Dear Colleagues,
We are delighted to invite you to the following Professional Development Workshop that will take place during the Academy of Management Annual Meeting
The Exploitation of Researchers' Degrees of Freedom and Malpractice in Management Research.
Can Journals' Policies Discourage It?
Friday, Aug 5 2016 8:00AM - 9:30AM at Hilton Anaheim in Catalina 4
Organizers:
Alfonso Gambardella, Bocconi University;
Elena Novelli, Cass Business School, City University London;
Panelists:
Gautam Ahuja, University of Michigan
Richard A. Bettis, U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Andrew King, Dartmouth College
Zur Shapira, New York University
PDW Overview:
In the last few years, the emergence of instances of academic malpractice has led scholars to investigate the repeatability of academic research. Some recent studies have revealed a quite striking picture, with a large proportion of academic articles across several fields reporting non-replicable results. The preference that academic journals have traditionally manifested toward the publication of statistically significant results, together with the tenure clock pressure pushing researchers to achieve publications in those journals within a limited timeframe, have been mentioned among the possible causes of this phenomenon. In response to the issue, the academic community has started advancing possible solutions, including the revision of journals' publication policies. For instance, in 2013, Nature abolished restrictions to the length of the methods section and encouraged the provision of raw data to accompany papers. Science has encouraged transparency by requiring authors to provide information on their pre-experimental plan for data handling and sample selection and treatment. In the field of management research, the Strategic Management Journal has recently released a new set of policies that encourage the submission of replication studies and non-results and that abolish the use of cutoff levels of statistical significance.
The purpose of this Professional Development Workshop (PDW) is to address the following key question: What should and could we do as a field in order to address academic malpractice? To this purpose the PDW aims to bring together leading senior scholars that hold editorial responsibilities in top academic journals to stimulate a constructive discussion on the topic.
Some of the questions that will be discussed during the PDW include:
· What is the magnitude of the problem, its causes and the possible implications, within and outside academia?
· To what extent should this issue be addressed collectively versus individually?
· What are the possible solutions?
· To what extent can revised journal policies help solving the issue?
· What are the possible drawbacks of implementing these practices?
We look forward to seeing you at AOM!
Kind regards
Alfonso Gambardella
Elena Novelli
Dr. Elena Novelli
Senior Lecturer in Management, Cass Business School
106 Bunhill Row, LONDON EC1Y 8TZ
T: +44(0)20 7040 0991, F: +44(0)20 7040 8328