A qualitative study exploring researchers’ perspectives on authorship decision-making

Abstract Background Authorship has major implications for a researcher’s promotion and tenure, future funding, and career opportunities. Due in part to these high-stakes consequences, many journals require authors to meet formal authorship criteria, e.g. the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship. Yet on multiple surveys, researchers admit to violating these criteria, suggesting that authorship practices are a complex issue. Using qualitative methods, we aimed to unpack the complexities inherent in researchers’ conceptualizations of questionable authorship practices and to identify factors that make researchers vulnerable to engaging in such practices. Methods and Findings We conducted an interview study with a purposeful sample of 26 North American medical education researchers holding MD (n=17) and PhD (n=9) degrees and representing a range of career stages. We asked participants to respond to two vignettes – one portraying honorary authorship, the other describing an author order scenario – and then to describe related authorship experiences. Through thematic analysis, we found that participants, even when familiar with ICMJE criteria, conceptualized questionable authorship practices in various ways and articulated several ethical gray areas. We identified personal and situational factors, including hierarchy, resource dependence, institutional culture and gender, that contributed to participants’ vulnerability to and involvement in questionable authorship practices. Participants described negative instances of questionable authorship practices as well as situations in which these practices occurred for virtuous purposes. Participants rationalized that engagement in questionable authorship practices, while technically violating authorship criteria, could be reasonable when the practices seemed to benefit science and junior researchers. Participants described negative instances of questionable authorship practices as well as situations in which these practices occurred for virtuous purposes. Participants rationalized that engagement in questionable authorship practices, while technically violating authorship criteria, could be reasonable when the practices seemed to benefit science and junior researchers. Conclusion Authorship guidelines, such as the ICMJE criteria, portray authorship decisions as black and white, effectively sidestepping key dimensions that create ethical shades of gray. Our findings show that researchers generally recognize these shades of gray and in some cases acknowledge breaking or bending the rules themselves. Sometimes, their flexibility in applying rules of authorship is driven by benevolent aims that align with their own values or prevailing norms such as generosity and inclusivity. Other times, their participation in questionable authorship practices is framed not as a choice, but rather as a consequence of their vulnerability to individual or system factors beyond their control. Taken together, the findings reported here provide insights that may help researchers and institutions move beyond recognition of the challenges of authorship and contribute to the development of informed, evidence-based solutions for questionable authorship practices.

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