Allegation of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct damages the scholarly record and the people who rely on it. Journal of Economics and Management investigates every credible allegation, whatever the seniority of those involved, following the COPE flowcharts.

What counts as misconduct

Category Description
Fabrication Inventing data, results, respondents, interviews, or sources.
Falsification Manipulating data, images, or analysis so that the research is not accurately represented, including selective removal of inconvenient cases.
Plagiarism Appropriating another's work, ideas, data, or words without credit.
Duplicate publication Publishing the same work, or substantially the same work, more than once without disclosure and cross-reference.
Salami slicing Dividing one study into several papers that add nothing individually, without disclosing the relationship.
Image manipulation Altering figures or photographs in a way that misrepresents the findings.
Authorship abuse Gift, guest, ghost, or purchased authorship, including the use of paper mills.
Citation manipulation Adding citations that do not serve the argument in order to inflate metrics, including coercive citation by editors or reviewers.
Peer review manipulation Suggesting fake reviewers, using false contact details, or otherwise interfering with the review process.
Ethical breach Conducting research without required approval or consent, or in breach of participant confidentiality.
Undisclosed conflict of interest Concealing an interest material to the work.

Who may report

Anyone may raise a concern: a reviewer, an editor, a reader, a co-author, an institution, or another journal. Reports go to the Editor-in-Chief at [email protected] with the subject "Research misconduct concern", and should identify the manuscript or article by submission ID or DOI, describe the concern specifically, and attach the evidence. Anonymous reports are considered where the evidence stands on its own.

Procedure

  1. Acknowledgement within 7 working days.
  2. Initial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief, with a second editor, to decide whether the concern is credible and specific enough to pursue. Concerns judged to be vexatious or without evidence are closed, with reasons recorded.
  3. Request for explanation. The corresponding author, writing for all authors, is given 14 days for a manuscript under review and 30 days for a published article. Authors receive the substance of the allegation and the evidence.
  4. Investigation. The editors may consult reviewers, subject experts, statistical advisers, and COPE. Where the matter is serious, the authors' institution is asked to investigate, since only an employer can examine laboratory records, raw data, and employment matters. The journal does not conduct an employment investigation itself.
  5. Decision by the Editor-in-Chief, recorded in writing with the evidence considered.
  6. Outcome and communication. Those who raised the concern and the authors are informed. Where an institution was involved, its finding is recorded.

Sanctions

Depending on severity and intent: rejection of the manuscript; retraction of the published article; a published expression of concern while an investigation is ongoing; notification of the authors' institution and, where applicable, the funder; a ban on submission by the authors for a stated period, normally one to five years; and notification of other journals where a pattern spans several publications.

Safeguards

The identity of the person raising a concern is kept confidential and is not disclosed to the authors without consent. Authors are presumed to have acted in good faith until the evidence shows otherwise, and are given a full opportunity to respond. Honest error is treated as error, not misconduct, and is corrected rather than punished. Editors with a conflict of interest take no part. Records of every case are retained for at least five years.

Appeals

Authors may appeal a misconduct finding within 30 days, in writing, to the Editor-in-Chief. The appeal is considered by an editorial board member who was not involved. Where the complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, it is addressed to the Head of the Department of Management as publisher representative. Unresolved cases may be referred to COPE.