Breach of academic values and misconduct: the case of Sci-Hub
Abstract
This paper investigates the growing evidence of research-related misconduct by developing and testing a theoretical framework. We study the deep causes of misconduct by asking whether the perception of an erosion of the core academic values, formally an ideology-based psychological contract breach, is associated with research-related misconduct. We test our framework by examining the use of Sci-Hub and providing empirical evidence that the loss of faith in scientific research sparkles research-related misconduct against publishers. Based on a stratified sample of 2849 academics working in 30 institutions in 6 European countries, we find that ideology-based psychological contract breach explains Sci-Hub usage, also when controlling for other possible motivations. The magnitude of the effect depends on contextual and demographic characteristics. Females, foreign, and tenured scholars are less likely to download papers illegally when experiencing a contract breach of academic values. Our results suggest that policies restoring academic values might also address research-related misconduct.
References
[1]
Agarwal R and Ohyama A Industry or academia, basic or applied? Career choices and earnings trajectories of scientists Management Science 2013 59 4 950-970
[2]
Aguirre A Microaggressions, marginalization, and stress: Issues of identity, place, and home for minority faculty in academia Prejudice, stigma, privilege, and oppression 2020 Springer 361-371
[3]
Ai C and Norton EC Interaction terms in logit and probit models Economics Letters 2003 80 1 123-129
[4]
Anderson MS, Ronning EA, Vries RD, et al. Extending the mertonian norms: Scientists’ subscription to norms of research The Journal of Higher Education 2010 81 3 366-393
[5]
Azoulay P, Graff Zivin JS, and Manso G Incentives and creativity: Evidence from the academic life sciences The RAND Journal of Economics 2011 42 3 527-554
[6]
Barbezat DA and Hughes JW Salary structure effects and the gender pay gap in academia Research in Higher Education 2005 46 6 621-640
[7]
Bhattacharjee, Y. (2013). The mind of a con man. The New York Times 28.
[8]
Biagioli, M. (2020). Gaming Metrics: Misconduct and Manipulation in Academic Research
[9]
Bordia P, Restubog SLD, and Tang RL When employees strike back: Investigating mediating mechanisms between psychological contract breach and workplace deviance Journal of Applied psychology 2008 93 5 1104
[10]
Boudry C, Alvarez-Muñoz P, Arencibia-Jorge R, et al. Worldwide inequality in access to full text scientific articles: The example of ophthalmology PeerJ 2019 7
[11]
Bridges D, Wulff E, and Bamberry L Resilience for gender inclusion: Developing a model for women in male-dominated occupations Gender, Work & Organization 2021 30 1 263-279
[12]
Bryson C What about the workers? The expansion of higher education and the transformation of academic work Industrial Relations Journal 2004 35 1 38-57
[13]
Budi I and Yaniasih Y Understanding the meanings of citations using sentiment, role, and citation function classifications Scientometrics 2022 128 735-759
[14]
Buehling K, Geissler M, and Strecker D Free access to scientific literature and its influence on the publishing activity in developing countries: The effect of sci-hub in the field of mathematics Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 2022 73 9 1336-1355
[15]
Bunderson JS How work ideologies shape the psychological contracts of professional employees: Doctors’ responses to perceived breach Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 2001 22 7 717-741
[16]
Carvalho T and Santiago R Still academics after all… Higher Education Policy 2010 23 3 397-411
[17]
Chatelain-Ponroy S, Mignot-Gérard S, Musselin C, et al. Is commitment to performance-based management compatible with commitment to university “publicness”? academics’ values in french universities Organization Studies 2018 39 10 1377-1401
[18]
Conway N, Kiefer T, Hartley J, et al. Doing more with less? employee reactions to psychological contract breach via target similarity or spillover during public sector organizational change British Journal of Management 2014 25 4 737-754
[19]
Costa S and Neves P Job insecurity and work outcomes: The role of psychological contract breach and positive psychological capital Work & Stress 2017 31 4 375-394
[20]
Costa SP and Neves P Forgiving is good for health and performance: How forgiveness helps individuals cope with the psychological contract breach Journal of Vocational Behavior 2017 100 124-136
[21]
Coyle-Shapiro JAM, Pereira Costa S, Doden W, et al. Psychological contracts: Past, present, and future Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 2019 6 145-169
[22]
Cronan TP and Al-Rafee S Factors that influence the intention to pirate software and media Journal of Business Ethics 2008 78 4 527-545
[23]
Cyranoski D, Gilbert N, Ledford H, et al. Education: The phd factory Nature News 2011 472 7343 276-279
[24]
Dato S and Nieken P Gender differences in competition and sabotage Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 2014 100 64-80
[25]
De Paola M and Scoppa V Gender discrimination and evaluators’ gender: Evidence from Italian academia Economica 2015 82 325 162-188
[26]
Deery SJ, Iverson RD, and Walsh JT Toward a better understanding of psychological contract breach: A study of customer service employees Journal of Applied Psychology 2006 91 1 166
[27]
Deng H, Coyle-Shapiro J, and Yang Q Beyond reciprocity: A conservation of resources view on the effects of psychological contract violation on third parties Journal of Applied Psychology 2018 103 5 561
[28]
Duić, M., Konjevod, B., & Grzunov, L. (2017). Web sources of literature for teachers and researchers: practices and attitudes of croatian faculty toward legal digital libraries and shadow libraries such as sci-hub. 2017 40th International Convention on Information and Communication Technology (pp. 824–829). IEEE: Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO).
