They are young men who made some stupid mistakes. Let them learn the lesson and grow.
These are the kinds of mistakes that 10-year-olds make. These are not the mistakes that 30-year-old men make, especially one of them, who should know from his father that integrity is extremely important in academic research. Wait, forget that, I forgot who his father is.
They are young men who made some stupid mistakes. Let them learn the lesson and grow.
They are young liars who committed fraud in two papers and when they couldn't stonewall any longer, resorted to an excuse a 10-year-old would've been too ashamed to use (bad doggy ate my laptop).
https://careers.afajof.org/job/313272/accounting-faculty-position-open-to-economists/
Accounting Faculty Position Open to Economists
Are they not confident about the ethics of all accounting phd now, and rather hire economists for accounting jobs?
Ironically, Andrew Bird is an econ PhD.
Really not surprising, what kind of econ PhD will like to apply for an accounting job? Money is the only explanation.
https://careers.afajof.org/job/313272/accounting-faculty-position-open-to-economists/
Accounting Faculty Position Open to Economists
Are they not confident about the ethics of all accounting phd now, and rather hire economists for accounting jobs?Ironically, Andrew Bird is an econ PhD.
Karolyi is a finance PHD. What a joke!
Really not surprising, what kind of econ PhD will like to apply for an accounting job? Money is the only explanation.
https://careers.afajof.org/job/313272/accounting-faculty-position-open-to-economists/
Accounting Faculty Position Open to Economists
Are they not confident about the ethics of all accounting phd now, and rather hire economists for accounting jobs?Ironically, Andrew Bird is an econ PhD.
I have been pondering this topic for a while and followed the comments. Here are my two cents. I don't think that the posters here on ejmr need to be quite so outraged and adhere to conspiracy theories. My prediction is that there is little hope that AB and SK will survive this incident. Senior letter writers and university-wide P&T committees will have to react to the retraction and also to the pretty damning letter of RFS. I have enough faith in the integrity of our profession (you can call me naive) that I don't see how an untenured researcher can survive such a stain on the record in a tenure review.
But it would be good, I think, to take one step back and think about the right lessons for junior faculty and PhD students. These lessons should not be that you need an influential family member, be at a top university to be part of the club, or be intellectually dishonest to succeed in the profession, as is suggested in most of the comments here. I think one could reach very different conclusions from looking at the same evidence.
First, fabrication of results or manipulation does not pay off. The profession pays attention, be it explicitly in replication studies in the public domain or implicitly in talking at conferences among peers about sloppy tests and unverifiable results. And if one writes an influential paper, one can be sure that it is going to be replicated by PhD students and extended by other faculty, and that the truth is coming out. So, do not succumb to the fallacy that nobody will read your paper because you are still a nobody and that you can secretly change some table description or data from one version to the next.
Second, if somebody finds a serious flaw in your paper or rightly criticizes your methodology, do not ignore it in the hope of getting it through the publication process for one more line on the resume.
Third, and I am going to get beaten up for this, I am sure, this case also casts a pretty good light on RFS. They took a paper of a nobody from a VLRM university seriously enough to start an investigation into the son of one of their former editors – how can one say that this is somehow shady? Yes, the accounting journal reacted more quickly but you don’t know when the process at RFS started.
Finally, have some compassion for a very senior member of our profession who has done many good things, including sacrificing four years of his life to serve as the editor of a top journal or going to conferences organizing breakfasts and meetings to educate the next generation. Instead of imagining how he tried to camouflage this (how could he really?), imagine going to conferences and being whispered about and sneered at for things that your son did. That must be a truly awful thing to experience after such a distinguished career.
“ These lessons should not be that you need an influential family member, be at a top university to be part of the club, or be intellectually dishonest to succeed in the profession, as is suggested in most of the comments here. ” - this is where I stopped reading. Everybody in accounting knows that you need to be at a top university to be part of the club. If you want to give phd students and junior faculty lessons, tell them the truth first.
Third, and I am going to get beaten up for this, I am sure, this case also casts a pretty good light on RFS. They took a paper of a nobody from a VLRM university seriously enough to start an investigation into the son of one of their former editors – how can one say that this is somehow shady? Yes, the accounting journal reacted more quickly but you don’t know when the process at RFS started.
