Description
Peer review is the cornerstone of academic legitimacy, but what if the process is compromised?
This seminar presents findings from the first large-scale audit of editorial conflicts of interest (COIs) in two top-tier (FT50 and ABDC-A*) business journals over a 15-year period (2010-2024). Our study reveals widespread patterns of favour exchange among a small group of prolific authors and editors (54 scholars with 10+ articles each).
These include reciprocal handling (editors accepting each other’s papers), prior coauthorships, and longstanding professional ties. Given our conservative measures and reliance on public records, this is likely just the tip of the iceberg. This elite cohort, just 2.4% of all contributors, accounts for nearly half of all articles, with 50–60% of their publications showing evidence of conflict.
The trend is worsening, peaking in 2024. We also find that conflicted papers are cited significantly less (-24%), indicating that COI loopholes undermine quality control and fair evaluation. The gatekeeping elite remains overwhelmingly male (94.5%) and North America–trained (90%), contradicting pompous commitments to diversity and inclusion. The consequences are profound.
When hiring, promotion, and reputation rely on journals structurally prone to bias, universities risk ethical, reputational, and even legal fallout. Harms may extend beyond academia when management practice and public policy is informed by compromised business scholarship. Drawing on principal–agent theory, we argue that editorial COIs are not isolated breaches but institutionalised forms of agency failure in a prestige-driven publishing economy.
The seminar will conclude with concrete reform proposals, ranging from transparency and audit mechanisms to incentive redesign and legal recourse, aimed at restoring fairness, integrity, and public trust in business scholarship.
Provider Information
Who should attend?
The event speaks to Section A1-A3, C1-C3, D1-D3, as detailed in the BAM Framework.
Benefits of Attending
- Better understand publication process;
- Unpack ethics of peer review;
- Reflect on inclusion within research.
Guest Speakers
Dr Raffaele Ciriello
Dr Raffaele F. Ciriello is a Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney. His research explores the complex intersections of digital innovation, decentralized governance, and ethics, often through the lens of dialectics, design, and compassion.
A Distinguished Member of the AIS, he serves as Debate Editor at Communications of the AIS and Associate Editor at European Journal of Information Systems. His work regularly appears in leading journals, top conferences, and mainstream media including the Financial Times, 60 Minutes, Fortune Magazine, Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News, and The Conversation.
Raffaele has mentored over 50 research students across five countries and serves as an enthusiastic contributor to the IS community, with award-winning service as Associate Editor at ECIS and ICIS. When not theorising Web3 governance or human-AI companionship, he can be found changing nappies, building sandcastles, and losing at chess to a six-year-old.
Dr Vitali Mindel
Dr Vitali Mindel is an Assistant Professor of Business Information Technology at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. His research examines how digital technologies and institutional structures shape ethical decision-making, with a particular focus on editorial governance, decentralized systems, and academic legitimacy.
He has published in journals such as Information Systems Research, Research Policy, and Management Information Systems Quarterly, and his current projects explore the sociology of knowledge production, the governance of blockchain ecosystems, and polycentricity.
He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems and blends insights from management, information systems, and political economy to address pressing institutional challenges.
Chair
Professor Dermot Breslin
Dermot Breslin is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Rennes School of Business, France. He has previously held faculty positions at the University of Sheffield, UK, Tor Vergata University, Italy, the University of Saarlandes, Germany and Lincoln Business School, UK.
His current research focuses on evolutionary approaches in organization studies, organizational learning and creativity. Dermot has been Co Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Management Reviews since 2017, and he sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management Studies, International Small Business Journal and the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research.
His research has been published in leading business and management journals including International Journal of Management Reviews, Organization Studies, Organizational Research Methods, Work Employment and Society, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, European Management Review and Studies in Higher Education. Before entering academia, Dermot worked in the steel, aluminium and paper industries, in engineering design, operations and sales management.
Contact
Please contact the BAM Office at [email protected] with any queries.
Event Fee
This event is free for BAM Members and Student Members
Non-Members: £60
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Registration closes on 7th October 2025 at 23:59 BST.
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Cancellations
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