[29]
Dupree CH and Boykin CM Racial inequality in academia: Systemic origins, modern challenges, and policy recommendations Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2021 8 1 11-18
[30]
Eisend M Explaining digital piracy: A meta-analysis Information Systems Research 2019 30 2 636-664
[31]
Fanelli D How many scientists fabricate and falsify research? A systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data PLoS ONE 2009 4 5
[32]
Fong EA and Wilhite AW Authorship and citation manipulation in academic research PLoS ONE 2017 12 12
[33]
Frances, S., Denzer, J. P., & Hamparian, D. (2019). Publishing community efforts and solutions to mitigate the risks sci-hub poses to researchers, librarians, and publishers. In Proceedings of the Charleston Library Conference.
[34]
Franzoni C, Stephan P, and Veugelers R Funding risky research Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy 2022 1 1 103-133
[35]
Gibney E Massive strikes at uk universities over’unsustainable’working conditions Nature 2022
[36]
González-Solar, L. & Fernández-Marcial, V. (2019). Sci-hub, a challenge for academic and research libraries. El profesional de la información 28(1).
[37]
Griep Y and Vantilborgh T Let’s get cynical about this! recursive relationships between psychological contract breach and counterproductive work behaviour Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 2018 91 2 421-429
[38]
Hakala J The future of the academic calling? Junior researchers in the entrepreneurial university Higher Education 2009 57 2 173-190
[39]
Han, H., Giles, L., Zha, H., et al. (2004). Two supervised learning approaches for name disambiguation in author citations. In Proceedings of the 2004 Joint ACM/IEEE Conference on Digital Libraries. IEEE, pp. 296–305.
[40]
Herman E, Nicholas D, Clark D, et al. Outside the library: Early career researchers and use of alternative information sources in pandemic times Learned Publishing 2023 36 2 141-155
[41]
Hershcovis MS, Turner N, Barling J, et al. Predicting workplace aggression: A meta-analysis Journal of Applied Psychology 2007 92 1 228
[42]
Holtfreter K, Reisig MD, Pratt TC, et al. The perceived causes of research misconduct among faculty members in the natural, social, and applied sciences Studies in Higher Education 2020 45 11 2162-2174
[43]
Hoppe TA, Litovitz A, Willis KA, et al. Topic choice contributes to the lower rate of Nih awards to African-American/Black scientists Science Advances 2019 5 10 eaaw7238
[44]
Hoy MB Sci-hub: What librarians should know and do about article piracy Medical Reference Services Quarterly 2017 36 1 73-78
[45]
Jacobs RS, Heuvelman A, Tan M, et al. Digital movie piracy: A perspective on downloading behavior through social cognitive theory Computers in Human Behavior 2012 28 3 958-967
[46]
Kahn, S., & Ginther, D. (2017). Women and stem. National Bureau of Economic Research: Tech. rep.
