• Parasitic businesses, or institutional parasites, make money by damaging the reputation of a more well-established institution
• These kinds of practices thrive when rules and regulatory frameworks are overly complex, allowing them to operate undetected
• Assistant Professor Jukka Rintamäki at Aalto University School of Business outlined three possible responses to finding out you have institutional parasites

Essay mills are on the rise again. Much to the chagrin of university chancellors and education ministers, one in six students worldwide report having paid someone else to ghostwrite assignments for them.

It can be a lucrative business model; it is certainly a prolific one. A list circulated among British and Australian officials in 2021 identified 2,000 websites that offered “contract cheating” services. Both countries, as well as Ireland, New Zealand, and several US states, have now outlawed these practices.

But, why are they such a problem?

Understanding institutional parasites

The issue arises because these companies are parasitic in nature. They profit from undermining the reputations of larger, more established institutions in the long term. While essay mills have received a lot of media attention, this phenomenon is not restricted to the higher education sector.

For instance, there are tax advisers who specialise in aggressive tax avoidance. Their income is tied to the same tax systems they continually seek to exploit by searching for loopholes. Similarly, some audit consultants in the clothing industry help factories pass human rights certificate audits when facilities do not comply with the necessary standards. In doing so, they damage the integrity of the auditing process they rely on to survive.

This exploitation often attracts the attention of governing bodies or watchdog organisations tasked with ensuring the continued stability of an institution or industry.

According to Assistant Professor Jukka Rintamäki at Aalto University School of Business, the relationships between these governing bodies and parasitic businesses (also known as institutional parasites) tend to be tense and dynamic.

This is because both groups tend to favour stability, as their livelihoods are tied to the institution’s rules, norms, and practices, but their conflicting goals lead to change. One exists to preserve, the other to exploit the status quo.

Take essay mills as an example. By allowing students to buy assignments to submit as their own work, they “violate the basic assumption that assignments are the students’ own work,” Rintamäki writes in a study co-authored with researchers at the University of Nottingham and City University of London.

“Essay mills rely on higher-education providers to create work for them; at the same time, they fabricate academic out-puts that cast doubt over the value of degrees, which may ultimately undermine the legitimacy of higher education.”

The researchers caveat this observation with the fact that essay mills can help to maintain universities’ symbolic appearances by allowing them to recruit more students, give them good grades, and graduate them at a higher rate.

“A leech that visibly sucks blood from a body tends to be removed quickly. However, hidden internal parasites like roundworms may go unnoticed for long periods. But, if they move to other areas, or if they proliferate too much, they become life-threatening. Hiding in the shadows is key to institutional parasites’ success too.”

– Jukka Rintamäki

However, this is of no benefit to the underlying quality of students’ learning experiences, and any symbolic advantages are at best short-term. If allowed to continue without reform, the authenticity of degree qualifications may be questioned, resulting in widespread reputational damage to the higher education sector.

To prevent damaging scenarios like this from unfolding, governing bodies will typically seek to eject parasitic businesses, much as a dog owner would de-flea their pet. This leads to institutional change, despite governing bodies’ preference for stability.

Yet, not all paths lead to success. The road to reform is difficult to navigate, and institutions may often go astray.

What can be done about them?

Rintamäki and his co-authors outline three possible responses once it has been discovered that institutional parasites have spread throughout an institution or industry.

First comes the path of least resistance. In such cases, policing organisations may have little interest or capacity to intervene. The result is that parasitic businesses continue to spread and damage the institution’s credibility so adherence to the rules breaks down. The researchers refer to this as “institutional drift”.

The damage can be long-lasting. Trust in the institution, and the select groups and individuals tasked with upholding its reputation, may be eroded to such an extent that there is a risk of being permanently stigmatised. Even if governing bodies are later able to get rid of the vampiric businesses plaguing them, their image may remain sullied long afterwards.

A second approach is to introduce extra layers of rules and make bureaucratic processes more stringent. However, the researchers warn this may be ineffective at dealing with the threat in the long term.

This is because the new rules, regulations, and standards pile up in such a way that it makes institutional processes more complex and creates new loopholes for parasitic businesses to exploit. Implementing fresh policies and technologies designed to combat the exploits of these firms may require institutions to retrain staff and onboard new experts. This increasing complexity is called “institutional layering” by the researchers.

Last but not least is the path of “institutional reform”.

“‘Reform’ entails reconfiguring the existing institutional arrangement by removing rules that benefit or enable parasites and instituting new rules that work against them,” says Rintamäki.

Reform is usually an alternative to layering, though it may also take place after layering if previous efforts were unsuccessful, or even simultaneously. Rather than adding to the pile of rules and regulations, it is an approach which focuses more on adapting and streamlining what is already present.

The difference between reform and rule-dumping

Crucially, reform targets the root conditions that allow institutional parasites to form and spread: namely, the complexity of institutional structures, the demand for and supply of parasitic services, and opportunities for them to exploit loopholes. In particular, the complexity of rules and regulatory frameworks helps parasitic businesses to operate undetected.

“A leech that visibly sucks blood from a body tends to be removed quickly. However, hidden internal parasites like roundworms may go unnoticed for long periods. But, if they move to other areas, or if they proliferate too much, they become life-threatening. Hiding in the shadows is key to institutional parasites’ success too,” says Rintamäki.

In the specific case of essay mills, he and his co-authors suggest opportunities and demand for parasites could be slashed by switching to face-to-face assessments. Decreasing class sizes may also help lecturers get to know students better, and more closely monitor their learning progress.

“‘Reform’ entails reconfiguring the existing institutional arrangement by removing rules that benefit or enable parasites and instituting new rules that work against them.”

– Jukka Rintamäki

In short, to achieve success and maintain the reputations of their respective institutions and industries, governing bodies must embrace the necessity for change, even though their preference is for stability. In the famous words of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

These changes must be strategic and precise. Rather than attempting to squash parasites under a weight of new rules, they should focus on killing the weeds at their roots with targeted reforms. As experienced gardeners will attest, it is no good trying to bury a briar patch.

Governing bodies with their reputations on the line would do well to remember both of these lessons.

Written by, Jamie Hose

Photo by Start Digital on Unsplash

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