It is irrelevant that TAR reacted more quickly. What matters is that TAR followed its policies: SKAB were asked to submit their original data and code, they said their laptop died and the files were gone, so TAR retracted the paper. All of that is clearly stated in the retraction.
In comparison, the RFS statement is a joke. It doesn't say whether SKAB submitted the original data and code, or whether they submitted a "replication kit." Most importantly, despite finding numerous problems and even concluding that the "the methodology does not generate the results," the RFS did not retract the paper.
What the RFS did contradicts all your "right lessons." According to the RFS, it is acceptable to fabricate results. It is acceptable to ignore somebody who finds a serious flaw or rightly criticizes the methodology. It is acceptable to write code that differs from what the paper claims.
And we should look past all that because you think Andrew Karolyi deserves sympathy for all his "hard work"? GTFO.
Nice spin! It is not all sunshine and rainbows at RFS. The fact that they could not retract the paper (which TAR did for a similar paper with similar issue) and settle for that conflicted statements tells you about the pulls and pressures of the profession. What they did was wrong but in my opinion not a retractable offense (sounds familiar to something else in the country?) is weak sauce really...
I have been pondering this topic for a while and followed the comments. Here are my two cents. I don't think that the posters here on ejmr need to be quite so outraged and adhere to conspiracy theories. My prediction is that there is little hope that AB and SK will survive this incident. Senior letter writers and university-wide P&T committees will have to react to the retraction and also to the pretty damning letter of RFS. I have enough faith in the integrity of our profession (you can call me naive) that I don't see how an untenured researcher can survive such a stain on the record in a tenure review.
But it would be good, I think, to take one step back and think about the right lessons for junior faculty and PhD students. These lessons should not be that you need an influential family member, be at a top university to be part of the club, or be intellectually dishonest to succeed in the profession, as is suggested in most of the comments here. I think one could reach very different conclusions from looking at the same evidence.
First, fabrication of results or manipulation does not pay off. The profession pays attention, be it explicitly in replication studies in the public domain or implicitly in talking at conferences among peers about sloppy tests and unverifiable results. And if one writes an influential paper, one can be sure that it is going to be replicated by PhD students and extended by other faculty, and that the truth is coming out. So, do not succumb to the fallacy that nobody will read your paper because you are still a nobody and that you can secretly change some table description or data from one version to the next.
Second, if somebody finds a serious flaw in your paper or rightly criticizes your methodology, do not ignore it in the hope of getting it through the publication process for one more line on the resume.
Third, and I am going to get beaten up for this, I am sure, this case also casts a pretty good light on RFS. They took a paper of a nobody from a VLRM university seriously enough to start an investigation into the son of one of their former editors – how can one say that this is somehow shady? Yes, the accounting journal reacted more quickly but you don’t know when the process at RFS started.
Finally, have some compassion for a very senior member of our profession who has done many good things, including sacrificing four years of his life to serve as the editor of a top journal or going to conferences organizing breakfasts and meetings to educate the next generation. Instead of imagining how he tried to camouflage this (how could he really?), imagine going to conferences and being whispered about and sneered at for things that your son did. That must be a truly awful thing to experience after such a distinguished career.
Finally, have some compassion for a very senior member of our profession who has done many good things, including sacrificing four years of his life to serve as the editor of a top journal or going to conferences organizing breakfasts and meetings to educate the next generation. Instead of imagining how he tried to camouflage this (how could he really?), imagine going to conferences and being whispered about and sneered at for things that your son did. That must be a truly awful thing to experience after such a distinguished career.
Not distinguished. Shameful. AK clearly made shady deals and decisions that favored SK and friends, as evidenced by his removal 2 years before term ended.
It is an honor to serve, and a privilege to go to breakfasts with juniors. It is not a sacrifice. Your frame of reference is disturbing.
The SFS went easy on AK and SK. Clearly RFS has lost credibility and should not be considered a top journal. No objectivity. An insiders journal. Shamefully on display here.
Speak up:
Please tell your Dean about this shameful episode and team him/her to not vote for RFS as an FT journal.