Questionable research practices in academia: antecedents and consequences

Abstract

PurposeThis paper is a viewpoint and its objective is to discuss questionable research practices in business research, particularly in the logistics and supply chain management discipline, in light of antecedents influenced by the current academic environment and the consequences for academic rigour and relevance in order to stimulate thinking and debate among the academic community. Design/methodology/approachA literature review and autoethnographic approach were used to examine these issues based on over sixty years' collective academic experience of the authors. Data was collected from discussions among the paper's authors as well as recounting open discussions with other academics and journal editors to collate their observations. FindingsEvidence is provided of issues the authors have seen first-hand where antecedents in the academic environment influences questionable research practices, which then detrimentally affect research rigour and relevance, integrity and proper contributions to ground-breaking research and knowledge advancement. Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is based on personal observations and experiences of the three authors as well as open-ended discussions with others in the academic community. Suggestions are provided for various academic stakeholders to address these issues. Practical implicationsPractical implications are only provided for academics in their roles as authors, journal editors and reviewers.2 Social implicationsEncouraging the academic community to eliminate questionable research practices to improve the rigour, relevance and quality of research will provide more credibility and integrity resulting in better impact and outcomes for society at large. Originality/valueThe value of this paper is in stimulating thinking and debate amongst academics to return to core issues and values in academia opposed to focussing on narrow university goals focussed on other antecedents of questionable research practices.3 researchers and authors, i.e. from either a business and marketing or industrial engineering perspective. We have adopted this approach and as we believe we can only comment on things we know and understand, however we have used the corollary disciplines to provide additional examples.Our paper is structured as follows. After discussing the method used we begin by reviewing the nature of 'incentives' towards publish or perish in this 21 st century academic landscape and discuss the role of authors, reviewers, journals and editors, and indeed business schools in driving these incentives at the role. We identify and discuss QRPs related thereto and their effect on research rigour, relevance and integrity. We then conclude the paper with suggestions for all academic stakeholders to address these issues in order to improve the state of academic research and its impact on rigour and relevance as well as on ethical behaviour and integrity. Figure 1 provides a 'conceptual model' to graphically show these issues and provide a roadmap for this paper's flow. Insert Figure...

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