It was that simple in elementary school. In business, the rule looks a little fuzzier. Executives embellish their resumes and get promotions. Accountants fudge earnings and boost stock prices. Salesmen lie and beat out rivals.

Prosperity, it can seem, comes only with a little cheating.

Yet, 34 MBA students at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business face serious penalties, including expulsion, after officials concluded they teamed up on a test. Staff writer Jonathan B. Cox talked with two ethicists about the matter and about the modern workplace.

Q. Does business breed cheaters?

A. "Business breeds pressure. It breeds ambition, drive for success, drive to be number one," said Dov Seidman, chief executive of LRN, a Los Angeles firm that works with companies such as eBay and News Corp. on ethics matters.

"The real question is how do we accomplish that? People who think that taking a shortcut or cutting corners is a sure way to get to the top are going to find that's increasingly slippery," he said. "We are no longer in a 'just do it' society where bosses tell their people, 'Just get it done. Just find a way.' It's about getting it done right."

Q. After Enron and WorldCom, has the focus on ethics evolved?

A."Four or five years ago, the push really was compliance" with policies, said Joe DesJardins, executive director of the Society for Business Ethics. "That has its limits. If you only care about compliance, then you're going to hire some good attorneys or good auditors that tell you you're complying. ... Ethics becomes more a matter of creating the right kind of culture or developing the right kind of leaders."

Q. These students collaborated. Isn't that celebrated in business?

A."There is a great irony," Seidman said. "Collaboration is becoming a key skill for surviving in the world. ... At the same time, if it was made clear in this case the value of collaboration is not pre-eminent but individual capability and knowledge are being tested, then there's a real issue."

Q. Could this situation hurt the students' careers?

A. "There's so much at stake," Seidman said. "Your reputation is like a running score, and it just keeps piling up. ... To act as though you have nothing to hide in a world in which nothing stays hidden, you have to have nothing to hide."

Q. How does one keep on the straight and narrow?

A. Ask a simple question, DesJardins said. "When you're on your deathbed and you look back on your life, are you going to to be able to say, 'This was worth it? This is a good life? I'm proud?' "