[47]
Karabag SF and Berggren C Retraction, dishonesty and plagiarism: Analysis of a crucial issue for academic publishing, and the inadequate responses from leading journals in economics and management disciplines Journal of Applied Economics and Business Research 2012 2 3 172-183
[48]
Karagonlar G, Eisenberger R, and Aselage J Reciprocation wary employees discount psychological contract fulfillment Journal of Organizational Behavior 2016 37 1 23-40
[49]
Krause AJ and Moore SY Ideological currency in the psychological contracts of corporate manufacturing employees Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 2017 29 1 15-36
[50]
Laudel G The art of getting funded: How scientists adapt to their funding conditions Science and Public Policy 2006 33 7 489-504
[51]
Mas-Bleda A and Thelwall M Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research Scientometrics 2016 109 3 2007-2030
[52]
McNutt M My love-hate of sci-hub Science 2016 352 6285 497-497
[53]
Mejia CR, Valladares-Garrido MJ, Miñan-Tapia A, et al. Use, knowledge, and perception of the scientific contribution of sci-hub in medical students: Study in six countries in latin america PLoS ONE 2017 12 10
[54]
Merton RK A note on science and democracy Journal of Legal and Political Sociology 1942 1 115
[55]
Merton RK The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations 1973 University of Chicago press
[56]
Meyer MJ and McMahon D An examination of ethical research conduct by experienced and novice accounting academics Issues in Accounting Education 2004 19 4 413-442
[57]
Miller AN, Taylor SG, and Bedeian AG Publish or perish: Academic life as management faculty live it Career Development International 2011 16 5 422-445
[58]
Molas-Gallart, J. & Ràfols, I. (2018). Why bibliometric indicators break down: Unstable parameters, incorrect models and irrelevant properties. Incorrect Models and Irrelevant Properties (May 7, 2018)
[59]
Necker S Scientific misbehavior in economics Research Policy 2014 43 10 1747-1759
[60]
Ng TW, Lam SS, and Feldman DC Organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior: Do males and females differ? Journal of Vocational Behavior 2016 93 11-32
[61]
Nicholas D, Boukacem-Zeghmouri C, Rodríguez-Bravo B, et al. Where and how early career researchers find scholarly information Learned Publishing 2017 30 1 19-29
[62]
Nicholas D, Boukacem-Zeghmouri C, Xu J, et al. Sci-hub: The new and ultimate disruptor? view from the front Learned Publishing 2019 32 2 147-153
[63]
O’Donohue W, Sheehan C, Hecker R, and Holland P The psychological contract of knowledge workers Journal of Knowledge Management 2007 11 2 73-82
[64]
Peace AG, Galletta DF, and Thong JY Software piracy in the workplace: A model and empirical test Journal of Management Information Systems 2003 20 1 153-177
[65]
Piccoli B and De Witte H Job insecurity and emotional exhaustion: Testing psychological contract breach versus distributive injustice as indicators of lack of reciprocity Work & Stress 2015 29 3 246-263
[66]
Rahim M, Rahman MNA, and Seyal AH Software piracy among academics: An empirical study in Brunei Darussalam Information Management & Computer Security 2000 8 1 14-26
[67]
Restubog SLD, Bordia P, Tang RL, et al. Investigating the moderating effects of leader-member exchange in the psychological contract breach-employee performance relationship: A test of two competing perspectives British Journal of Management 2010 21 2 422-437
[68]
Robinson, SL. & Brown, G. (2004). Psychological contract breach and violation in organizations. The dark side of organizational behavior (pp. 309–337).
[69]
Rossello, G. (2021). Social transformations and labour market entry: an investigation into university systems in emerging economies. [Doctoral Thesis, Maastricht University] ProefschriftMaken.
[70]
Rossello, G. & Martinelli, A. (2023). Breach of academic values and digital deviant behaviour: The case of sci-hub. UNU-MERIT Working Papers (2023-009)
[71]
Rossello G, Martinelli A, Ferri D, et al. Final report on case studies on the effectiveness of regulatory measures to increase digital access to academics and people with visual impairments. 2022
[72]
Rossello, G., Cowan, R. A. & Mairesse, J. (2023). Ph.D. publication productivity: the role of gender and race in supervision in South Africa. Springer.
