IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2023009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Breach of academic values and digital deviant behaviour: The case of Sci-Hub

Author

Listed:
  • Rossello, Giulia
  • Martinelli, Arianna

Abstract

This paper bridges the organisational psychology and the economics of science literature to examine the role of ideology-based psychological contract breach in eliciting mild deviant behaviour in academia. We provide empirical evidence of how the deterioration of academic values related to the diffusion of the “publish or perish” paradigm sparkles copyright violations through Sci-Hub. Based on a representative sample of 2849 academics working in top institutions in 6 European countries, we find that ideology-based psychological contract breach explains Sci-Hub usage, also when controlling for other trivial motivations. The magnitude of the effect depends on contextual and demographic characteristics. Females, foreign and tenured scholars are less likely to respond with digital piracy when experiencing a contract breach of academic values. Our results contribute to prevention policy design, highlighting how policies restoring academic values might also address academic piracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Rossello, Giulia & Martinelli, Arianna, 2023. "Breach of academic values and digital deviant behaviour: The case of Sci-Hub," MERIT Working Papers 2023-009, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2023009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/130930890/wp2023_009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dato, Simon & Nieken, Petra, 2014. "Gender differences in competition and sabotage," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 64-80.
    2. Peter Coles & John Cawley & Phillip B. Levine & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth & John J. Siegfried, 2010. "The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 187-206, Fall.
    3. Rossello, Giulia & Cowan, Robin & Mairesse, Jacques, 2020. "Ph.D. research output in STEM: the role of gender and race in supervision," MERIT Working Papers 2020-021, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    4. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Gender Discrimination and Evaluators’ Gender: Evidence from Italian Academia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(325), pages 162-188, January.
    5. Wang, Jian & Veugelers, Reinhilde & Stephan, Paula, 2017. "Bias against novelty in science: A cautionary tale for users of bibliometric indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1416-1436.
    6. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Stéphanie Mignot-Gérard & Christine Musselin & Samuel Sponem, 2018. "Is Commitment to Performance based Management Compatible with Commitment to University “Publicness”? Academics’ Values in French Universities," Post-Print halshs-01575542, HAL.
    7. David Cyranoski & Natasha Gilbert & Heidi Ledford & Anjali Nayar & Mohammed Yahia, 2011. "Education: The PhD factory," Nature, Nature, vol. 472(7343), pages 276-279, April.
    8. Necker, Sarah, 2014. "Scientific misbehavior in economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1747-1759.
    9. Walsh, John P. & Lee, You-Na, 2015. "The bureaucratization of science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1584-1600.
    10. John Cawley, 2022. "Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 802-803, May.
    11. Henry Sauermann & Paula Stephan, 2013. "Conflicting Logics? A Multidimensional View of Industrial and Academic Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 889-909, June.
    12. Heather Sarsons, 2017. "Recognition for Group Work: Gender Differences in Academia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 141-145, May.
    13. Scott Stern, 2004. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 835-853, June.
    14. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    15. Pierre Azoulay & Joshua S. Graff Zivin & Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Incentives and creativity: evidence from the academic life sciences," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(3), pages 527-554, September.
    16. Sauermann, Henry & Roach, Michael, 2014. "Not all scientists pay to be scientists: PhDs’ preferences for publishing in industrial employment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 32-47.
    17. Rajshree Agarwal & Atsushi Ohyama, 2013. "Industry or Academia, Basic or Applied? Career Choices and Earnings Trajectories of Scientists," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 950-970, April.
    18. Robin Cowan & Giulia Rossello, 2018. "Emergent structures in faculty hiring networks, and the effects of mobility on academic performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(1), pages 527-562, October.
    19. K. Hunter Wapman & Sam Zhang & Aaron Clauset & Daniel B. Larremore, 2022. "Quantifying hierarchy and dynamics in US faculty hiring and retention," Nature, Nature, vol. 610(7930), pages 120-127, October.
