Perceived Organizational Justice and Scientific Dishone*

机构审查委员会(IRBs)面临的问题以及科学不端行为的原因和程度在两个不同的科学文献中进行了描述。然而，这两者之间的可能关系还没有得到系统的探索。改编自大量关于组织公平的研究，预测到IRB过程和决策的感知不公平会导致调查人员做出一系列不专业的反应。这些反应包括对IRB裁决的遵守程度降低，糟糕的科学家公民身份，以及科学不端行为。将进行三项调查来研究这些现象。由于IRB/调查员的关系在很大程度上不同于进行组织公正研究的通常环境中的各方，因此设计了一项大规模调查，以探讨IRB公正问题对调查员的重要性。IRBs的属性分为八类，将由大样本研究科学家进行评级，并通过结构方程建模进行验证性因素分析。社会和行为科学研究人员的第二项研究探索了这样的假设，即IRBs的感知分配(结果)、程序性(如何做出决定)和交互(人际敏感)正义会影响对科学不诚实的不赞成程度。具体地说，假设当IRB的行动被描绘为不公正时，不当行为的严重性将被评级较低，而对违规调查员的同情(如小插曲中所描绘的)将被评级为更高。最后，还提出了收集相关危急事件的试点项目。从这三项研究中学到的东西在设计建议方面可能非常有用，以促进调查人员认为IRBs是公平的。

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.