Solutions to the Credibility Crisis in Management Science

We argue that much academic misconduct can be explained as the result of social dilemmas occurring at two levels of management science. First, the career benefits associated with engaging in noncredible research practices (NCRPs; e.g., data manipulation, fabricating results, data hoarding, undisclosed HARKing) result in many academics choosing self-interest over collective welfare. These perverse incentives derive from journal gatekeepers who are pressed into a similar social dilemma; namely, an individual journal’s status (i.e., its “impact factor”) is likely to suffer from unilaterally implementing practices that help ensure the credibility of management science claims (e.g., dedicating journal space to strict replications, crowd-sourcing replications, data-submission requirements, in-house analysis checks, registered reports, Open Practice badges). Fortunately, research on social dilemmas and collective action offers solutions. For example, journal editors could pledge to publish a certain number of cr...