סמינר בשיווק

Gil Appel from GW School of Business

Title: A new perspective on the role of citations in academia

Abstract: In academia, citations are used to acknowledge the contribution of past work and promote scientific advancement. However, analyzing citation data of thousands of papers, we find evidence suggesting that citations may also serve as a currency to reward or punish scientists’ morality. Indeed, scholars accused of scientific fraud incur a smaller citation penalty than those accused of sexual misconduct. These findings are important because the credibility of one's research is undermined once they are accused of scientific fraud, while sexual misconduct accusations are irrelevant to the validity of the researcher's scientific contribution. By extension, these findings imply that, in addition to serving the purpose of maintaining intellectual honesty and promoting scientific advancement, citation decisions are also driven by scholars’ attitudes toward the publication’s author(s).