Examining the Causes of Misconduct in Management Academia Through Theoretical Triangulation

Abstract

This article investigates low-profile misconducts, which are the difficult-to-identify research misdemeanors in management research. Due to their inconspicuous nature, low-profile misconduct could cause more damage to management scholarship than high-profile misconducts such as plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification. Prior literature on misconduct predominantly functions under a rational choice theory perspective. However, without acknowledging the intricate interactions between the individual traits of the researchers, their organizational contexts, their external environments, and the specificities of the concerned situations, understanding low-profile misconduct is improbable. Therefore, we examine the causes of low-profile misconduct by combining the lenses of five criminological and sociological theories – i.e. rational choice, differential association, general strain, self-control, and anomie theories. By taking a multidisciplinary stance and by triangulating, we offer a perspective that departs from the linear idea of misconduct by exposing an articulated set of complex dynamics operating at multiple stages of the research process and different levels of management academia. Based on this perspective, we discuss how management academia can address low-profile misconduct through a transformative research ethics education. Our holistic conceptualization of low-profile misconduct also serves as the foundation for future research in academic misconduct.