    20. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    21. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Stéphanie Mignot-Gérard & Christine Musselin & Samuel Sponem, 2018. "Is Commitment to Performance-based Management Compatible with Commitment to University “Publicness”? Academics’ Values in French Universities," Post-Print halshs-03627102, HAL.
    22. Timothy Cronan & Sulaiman Al-Rafee, 2008. "Factors that Influence the Intention to Pirate Software and Media," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(4), pages 527-545, April.
    23. Martin Szomszor & David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2020. "How much is too much? The difference between research influence and self-citation excess," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1119-1147, May.
    24. Christian R Mejia & Mario J Valladares-Garrido & Armando Miñan-Tapia & Felipe T Serrano & Liz E Tobler-Gómez & William Pereda-Castro & Cynthia R Mendoza-Flores & Maria Y Mundaca-Manay & Danai Valladar, 2017. "Use, knowledge, and perception of the scientific contribution of Sci-Hub in medical students: Study in six countries in Latin America," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-9, October.
    25. Martin Eisend, 2019. "Explaining Digital Piracy: A Meta-Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 636-664, June.
    26. Amalia Mas-Bleda & Mike Thelwall, 2016. "Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2007-2030, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henry Sauermann, 2017. "Fire in the Belly? Employee Motives and Innovative Performance in Startups versus Established Firms," NBER Working Papers 23099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Conti, Annamaria & Visentin, Fabiana, 2015. "A revealed preference analysis of PhD students’ choices over employment outcomes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1931-1947.
    3. Hottenrott, Hanna & Lawson, Cornelia, 2014. "Flying the nest: How the home department shapes researchers’ career paths," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201409, University of Turin.
    4. Jeongeun Kim & Molly Ott & Lindsey Dippold, 2020. "University and Department Influences on Scientists’ Occupational Outcomes," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 61(2), pages 197-228, March.
    5. Benjamin Balsmeier & Maikel Pellens, 2016. "How much does it cost to be a scientist?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 469-505, June.
    6. Christiane Bode & Jasjit Singh & Michelle Rogan, 2015. "Corporate Social Initiatives and Employee Retention," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1702-1720, December.
    7. Christiane Bode & Jasjit Singh, 2018. "Taking a hit to save the world? Employee participation in a corporate social initiative," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 1003-1030, April.
    8. Alfonso Gambardella & Pooyan Khashabi & Claudio Panico, 2020. "Managing Autonomy in Industrial Research and Development: A Project-Level Investigation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 165-181, January.
    9. Kyle Myers & Wei Yang Tham, 2023. "Money, Time, and Grant Design," Papers 2312.06479, arXiv.org.
    10. Gans, Joshua S. & Murray, Fiona E. & Stern, Scott, 2017. "Contracting over the disclosure of scientific knowledge: Intellectual property and academic publication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 820-835.
    11. Koehler, Maximilian & Sauermann, Henry, 2024. "Algorithmic management in scientific research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    12. Andreoli-Versbach, Patrick & Mueller-Langer, Frank, 2014. "Open access to data: An ideal professed but not practised," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1621-1633.
    13. Simeth, Markus & Lhuillery, Stephane, 2015. "How do firms develop capabilities for scientific disclosure?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1283-1295.
    14. Lars P. Feld & Sarah Necker & Bruno S. Frey, 2015. "Happiness of economists," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(10), pages 990-1007, February.
    15. Wesley M. Cohen & Henry Sauermann & Paula Stephan, 2020. "Not in the Job Description: The Commercial Activities of Academic Scientists and Engineers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4108-4117, September.
    16. Wang, Jian & Shibayama, Sotaro, 2022. "Mentorship and creativity: Effects of mentor creativity and mentoring style," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    17. Lu Liu & Benjamin F. Jones & Brian Uzzi & Dashun Wang, 2023. "Data, measurement and empirical methods in the science of science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(7), pages 1046-1058, July.
    18. Kwon, Seokbeom, 2022. "Interdisciplinary knowledge integration as a unique knowledge source for technology development and the role of funding allocation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    19. Henry Sauermann & Chiara Franzoni & Kourosh Shafi, 2019. "Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-26, January.
    20. Prasanna Tambe & Xuan Ye & Peter Cappelli, 2019. "Paying to Program? Engineering Brand and High-Tech Wages," NBER Working Papers 25552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2023009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ad Notten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.