IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/respol/v48y2019i2p414-427.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards a taxonomy of research misconduct: The case of business school research

Author

Listed:
  • Hall, Jeremy
  • Martin, Ben R.

Abstract

This paper examines the growing pressures and incentives encouraging research misconduct, along with the consequences, as illustrated by the case of business school research. Drawing on a review of the literature on different theoretical approaches to analysing organizational misconduct, we develop a formal taxonomy distinguishing appropriate conduct from blatantly inappropriate misconduct but with a specific focus on the ‘grey’ areas between these extremes in the form of questionable and inappropriate behaviour. We identify various sources of research misbehaviour and different categories of those affected. The aim is to provide a clearer understanding of what research behaviour is deemed appropriate or not, which stakeholders it affects, and the pressures and incentives likely to exacerbate such misconduct. We conclude with a discussion of how the taxonomy can help shape future good research practice (thereby setting a better example to students), and offer some propositions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Hall, Jeremy & Martin, Ben R., 2019. "Towards a taxonomy of research misconduct: The case of business school research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 414-427.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:2:p:414-427
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.03.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318300568
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.respol.2018.03.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Langford, Cooper H. & Hall, Jeremy & Josty, Peter & Matos, Stelvia & Jacobson, Astrid, 2006. "Indicators and outcomes of Canadian university research: Proxies becoming goals?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1586-1598, December.
    2. Martin, Ben R., 2007. "Keeping plagiarism at bay--A salutary tale," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 905-911, September.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Schein, Edgar H., 1983. "The role of the founder in the creation of organizational culture," Working papers 1407-83., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    5. Garud, Raghu & Gehman, Joel & Karunakaran, Arvind, 2014. "Boundaries, breaches, and bridges: The case of Climategate," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 60-73.
    6. Wei Shi & Brian L. Connelly & Wm. Gerard Sanders, 2016. "Buying bad behavior: Tournament incentives and securities class action lawsuits," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1354-1378, July.
    7. Shadnam, Masoud & Lawrence, Thomas B., 2011. "Understanding Widespread Misconduct in Organizations: An Institutional Theory of Moral Collapse," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 379-407, July.
    8. Thomas Tang & Hsi Liu, 2012. "Love of Money and Unethical Behavior Intention: Does an Authentic Supervisor’s Personal Integrity and Character (ASPIRE) Make a Difference?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 295-312, May.
    9. Robert H. Frank & Thomas D. Gilovich & Dennis T. Regan, 1996. "Do Economists Make Bad Citizens?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 187-192, Winter.
    10. Benson Honig & Joseph Lampel & Donald Siegel & Paul Drnevich, 2014. "Ethics in the Production and Dissemination of Management Research: Institutional Failure or Individual Fallibility?," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 118-142, January.
    11. Larry Floyd & Feng Xu & Ryan Atkins & Cam Caldwell, 2013. "Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 753-776, November.
    12. Kalina Grzesiuk, 2016. "Unethical Behaviour of Organisations from a Social Network Perspective. A Literature Review," Annales. Ethics in Economic Life, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, vol. 19(4), pages 23-37, December.
    13. Linda Kidwell & Roland Kidwell, 2008. "Do the Numbers Add Up to Different Views? Perceptions of Ethical Faculty Behavior Among Faculty in Quantitative Versus Qualitative Disciplines," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(1), pages 141-151, March.
    14. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    15. Furman, Jeffrey L. & Jensen, Kyle & Murray, Fiona, 2012. "Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 276-290.
    16. Masoud Shadnam & Thomas B. Lawrence, 2011. "Understanding widespread misconduct in organizations: An institutional theory of moral collapse," Post-Print hal-00813317, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khezr, Peyman & Mohan, Vijay, 2022. "The vexing but persistent problem of authorship misconduct in research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    2. Sovacool, Benjamin K. & Martiskainen, Mari & Furszyfer Del Rio, Dylan D., 2021. "Knowledge, energy sustainability, and vulnerability in the demographics of smart home technology diffusion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    3. Ryan, James C. & A Tipu, Syed A., 2022. "Business and management research: Low instances of replication studies and a lack of author independence in replications," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    4. Mohan, Vijay, 2019. "On the use of blockchain-based mechanisms to tackle academic misconduct," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    5. Craig, Russell & Cox, Adam & Tourish, Dennis & Thorpe, Alistair, 2020. "Using retracted journal articles in psychology to understand research misconduct in the social sciences: What is to be done?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(4).
