Abstract
We are living in a time where plagiarism is a highly critical issue in the publish-or-perish stage of academic life. There have been many efforts to address this issue by holistic socio-cognitive variables but they do not seem explanatory enough in context-specific areas. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the root causes of plagiarism in a specific context, i. e. Iranian universities, by offering a structural model to reveal the building blocks of this phenomenon. Setting the goal, we chose Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) Grounded Theory (GT) approach, avoiding its paradigmatic cliché that a theoretical model emerges only from data without any pre-assumption. The research population included faculty members, PhD candidates and master’s students selected from universities in Tehran, Iran. Open theoretical sampling and, then, discriminative sampling were used. Fifty-one interviews, two newspaper interviews, and three focus groups were conducted. The interviewees were accessed through universities’ library and information centers. Taken together, 56 interviews were transcribed and codified. Lincoln and Guba’s (2008) criteria were used to control the quality of the research process. “Indifference” to plagiarism is the central phenomenon and “cultural depositories” plus “governmental capitalism” were found to be the root factors. These two factors may lead to “Bureaucratic university” (Moodie 2006) as a context for the emergence of “research formalism”, “uncritical education” and “scholastic habitus”. All these factors, together with direct reflexive elements including bad exemplars, the irresponsibility of professors, immoral trade-off, unscientific evaluation, insignificant differentiation, and vindications, lead to “indifference”. One of the research’s implications is that plagiarism in Iran seems not to result from individual-psychological factors but from cultural, economic, legal and organizational factors. Another implication is that in the investigation of social or organizational problems we should take a look at the concept of normality. We explored the factors tending to make a problem a normal phenomenon. We also pinpointed the things making people indifferent to a problem, factors pushing abnormal phenomenon to the realm of normality, and elements constituting the origins of the current order of things which are mysteriously silenced and practically behaved.
References
Amiri, F., and A. S. Razmjoo. 2016. “On Iranian EFL Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Plagiarism.” Journal of Academic Ethics 14 (2): 115–31. doi: 10.1007/s10805-015-9245-3.Search in Google Scholar
Babaii, E., and H. Nejadghanbar. 2016. “Plagiarism among Iranian Graduate Students of Language Studies: Perspectives and Causes.” Ethics and Behavior 27 (3): 240–58. doi: 10.1080/10508422.2016.1138864.Search in Google Scholar
Baird, C., and P. Dooey. 2014. “Ensuring Effective Student Support in Higher Education Alleged Plagiarism Cases.” Innovative Higher Education 39 (5): 387–400. doi: 10.1007/s10755-014-9285-4.Search in Google Scholar
Bhaskar, R. 1993. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1988. Homo Academicus. Translated by Peter Collier. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Buckley, C. 2015. “Conceptualizing Plagiarism: Using Lego to Construct Students’ Understanding of Authorship and Citation.” Teaching in Higher Education 20 (3): 352–58. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1016418.Search in Google Scholar
Budd, J. 2010. “Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism.” In Critical Theory for Library and Information Science: Exploring the Social from across the Disciplines, edited by Gloria J. Leckie, Lisa M. Given, and John E. Buschman, 29–40. California: Libraries Unlimited.Search in Google Scholar
Capurro, R. 2008. “Intercultural Information Ethics: Foundations and Applications.” Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society 6 (2): 116–26. doi: 10.1108/14779960810888347.Search in Google Scholar
Checkel, J. T. 2000. “Bridging the Rational-Choice/Constructivist Gap? Theorizing Social Interaction in European Institutions.” Accessed August 10, 2018. https://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-working-papers/1994-2000/2000/wp00_11.htm.Search in Google Scholar
Corbin, J., and A. Strauss. 2008. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.10.4135/9781452230153Search in Google Scholar
Daly, C., and J. M. Horgan. 2007. “Profiling the Plagiarists: An Examination of the Factors that Lead Students to Cheat.” Journal of Educational Computing Research 36 (1): 39–50.10.2190/9087-8Q74-1875-0L1GSearch in Google Scholar
Day, R. 2010. “The Self-Imposed Limits of Library and Information Science: Remarks on the Discipline, on the Profession, on the University, and on the State of “information” in the U.S. at Large Today.” UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 6 (2): article 6. Accessed October 1, 2018. https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt0jr2h7w5/qt0jr2h7w5.pdf?t=lns47c.10.5070/D462000684Search in Google Scholar
