NAVIGATING THE AI REVOLUTION: ACADEMIC INTEGRITY, MOTIVATIONS, AND PRACTICES OF BUSINESS STUDENTS UTILIZING GENERATIVE AI FOR GRADUATION THESES IN VIETNAM.

Abstract

The rapid diffusion of Generative AI tools into Vietnamese higher education has outpaced coherent institutional policy development, raising challenges for culminating academic work such as the graduation thesis (Khóa luận tốt nghiệp); accordingly, this study examines the motivations, functional practices, and academic-integrity perceptions shaping GenAI adoption by final-year business students writing graduation theses at Foreign Trade University, Ho Chi Minh City Campus, using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design that combined an anonymous online survey (N ≥ 200, stratified across International Business, Business Administration, and Finance & Banking) with semi-structured interviews (5 - 8 students and 3 - 4 supervisors), with instruments anchored in an integrated Technology Acceptance Model / Theory of Planned Behavior lens, finding that GenAI engagement during thesis work was mainstream and intensive, with motivations dominated by time pressure (M = 4.42, SD = 0.68), English-language anxiety (M = 4.15, SD = 0.72), and efficiency (M = 3.98, SD = 0.81), while intrinsic disengagement (M = 2.10) was broadly rejected, and revealing a graded risk pattern in which grammar correction was perceived ethical by 96.5% and practised by 94.2%, uncredited paraphrasing by 62.1%/58.4%, direct AI copying by 14.8%/18.2%, and AI-fabricated citation use by 8.5%/22.1% - a striking 13.6-point inversion at the highest-stakes tier; FTU-HCMC should therefore adopt a Responsible AI Use Policy grounded in mandatory disclosure and shift toward process-based assessment through viva voce defences, milestone logs, and continuous supervisor checkpoints that safeguard academic integrity while accommodating productive GenAI use.