Publish or be ethical? Publishing pressure and scientific misconduct in research

• Main Authors: Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, Lidia Baran, Zbigniew Spendel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2021-07-01
• Series: Research Ethics Review
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120980562

The paper reports two studies exploring the relationship between scholars’ self-reported publication pressure and their self-reported scientific misconduct in research. In Study 1 the participants ( N  = 423) were scholars representing various disciplines from one big university in Poland. In Study 2 the participants ( N  = 31) were exclusively members of the management, such as dean, director, etc. from the same university. In Study 1 the most common reported form of scientific misconduct was honorary authorship. The majority of researchers (71%) reported that they had not violated ethical standards in the past; 3% admitted to scientific misconduct; 51% reported being were aware of colleagues’ scientific misconduct. A small positive correlation between perceived publication pressure and intention to engage in scientific misconduct in the future was found. In Study 2 more than half of the management (52%) reported being aware of researchers’ dishonest practices, the most frequent one of these being honorary authorship. As many as 71% of the participants report observing publication pressure in their subordinates. The primary conclusions are: (1) most scholars are convinced of their morality and predict that they will behave morally in the future; (2) scientific misconduct, particularly minor offenses such as honorary authorship, is frequently observed both by researchers (particularly in their colleagues) and by their managers; (3) researchers experiencing publication pressure report a willingness to engage in scientific misconduct in the future.