2023/13 | LEM Working Paper Series | ||||||||||||||||
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Breach of Academic Values and Digital Deviant Behaviour: the Case of Sci-Hub |
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Giulia Rossello and Arianna Martinelli |
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Keywords | |||||||||||||||||
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Academic Values; Digital Piracy; Deviant Behaviour; Psychological Contract Breach;
Sci-Hub.
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JEL Classifications | |||||||||||||||||
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D23, L86, O34
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Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
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This paper bridges the organisational psychology and the economics of science literature to
examine the role of ideology-based psychological contract breach in eliciting mild deviant
behaviour in academia. We provide empirical evidence of how the deterioration of academic
values related to the diffusion of the ''publish or perish'' paradigm sparkles copyright violations
through Sci-Hub. Based on a representative sample of 2849 academics working in top
institutions in 6 European countries, we find that ideology-based psychological contract breach
explains Sci-Hub usage, also when controlling for other trivial motivations. The magnitude
of the effect depends on contextual and demographic characteristics. Females, foreign and
tenured scholars are less likely to respond with digital piracy when experiencing a contract
breach of academic values. Our results contribute to prevention policy design, highlighting
how policies restoring academic values might also address academic piracy.
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