Research fraud: salutary reading for the Summer holidays
Introduces Diederik Stapel's novel Derailment, a salutary tale of a researcher's downfall
Some of you might remember one of the most highly publicised cases of research fraud in recent years: in 2011 Dutch Social Psychologist Diederik Stapel was found to have fabricated data for dozens of his papers. It led to somewhat of a crisis in Social Psychology and widespread attention to research misconduct. Partly related to this was the replication crisis, which led journals in many disciplines, including Business & Management, to become a bit more welcoming towards replication studies.
In 2012 Diederik Stapel published his account in his book "Ontsporing" ("Derailment"). Although one might speculate about his motives, the Association for Psychological Science called the book a unique, devastating, and a must-read for anyone with an interest in science. I found it to be quite a page-turner, providing insights not only into one person's downfall, but academia more generally.
Unfortunately, the book was published only in Dutch, but such was its appeal that it was soon translated into English by a volunteer Nick Brown (thanks Nick, I know how it feels). The book is available as a PDF and also as an ebook. For a quick taster, you can find some excerpts here.
Nick also has a very nice blog and more generally doesn't shy away from exposing dubious science even when he was still a Master's student. I did a bit of work on this theme myself during my PhD studies with Are referencing errors undermining our scholarship and credibility?, but Nick's work goes quite a lot further than that. I don't understand the maths, but I love the spirit of critical scholarship! An inspiration for all research students and early career researchers.
This will be my last post before my Summer blogging holiday in July and August. The British summer is too short to spend more time behind your computer than is strictly necessary. Have a great summer all!
Related blogpost
- The seven principles of response research [Short doodle video by the RRBM network]
- Nancy Adler: Daring to Care [Nancy Adler's inspirational papers on doing research that matters]
- The distinctiveness of European management scholarship [About common sense scholarship that prefers artistic rigour over technical rigour]
- Writing laudations or obituaries? [With Sumantra Ghoshal's plea for enduring research]
Copyright © 2022 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Mon 18 Apr 2022 11:39
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
