dimension of administrative action embodies commitments to fairness, justice, democracy, and responsibility. This article examines the ethical dimensions of academic corruption that arise under the influence of administrative power in Chinese higher education. Drawing on a targeted literature synthesis and detailed case analysis, the study articulates the mechanisms through which administrative actors may appropriate academic resources, the institutional vulnerabilities that enable such practices, and the normative functions of educational administrative ethics in preventing corruption. This paper explores the ethical foundations and challenges of educational administrative ethics within Chinese higher education, with a particular focus on the Wuhan University corruption case. Through theoretical and case-based analysis, the study reveals how the concentration of administrative power, the erosion of moral conscience, and institutional deficiencies jointly lead to ethical degradation. The findings suggest that administrative academic corruption is primarily driven by weakened ethical responsibility among officials, concentrated discretionary authority, and inadequate transparency and accountability systems. To address these challenges, the paper proposes an integrated set of reforms—comprising institutional redesign, strengthened ethical socialization, procedural transparency, and legal reinforcement—to realign administrator incentives with the public interest and to safeguard scholarly integrity.The research further proposes a threefold pathway for strengthening administrative ethics: legislative codification, ethical rule-making, and conscience-based education. Integrating insights from both theoretical discourse and empirical evidence, the paper contributes to a comprehensive framework for understanding and improving ethical governance in higher education.