[73]
Santillanes G and Felder RM Software piracy in research: A moral analysis Science and Engineering Ethics 2015 21 4 967-977
[74]
Sanyal DK, Bhowmick PK, and Das PP A review of author name disambiguation techniques for the pubmed bibliographic database Journal of Information Science 2021 47 2 227-254
[75]
Sarsons H Recognition for group work: Gender differences in academia American Economic Review 2017 107 5 141-45
[76]
Sauermann H and Roach M Not all scientists pay to be scientists: Phds’ preferences for publishing in industrial employment Research Policy 2014 43 1 32-47
[77]
Sauermann H and Stephan P Conflicting logics? A multidimensional view of industrial and academic science Organization Science 2013 24 3 889-909
[78]
Schreiber M Self-citation corrections for the Hirsch index EPL (Europhysics Letters) 2007 78 3 30002
[79]
Segado-Boj F, Prieto-Gutiérrez JJ, and Martín-Quevedo J Attitudes, willingness, and resources to cover article publishing charges: The influence of age, position, income level country, discipline and open access habits Learned Publishing 2022 35 4 489-498
[80]
Shen HW and Barabási AL Collective credit allocation in science Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2014 111 34 12325-12330
[81]
Siekkinen T, Pekkola E, and Carvalho T Change and continuity in the academic profession: Finnish universities as living labs Higher Education 2020 79 3 533-551
[82]
Singh Chawla, D. (2021). Scientists at odds on utrecht university reforms to hiring and promotion criteria. Nature Index.
[83]
Smith E, Williams-Jones B, Master Z, et al. Misconduct and misbehavior related to authorship disagreements in collaborative science Science and Engineering Ethics 2020 26 4 1967-1993
[84]
Spector PE, Fox S, and Domagalski T Emotions, violence and counterproductive work behavior Handbook of Workplace Violence 2006 29 46
[85]
Stern S Do scientists pay to be scientists? Management Science 2004 50 6 835-853
[86]
Szomszor M, Pendlebury DA, and Adams J How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess Scientometrics 2020 123 2 1119-1147
[87]
Thompson JA and Bunderson JS Violations of principle: Ideological currency in the psychological contract Academy of Management Review 2003 28 4 571-586
[88]
Till BM, Rudolfson N, Saluja S, et al. Who is pirating medical literature? A bibliometric review of 28 million sci-hub downloads The Lancet Global Health 2019 7 1 e30-e31
[89]
Travis, J. (2016). In survey, most give thumbs-up to pirated papers. Science 6.
[90]
Walsh JP and Lee YN The bureaucratization of science Research Policy 2015 44 8 1584-1600
[91]
Wang J, Veugelers R, and Stephan P Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators Research Policy 2017 46 8 1416-1436
[92]
Welsh DT, Ordóñez LD, Snyder DG, et al. The slippery slope: How small ethical transgressions pave the way for larger future transgressions Journal of Applied Psychology 2015 100 1 114
[93]
Wickham M, Plotnicki J, and Athey S A survey of faculty attitudes toward personal computer software copying Journal of Computer Information Systems 1992 32 4 47-52
[94]
Zeina M, Balston A, Banerjee A, et al. Gender and ethnic differences in publication of bmj letters to the editor: An observational study using machine learning BMJ Open 2020 10 12
Index Terms
- Breach of academic values and misconduct: the case of Sci-Hub
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
Recommendations
On the culture of open access: the Sci-hub paradox
AbstractShadow libraries, also known as “pirate libraries”, are online collections of copyrighted publications that have been made available for free without the permission of the copyright holders. They have gradually become key players of scientific ...
The Sci-Hub effect on papers’ citations
AbstractCitations are often used as a metric of the impact of scientific publications. Here, we examine how the number of downloads from Sci-Hub as well as various characteristics of publications and their authors predicts future citations. Using data ...
Retracted publications in the biomedical literature with authors from mainland China
The number of retracted articles with Chinese authors has raised much attention, but no systematic study has specifically explored the retraction of academic publications by researchers from mainland China. Here, we determined the characteristics of ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
© The Author(s) 2024.
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Berlin, Heidelberg
Publication History
Published: 27 July 2024
Accepted: 29 April 2024
Received: 04 September 2023
Author Tags
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
Funding Sources
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
- Università di Pisa
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 13 Dec 2024