How prevalent is academic misconduct in management research

Christian Hopp,  Gary A. Hoover

2017

Journal of Business Research

Volume 80, November 2017, Pages 73–81

We survey 1215 management researchers, including editors, researchers, and reviewers, about their views and experiences with four types of academic misconduct: plagiarism, self-plagiarism, coercive citations, and questionable reviewing practices. Management researchers hold strict views on plagiarism, though editors report on frequent instances encountered. We find that many management researchers consider self-plagiarism acceptable. There is also a high percentage of editors who report on authors being coerced to add citations of reviewers or journals to their submission. Similarly prevalent is so-called “honorary authorship,” where colleagues and supervisors who did not take part in the work are added as co-authors. Lastly, nearly half of the editors who responded report having witnessed conflicts of interest in peer reviewing. We conclude that the current system of peer reviewing is in need of change, and we discuss possible ramifications to overcome the persistence of academic misconduct.