Retraction (mal)practices of elite marketing and social psychology journals in the Dirk Smeesters’ research misconduct case

ABSTRACT

The Dirk Smeesters case is one of the most well-documented and widely publicized cases of research misconduct to date. We investigate, using a case study approach, which of Smeesters’ articles were found to be unreliable and recommended for retraction, which were retracted, and which were not. We also investigate by whom, when, and how these fraudulent articles were retracted. We found that only six retraction notices exist for the seven Smeesters’ fraudulent articles that were recommended for retraction. For four of the six retraction notices, there were no explicit markers that clearly indicated who wrote them (e.g., the editor and/or the publisher). Smeesters’ flawed articles were retracted in 97.6 days on average by the retracting journals. Retraction practices in these elite marketing and social psychology journals ranged from a seeming failure to retract (i.e., no record of a retraction notice) to a fair (i.e., informative and transparent) retraction. We also emphasize the ramifications of failing to retract an article whose findings are based on fabricated data. We conclude by listing the lessons learned from the Smeesters case.

KEYWORDS:

• Dirk Smeesters
• research integrity
• investigation
• data fabrication
• retraction practices

Authors’ contributions

The authors contributed equally to all aspects of the paper, including information gathering, literature assessment, revisions and editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See https://retractionwatch.com/?s=smeesters (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

2. The timeline of events in the Smeesters case can be found in Appendix 5 (pp.30–32) of the EUR Committee for Inquiry into Scientific Integrity’s report.

3. An English version of that report is archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20120707062725/http://www.eur.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/press/2012/Juli/report_Committee_for_inquiry_prof._Smeesters.publicversion.28_6_2012.pdf.

4. See an archived version of that report at: https://web.archive.org/web/20170311224705/https://www.eur.nl/fileadmin/ASSETS/press/2014/maart/Report_Smeesters_follow-up_investigation_committee.final.pdf.

5. See https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=3207 (last accessed: 28 October 2022).

6. See https://web.archive.org/web/20220803093938/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1509/jmkr.47.2.251 (archived on 5 August 2022).

7. See https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/press/sage-publishing-and-the-american-marketing-association-partner-to-publish-ama-journals (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

8. See https://www.ft.com/content/3405a512-5cbb-11e1-8f1f-00144feabdc0 (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

9. See https://jsom.utdallas.edu/the-utd-top-100-business-school-research-rankings/ (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

10. See https://journals.sagepub.com/home/mrj (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

11. See https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221101398.

12. A retraction notice was finally issued for Smeesters’ JMR article on December 1^st, 2022 (see https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1509/jmkr.47.2.251). This retraction notice, however, contains an error. It states that “the retraction was issued following the recommendation of a report […] from Tilburg University.” It is, instead, a EUR report. The AMA, JMR, and Sage Publishing must correct this error.

13. See https://retractionwatch.com/2021/08/23/readers-puzzle-over-marketing-journals-failures-to-retract/ (Last accessed: 28 October 2022).

14. Available at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/quj5qiatl3qtbl6/AMA%20Policy%20on%203rd%20Party%20Requests%20final%20%286%29.docx?dl=0 (Last accessed: 29 October 2022).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.