The American Accounting Association has
The articles, from Dr. James E. Hunton, formerly of Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., were written between 1996 and 2013. The retractions followed on the heels of a
“Because of concerns regarding Fraud Brainstorming that the editors at The Accounting Review had been discussing with Dr. Hunton since May 2012, the editors withdrew that paper in November 2012,” she wrote. “Bentley received the allegation of research misconduct from the confidential reporter later that month. The confidential reporter also raised questions about ten other articles that Dr. Hunton published or provided data for while he was at Bentley, which, the reporter alleged, raised similar questions of research integrity.”
Among the problems were the data and sources that Hunton cited for his research. “The investigation revealed many copies of summary spreadsheets—the kind of summary information that Dr. Hunton had shared with his co-authors—but nothing that could reasonably be described as original data,” Malone wrote. “There were no copies of completed questionnaires or other raw data that one might have expected to find.
“With respect to the sources of the data, the investigators mined his files for the identity of any major accounting firm that might reasonably have supplied the data reported in Fraud Brainstorming, and any training or consulting firm that might reasonably have supplied the data reported in Tone at the Top,” she added. “Each of the accounting firms that, based on the review, might have partnered with Dr. Hunton on the Fraud Brainstorming study was contacted and each willingly conducted an internal review to answer our inquiries. None was able to find any evidence that it had a research relationship with Dr. Hunton or any evidence that it had been the source of the data. No training or consulting firms (the supposed sources of the data in the Tone at the Top paper) were contacted because none could be identified in Dr. Hunton’s files.”
In an announcement last week, the American Accounting Association said it had retracted 25 articles and a section of another article based on the “pattern of misconduct identified in the investigation summary.”
“Consistent with the findings in the Bentley University investigation summary, the Association review team found no evidence that Dr. Hunton’s co-authors were aware of or complicit in Dr. Hunton’s actions,” said the AAA.
According to the
The retractions were originally reported by the blog