Plagiarism is worse than mere theft

Publishing in potentially predatory journals: Do universities adopt university leaders' dishonest behavior?

With the development of science digitalization, it became possible to detect dishonest behavior. The increasing magnitude of predatory publishing has boosted scientific research on the topic. While studies on university leaders' impact concentrate mainly on its positive effects on organizational performance, to date, little is known about whether academic leaders can negatively influence the organizations they lead depending on their engagement in academic misconduct. Using a sample of Russian universities and their leaders from 2010-2020, I ask whether universities tend to adopt leaders' dishonest behavior. Specifically, I analyzed whether universities increase publications in potentially predatory journals after a leader with such a record enters the office. Relying on a culture theory of academic misconduct, I discuss the role-related factors that contribute to a leader's influence over employees. I focus on whether the leader's influence relates to external incentives for universities to publish more, the leader's career development type, or the leader's and university's research area. The findings demonstrate that the share of publications in potentially predatory journals tends to increase if a leader with such publications assumes office, especially if the university is research-oriented. The results suggest that academic reputation of a leader matters to the university's consequent misconduct.

Plagiarism: words and ideas

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people's intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the 'plagiarism' label should not be used for deeds which are very different in nature and importance.

Digital plagiarism--the Web giveth and the Web shall taketh

Publishing students' and researchers' papers on the World Wide Web (WWW) facilitates the sharing of information within and between academic communities. However, the ease of copying and transporting digital information leaves these authors' ideas open to plagiarism. Using tools such as the Plagiarism.org database, which compares submissions to reports and papers available on the Internet, could discover instances of plagiarism, revolutionize the peer review process, and raise the quality of published research everywhere.