Individual researchers have huge incentives for fraud, but large universities are the ones who most need to look inward here. HBS could become a beacon for stronger research practices in this area - requiring study preregistration and data collection methods that carefully trace provenance and changes. If HBS has fewer but better quirky marketing psychology studies, their reputation will do well. However for an indiv…
I joined academia for the pursuit of truth, and forth the glory of Knowing. But it turned out that academia doesn’t really do this anymore, it just sells itself as doing these things.
Academia is entirely a “reputation” system, as it turns out, from paper publishing to student-evaluations to “public rankings.” As it turns out, the capitalist marketplace must also contend with these issues, but imho (and somewhat counterintuitively), it does so somewhat more honestly.