The University of Virginia has a famous honor code. So I was surprised to learn through one of my favorite blogs, Retractionwatch, that one of UVA’s advanced graduate students in business ethics (in the business school) had to retract a paper from the Journal of Business Ethics (a Springer journal). Retractionwatch quoted the Director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, Andy Wicks, as follows: “we opted to take no additional action beyond extensive internal conversations…it is an isolated incident that was a mistake rather than a calculated effort to plagiarize.” Yet, according to the retraction notice 16% of the paper was plagiarized; this is not a case of a few missing quotation marks. I contacted Professor Wicks, and he wrote me that, “a thorough review of the case was conducted according to school policy. The review process included a panel committee and a forensic review of the student’s work. We cannot discuss individual student matters due to confidentiality and privacy policies.” Fair enough, privacy is important. (I also contacted the graduate student, but received no answer.) In effect, outsiders are being asked to trust the school's judgment.
I was also surprised that in addition to the retraction, the journal did not take further steps against the UVA graduate student. For, in January, Retractionwatch, reported on a case of self-plagiarism that led to a five year ban from Journal of Business Ethics. This involved a case of a scholar re-publishing his own previously published work without acknowledging this. I am no ethicist, but plagiarizing another would seem a far worse offense than plagiarizing oneself--this is why, I think, Retractionwatch tends to use the term "duplication" to refer to the lesser offense. Turns out, alas, that the self-plagiarist teaches at a school in Thailand, while one of the supervisors of the UVA graduate student, is on the editorial board of the journal. As they say in the business world, it can’t hurt to have friends in the right places. (The editor of the Journal of Business Ethics also did not respond to my email.)
Retractionwatch had reported another plagiarism case in business ethics involving the more obscure Journal of Academic and Business Ethics. (Apparently this very good blog reported on the problem which was caught by David Sullivan.) That journal has the following policy: "Effective August 2012 every manuscript received for review is evaluated with plagiarism detection software prior to editorial review." That suggests that there were (shall we say) prior concerns. And indeed "in August 2012 we also began reviewing all journal manuscripts published prior to that time. Several were removed from publication."
For some the very idea of business ethics may be a bad joke. But the field is increasingly significant within society, relatively lucrative to its practitioners, and may (for a variety of institutional reasons) well help define the future image of professional philosophy. So, the way the field sets standards will have an impact beyond its own boundaries. As regular readers of NewAPPS know, we have reported on plagiarism in other philosophical niches, so I do not mean to single out business ethics for particular concern. (It would be interesting to learn what would happen if other philosophy journals used anti-plagiarism software.) But I am disappointed that the Journal of Business Ethics and leading scholars in the field treat (ahum) their extended stake-holders without transparency and responsiveness to concern; the journal seems to treat those that threaten its businessplan (i.e., sell proprietary data to captive audience) far harsher than those that violate academic integrity. While I do not want to suggest that we ought to hold professional business ethicists to higher ethical standards than the rest of us (recall Helen's post), trust in their judgment has to be earned, too.
UPDATE: This is a corrected post. Initially I identified Professor Wicks as the dean of the business school. His title is Ruffin Professor of Business Administration; Director, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics; Director, Doctoral Program. I thank Matt Charles, Director of Media Relations, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, for calling attention my error.--ES
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