Detel, W. 2015. “Social Constructivism.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, edited by James D. Wright, New York: Elsevier.10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.63081-7Search in Google Scholar
Einarsson, A. 2016. Cultural Economics. Norðurárdalur, Borgarnes, Iceland: Bifröst University Press. Accessed October 1, 2018. https://www.bifrost.is/files/rannsoknir-og-utgafa/rafbaekur/cultural-economics_rafbok.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Ess, C. 2005. “Lost in Translation?: Intercultural Dialogues on Privacy and Information Ethics (introduction to Special Issue on Privacy and Data Privacy Protection in Asia).” Ethics and Information Technology 7 (1): 1–6. doi: 10.1007/s10676-005-0454-0.Search in Google Scholar
Ess, C. 2006. “Ethical Pluralism and Global Information Ethics.” Ethics and Information Technology 8 (4): 215–26. doi: 10.1007/s10676-006-9113-3.Search in Google Scholar
Eving, H., A. Anast, and T. Roehling. 2016. “Addressing Plagiarism in Online Programs at A Health Sciences University: A Case Study.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 41 (4): 575–85. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1033612.Search in Google Scholar
Flick, U. 2006. An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. London: SAGE.Search in Google Scholar
Ford, P. J., and C. Hughes. 2011. “Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: Perceptions and Experience of Staff and Students in A School of Dentistry: A Situational Analysis of Staff and Student Perspectives.” European Journal of Dental Education 16 (1): 180–86. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0579.2011.00695.x.Search in Google Scholar
Gazizadeh, M., A. Norouzi-Javdan, K. Hassanpour, K. Aramesh, and S. H. Emami-Razavi. 2012. “Attitude toward Plagiarism among Iranian Medical Faculty Members.” Acta Medica Iranica 50 (11): 778–81.Search in Google Scholar
Greenberger, S., R. Holbeck, J. Steele, and T. Dyer. 2016. “Plagiarism Due to Misunderstanding: Online Instructor Perceptions.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning 16 (6): 72–84.10.14434/josotl.v16i6.20062Search in Google Scholar
Gullifer, J. M., and G. A. Tyson. 2014. “Who Has Read the Policy on Plagiarism? Unpacking Students’ Understanding of Plagiarism.” Studies in Higher Education 39 (7): 1202–18. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2013.777412.Search in Google Scholar
Halupa, C. M., E. Breitenbach, and A. Anast. 2016. “A Self-Plagiarism Intervention for Doctoral Students: A Qualitative Pilot Study.” Journal of Academic Ethics 14 (3): 175–89. doi: 10.1007/s10805-016-9262-x.Search in Google Scholar
Hayes, N., and L. D. Introna. 2005. “Cultural Values, Plagiarism, and Fairness: When Plagiarism Gets in the Way of Learning.” Ethics and Behavior 15 (3): 213–31. doi: 10.1207/s15327019eb1503_2.Search in Google Scholar
Heckler, N. C. 2012. “Mitigating Plagiarism in Large Introductory Courses in Higher Education.” PhD thesis, Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama. Accessed January 30, 2017. http://acumen.lib.ua.edu/u0015/0000001/0000895/u0015_0000001_0000895.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Isoc, D. 2014. “Preventing Plagiarism in Engineering Education and Research.” International Symposium on Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering (ISFEE), November 28–29,Timișoara, Romania. DOI: 10.1109/ISFEE.2014.7050618.Search in Google Scholar
Jamalzadeh, M. A. 1966. Shiraz and Humor of Us, Iranian. Tehran: Foroughi book sailing. [in Persian].Search in Google Scholar
Kaposi, D., and P. Dell. 2012. “Discourses of Plagiarism: Moralist, Proceduralist, Developmental and Inter-textual Approaches.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 33 (6): 813–30. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2012.686897.Search in Google Scholar
Krippendorff, K. 2011. “Agreement and Information in the Reliability of Coding.” Communication Methods and Measures 5 (2): 93–112. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2011.568376.Search in Google Scholar
Kroll, B. M. 1983. “How College Freshmen View Plagiarism.” Written Communication 5 (2): 203–21. 10.1177/0741088388005002005.Search in Google Scholar
Leonard, M., D. Schwieder, A. Buhler, D. B. Bennett, and M. Royster. 2015. “Perceptions of Plagiarism by STEM Graduate Students: A Case Study.” Science and Engineering Ethics 21 (6): 1587–608. doi: 10.1007/s11948-014-9604-2.Search in Google Scholar
Liddell, J. 2003. “A Comprehensive Definition of Plagiarism.” Community & Junior College Libraries 11 (3): 43–52. doi: 10.1300/J107v11n03_07.Search in Google Scholar
Lincoln, Y. S., and E. G. Guba. 2008. Qualitative Research Guidelines Project. Accessed November 21, 2015. http://www.qualres.org/HomeLinc-3684.htm.Search in Google Scholar
Love, P. G., and J. Simmons. 1998. “Factors Influencing Cheating and Plagiarism among Graduate Students in a College of Education.” College Student Journal 32 (2): 539–50.Search in Google Scholar
