Integrity watchdogs, lap dogs, and dead dogs

ABSTRACT

Integrity officers working in academic and research settings can be termed “watchdogs” based on characteristics and behaviors that align with their role: alert, loyal to their training, responders, notifiers. These watchdogs have a difficult role that involves being the receiver and transmitter of sensitive information that often relates to personal and corporate image, as well as funding. Academic and research organizations must operationalize their mission and vision with more than static policies and procedures about integrity and professionalism, or they risk their watchdogs being reduced to “lap dogs” with a diminutive and submissive presence who are merely loyal to the comfort zone of their employer. A lap dog role has several potential side effects including moral distress and moral injury for the integrity officer, as well as poor service quality for whistle-blowers and other service users. Organizations have a duty to ensure their integrity programs are meaningfully supported, including respecting the human constructs of the watchdog role.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrity
• ethics
• standards
• compliance
• occupational health
• professionalism

Disclosure statement

The author is the chief executive of the Luxembourg Agency for Research Integrity. The author owns a private ethics consulting company, AskTheEthicist, LLC with individual and organizational clients.

Notes

1. Sometimes academic and research misconduct are co-mingled and difficult to untangle; for example, thesis and dissertation works are academic documents that are academic program requirements but also contain research components. Organizations can be universities, NGOs, government-sponsored offices, private or public research institutes, etc.

2. There is no globally harmonized definition of research misconduct. In USA, the national Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has a narrower definition of research misconduct that does not include “deception”: https://ori.hhs.gov/definition-misconduct. In the UK, the Wellcome Trust includes “deception” along with fabrication, falsification and plagiarism in their conception of research misconduct: https://wellcome.ac.uk/grant-funding/guidance/research-misconduct.

3. In some structures, the IO will have a role in the investigative process, whereas sometimes, there are distinct and separate investigative teams to reduce the potential for COI if the IO is also an employee of the implicated institution.

4. The Houser case is an example of data spinning/deception that was reported with severe consequences to the whistleblower who was also an IO.

5. When cases fall outside the scope of the integrity office, there should be a referral system in place such that whistleblowers are not left stranded without information on where to submit their case.