Publication games: In the web of reciprocity

Abstract

The present processes of research assessment, i.e. focusing on one or a few, related, scientometrics, foster questionable authorship practices, like gifting authorship to non-contributing people. An especially harmful one of these unethical practices is the formation of publication cartels, where authors offer gift authorship to each other reciprocally. Here, by developing a simple model and a simulation of the publication process I investigate how beneficial cartels can be and what measure can be used to restrict them. My results indicate that publication cartels can significantly boost members’ productivity even if paper counts are weighted by the inverse of author number (the 1/n rule). Nevertheless, applying the 1/n rule generates conflicts of interest both among cartel members themselves and between cartel members and non-members which might lead to the self-purification of the academic publishing industry.