    6. Wilhite, Allen & Fong, Eric A. & Wilhite, Seth, 2019. "The influence of editorial decisions and the academic network on self-citations and journal impact factors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1513-1522.
    7. Rubin, Amir & Rubin, Eran & Segal, Dan, 2023. "Editor home bias?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    8. Salandra, Rossella & Criscuolo, Paola & Salter, Ammon, 2021. "Directing scientists away from potentially biased publications: the role of systematic reviews in health care," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    9. Bruns, Stephan B. & Asanov, Igor & Bode, Rasmus & Dunger, Melanie & Funk, Christoph & Hassan, Sherif M. & Hauschildt, Julia & Heinisch, Dominik & Kempa, Karol & König, Johannes & Lips, Johannes & Verb, 2019. "Reporting errors and biases in published empirical findings: Evidence from innovation research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    10. Siler, Kyle & Larivière, Vincent, 2022. "Who games metrics and rankings? Institutional niches and journal impact factor inflation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    11. Glenna, Leland & Bruce, Analena, 2021. "Suborning science for profit: Monsanto, glyphosate, and private science research misconduct," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jeremy Hall & Ben R. Martin, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Academic Misconduct: The Case of Business School Research," SPRU Working Paper Series 2019-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    2. Gary A. Hoover & Christian Hopp, 2017. "What Crisis? Taking Stock of Management Researchers' Experiences with and Views of Scholarly Misconduct," CESifo Working Paper Series 6611, CESifo.
    3. Walsh, John P. & Lee, You-Na & Tang, Li, 2019. "Pathogenic organization in science: Division of labor and retractions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 444-461.
    4. Mohan, Vijay, 2019. "On the use of blockchain-based mechanisms to tackle academic misconduct," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    5. Frederique Bordignon, 2020. "Self-correction of science: a comparative study of negative citations and post-publication peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1225-1239, August.
    6. Hensel, Przemysław G., 2019. "Supporting replication research in management journals: Qualitative analysis of editorials published between 1970 and 2015," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 45-57.
    7. Masoud Shadnam & Andrey Bykov & Ajnesh Prasad, 2021. "Opening Constructive Dialogues Between Business Ethics Research and the Sociology of Morality: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(2), pages 201-211, May.
    8. Harrison, Mark, 2009. "Forging Success : Soviet Managers and False Accounting, 1943 to 1962," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 909, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    9. Lauri Wessel & Riku Ruotsalainen & Henri A. Schildt & Christopher Wickert, 2023. "The Escalation of Organizational Moral Failure in Public Discourse: A Semiotic Analysis of Nokia’s Bochum Plant Closure," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(2), pages 459-478, May.
    10. Harrison, Mark, 2011. "Forging success: Soviet managers and accounting fraud, 1943-1962," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 43-64, March.
    11. Necker, Sarah, 2014. "Scientific misbehavior in economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1747-1759.
    12. Schwieren, Christiane & Weichselbaumer, Doris, 2010. "Does competition enhance performance or cheating? A laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 241-253, June.
    13. Franziska Zuber, 2015. "Spread of Unethical Behavior in Organizations: A Dynamic Social Network Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 151-172, September.
    14. Selma Kadic-Maglajlic & Milena Micevski & Nick Lee & Nathaniel Boso & Irena Vida, 2019. "Three Levels of Ethical Influences on Selling Behavior and Performance: Synergies and Tensions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 377-397, May.
    15. Jay L. Caulfield & Felissa K. Lee & Catharyn A. Baird, 2023. "Navigating the Ethically Complex and Controversial World of College Athletics: A Humanistic Leadership Approach to Student Athlete Well-Being," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(2), pages 603-617, March.
    16. Jay L. Caulfield & Catharyn A. Baird & Felissa K. Lee, 2022. "The Ethicality of Point-of-Sale Marketing Campaigns: Normative Ethics Applied to Cause-Related Checkout Charities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(4), pages 799-814, February.
    17. Seemantini Pathak & Codou Samba & Mengge Li, 2021. "Audit committee diversity and financial restatements," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(3), pages 899-931, September.
    18. Martina Manfre' & Viola Angelini, 2018. "Does The Financial Situation affect Cheating Behavior? An Investigation through Financial Literacy," Working Papers 06/2018, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    19. David Pontille & Didier Torny, 2013. "Behind the scenes of scientific articles: defining categories of fraud and regulating cases," CSI Working Papers Series 031, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (CSI), Mines ParisTech.
    20. Ben R. Martin, 2016. "Twenty challenges for innovation studies," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 432-450.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:2:p:414-427. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/respol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.