Makdisi, G. 1990. The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West; with Special Reference to Scholasticism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9781474470650Search in Google Scholar
Martin, D. E. 2000. “Culture and Unethical Conduct: Understanding the Impact of Individualism and Collectivism on Actual Plagiarism.” Management Learning 43 (3): 261–73. doi: 10.1177/1350507611428119.Search in Google Scholar
McCabe, D. L., and L. K. Trevino. 1997. “Individual and Contextual Influences on Academic Dishonesty: A Multi-Campus Investigation.” Research in Higher Education 38 (3): 379–96.10.1023/A:1024954224675Search in Google Scholar
McCabe, D. L., L. K. Trevino, and K. D. Butterfield. 1999. “Academic Integrity in Honor Code and Non-Honor Code Environments: A Qualitative Investigation.” Journal of Higher Education 70 (2): 211–34. doi: 10.2307/2649128.Search in Google Scholar
Mirzakhani, A. 2016. “An Overview of Iran’s Modern Manorial System.” Donya-e-Eqtesad Economic Daily. Accessed June 29, 2016. http://donya-e-eqtesad.com/SiteKhan/1072171. [in Persian]Search in Google Scholar
Moodie, G. 2006. “Bureaucratic Plagiarism.” Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification, 66–69. Retrieved May 22, 2018. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.006/bureaucraticplagiarism?rgn=main;view=fulltext.Search in Google Scholar
Nejati, M., R. Jamali, and M. Nejati. 2009. “Students’ Ethical Behavior in Iran.” Journal of Academic Ethics 7 (4): 277–85. doi: 10.1007/s10805-010-9101-4.Search in Google Scholar
Obeid, R., and D. B. Hill. 2017. “An Intervention Designed to Reduce Plagiarism in a Research Methods Classroom.” Teaching of Psychology 44 (2): 155–59. doi: 10.1177/0098628317692620.Search in Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. 1996. “Borrowing Others’ Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism.” TESOL Quarterly 30 (2): 201–30. doi: 10.2307/3588141.Search in Google Scholar
Powell, L., and N. Singh. 2016. “An Integrated Academic Literacy Approach to Improving Students’ Understanding of Plagiarism in an Accounting Course.” Accounting Education 25 (1): 14–34. doi: 10.1080/09639284.2015.1133311.Search in Google Scholar
Pupovac, V., and D. Fanelli. 2015. “Scientists Admitting to Plagiarism: A Meta-analysis of Surveys.” Science & Engineering Ethics 21 (5): 1331–52. doi: 10.1007/s11948-014-9600-6.Search in Google Scholar
Randall, M. 2001. Pragmatic Plagiarism: Authorship, Profit and Power. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442678736Search in Google Scholar
Rezanejad, A., and S. Rezaei. 2013. “Academic Dishonesty at Universities: The Case of Plagiarism among Iranian Language Students.” Journal of Academic Ethics 11 (4): 275–95. doi: 10.1007/s10805-013-9193-8.Search in Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M. 2011. “Principled Autonomy and Plagiarism.” Journal of Academic Ethics 9 (1): 61–69. doi: 10.1007/s10805-011-9132-5.Search in Google Scholar
Rothestein, B. 2005. Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511490323Search in Google Scholar
Rutherford, M. 2001. “Institutional Economics: Then and Now.” Journal of Economic Perspective 15 (3): 173–94.10.1257/jep.15.3.173Search in Google Scholar
Salvador, M. F., P. Rosso, and M. M. Gómez. 2016. “A Systematic Study of Knowledge Graph Analysis for Cross-Language Plagiarism Detection.” Information Processing and Management: an International Journal 52 (4): 550–70. doi: 10.1016/j.ipm.2015.12.004.Search in Google Scholar
Sherratt, Y. 2005. Continental Philosophy of Social Science: Hermeneutics, Genealogy, and Critical Theory from Greece to the Twenty-First Century. London: Oxford Publishing.10.1017/CBO9780511610691Search in Google Scholar
Silverman, D. 2009. Doing Qualitative Research, 3rd ed. London: SAGE Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Sonfield, M. C. 2014. “Academic Plagiarism at the Faculty Level: Legal versus Ethical Issues and a Case Study.” Journal of Academic Ethics 12 (2): 75–87. doi: 10.1007/s10805-014-9205-3.Search in Google Scholar
Stahl, B. C. 2008. “Discourses on Information Ethics: the Claim to Universality.” Ethics and Information Technology 10 (2–3): 97–108. doi: 10.1007/s10676-008-9171-9.Search in Google Scholar
Tabirca, A., and V. Radu. 2015. “Ways to Detect Plagiarism in Academic Research.” Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica 17 (2): 76–87. http://oeconomica.uab.ro/upload/lucrari/1720152/07.pdf.10.29302/oeconomica.2015.17.2.7Search in Google Scholar
Thomas, A. 2017. “Faculty Reluctance to Report Student Plagiarism: A Case Study.” African Journal of Business Ethics 11 (1): 103–19. doi: 10.15249/11-1-148.Search in Google Scholar
Throsby, D. 2001. Economics and Culture, 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Whale, G. 1990. “Software Metrics and Plagiarism Detection.” Journal of Systems & Software 13 (2): 131–38. doi: 10.1016/0164-1212(90)90118-6.Search in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
