Big pharma, bad science? An analysis of retractions in bio-medical journals.

Innovation scholars have emphasized the contribution of firms to scientific advancements while bio-medical scholars have raised concerns about biases in firm research. Against this background, this paper studies retractions in the bio-medical literature to explore the involvement of firms in erroneous and questionable research. The paper studies the amount of and the reasons for retractions of bio-medical articles authored by firm researchers or sponsored by firms. By adding an organizational perspective to the literature studying retractions, the paper aims to improve our understanding of credibility and integrity of firm research. The empirical analysis based on retractions in the bio-medical literature reveals that retractions of articles firms have been involved in through co-authorship or sponsoring are rather rare. However, among the retracted firm publications fake data and questionable research are important reasons for retraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]