All for one or one for all? Authorship and the cross-sectoral valuation of credit in nutrition science

ABSTRACT

The passionate pursuit of authorships is fuelled by the value they represent to scholars and scientists. This article asks how this value differs across scientists and how these different processes of valuation inform authorship articulation, strategies, and publication behavior in general. Drawing from a qualitative analysis of authorship practices among nutrition scientists employed at universities, contract research organizations, and in food industry, I argue that two different modi operandi emerge when it comes to authorship. These different ways of working produce different collaborative approaches, different credit distribution strategies amongst collaborators, and different value placed upon (the pursuit of) authorship. These different valuation processes are neither explicit nor recognizable to those reading (and judging) author lists. As a consequence, in the politics of authorship, the names standing atop a scientific publication in nutrition science represent different types of value to both the individuals and employing organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Authorship
• value
• credit
• public-private collaboration
• collaboration
• nutrition science

Acknowledgments

I offer my sincere thanks to all nutrition scientists who participated in this study. I thank Hellen Heutz for assisting in transcribing all interviews. I also thank Guido de Wert and David Shaw for providing critical and constructive feedback that helped improve this article.

Ethical review

The Dutch Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act (WMO, Dutch abbreviation) does not apply to this study, and IRB approval is not required under the WMO.

Notes

¹ These were, in alphabetical order, as follows: career advancement; career requirements; credit distribution; credit evaluation; instrumental goals for authorship; moral evaluation of authorship (practice); political goals for authorship; team hierarchies; team relationships (9). Codes were split and merged a few times, resulting in a final structure as follows, alphabetically: Authorship ideologies; authorship objectives; career status; credit distribution; credit expectations/wishes; credit valuation; team structure (7).

² It is important to realize that, while I used the label Ph.D. student for reasons of recognizability, in the Netherlands, individuals pursuing a Ph.D. degree are employees of the university and, as a result, enjoy a different status. Co-publication would rarely be framed in a student-faculty dichotomy (Welfare and Sackett 2010).

³ Anderson et al. report, in more detail on the relevance of international collaborations in the context of authorship and research integrity at large (Anderson et al. 2011) and McFarlane argues that, specifically in Chinese contexts, gift economies inform authorship practices (Macfarlane 2017). Similarly, Salita (2010) argues that respect for authority and general courtesy influences allocation of credit and authorship across Asia.

⁴ “Comfortable, according to IB2.

⁵ Next to a potentially relevant difference between nutrition scientists and medical researchers, and the site for data collection, a notable methodological difference between this study and Nylenna et al. is that they collected data via a survey, possibly allowing researchers to provide desirable answers or even consult guidelines while filling out the survey.

⁶ See http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html for ICJME guidelines on authorship.

⁷ It must be noted that Hammarfelt et al. employ gamification as a metaphor for the neoliberal context of the quantification of the self, whereas in this article, I will limit myself to the roles and rewards academics articulate for themselves (Hammarfelt, De Rijcke, and Rushforth 2016; Oravec 2017).