Perceived Organizational Justice and Scientific Dishone*

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Problems facing Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and the causes and extent of scientific misconduct are described in two separate bodies of scientific literature. The probable relationship between the two, however, has not been systematically explored. Adapting from the substantial research on organizational justice, it is predicted that perceived unfairness of IRB processes and decisions can result in a range of unprofessional responses by investigators. Such responses include lowered compliance with IRB rulings, poor scientist citizenship, and scientific misconduct. Three surveys will be conducted to study these phenomena. Because IRB/investigator relationships are different in significant ways from the parties in the usual settings in which organizational justice research is conducted, a large-scale survey has been designed to explore how important IRB justice issues are to investigators. Attributes of IRBs fall into eight categories that will be rated by a large sample of research scientists and analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis through structural equation modeling. A second study of social and behavioral science investigators explores the hypothesis that perceived distributive (outcome), procedural (how the decision was made), and interactional (interpersonal sensitivity) justice on the part of IRBs influences the degree of disapproval of scientific dishonesty. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the seriousness of misconduct will be rated lower and sympathy for the offending investigator (as portrayed in a vignette) will be rated higher when an IRB action is portrayed as unjust as compared to IRB actions portrayed as just. Finally, a pilot project to gather relevant critical incidents is also proposed. What is learned from these three studies could be extremely useful in designing recommendations to promote ways that IRBs will be perceived of as fair by investigators.