Shaping the Field: A Review of the Use of Theory in Research on Research Integrity

Interest in research integrity (RI) has proliferated and gained prominence, particularly within the past decade – both in policy and academic environments. Research on RI might be considered an emerging research field, with dedicated journals and conferences. However, it is still characterized by fragmentation and is often carried out by researchers belonging to other fields (e.g. medicine, psychology, sociology, business, law, bioethics), thereby bringing varied approaches to the study of RI. The implications of this for the knowledge produced are, however, still understudied. Our study examines the place of theory in the shaping of the field of research on RI and how the choices of theoretical frameworks in given studies shape the logic of inquiry. To provide an inclusive overview of the relevant research and the theoretical variation underpinning it, we conducted systematic searches of SCOPUS, PubMed, and Web of Science (WoS) databases for English-language articles published between 2010 and 2023, based on a pre-defined set of search terms. The study finds that the theoretical landscape is highly heterogenous. It is, to some extent, dominated by grounded theory, personality psychology and institutionalism, but also engages a very broad scope of other theoretical perspectives, including social psychology, psychoanalytic theory, and narrative analysis. Through closer analysis of a group of studies that share focus on the relationship between pressure and research misconduct, this review elucidates the far-reaching implications that the choice of theory has on every aspect of an individual study and the field of research on RI overall.