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A brief idea

A brief idea

The general problem of research fraud by accounting and business researchers has received significant scholarly attention of late. Most of the descriptive work on data fraud is concerned with diagnosing the causes of fraudulent and deceptive research practices or with measuring their extent, while on the normative side, most calls for reform in academic publishing rely largely on more rigorous data policies and renewed calls for observational awareness. Alas, it remains to be seen whether such methods of self-regulation will be effective at reducing the incidence of research fraud. This paper thus proposes a different approach to data fraud, one that is more likely to reduce the incidence of data fabrication. Specifically, I propose that alleged serial academic fraudsters like James Hunton be charged with criminal wire fraud. My previous work in this domain explored the possibility of imposing civil liability for data fraud committed by academic researchers. This paper, by contrast, will explore the possibility of criminal liability when an author knowingly fabricates data in his research.

A brief idea