The Nordic Journal of Migration Research has retracted a 2012 paper by a Swedish researcher who lifted text from another author.
The article, “Swedish Employers and Trade Unions, Varieties of Capitalism and Labour Migration Policies,” was written by Jesper Johansson, of Linnaeus University in Växjö. It’s available as a PDF here, but not on the website of the publisher, De Gruyter — nor is it listed on Johnansson’s own site.
We chose a sentence a random from the abstract:
Employers are also thought to support policies incentive-compatible with the prevailing mode of capitalism.
And found it in this 2007 preprint of an article, “Varieties of Capitalism and Labor Migration Policy,” by another in researcher Sweden, Gregg Bucken-Knapp, of University West.
We’re guessing this wouldn’t be the only successful fishing expedition — and we wonder why the editors didn’t bother to use plagiarism detection software.
Had they done so, they would have been able to avoid having to issue this retraction notice:
This article has been withdrawn by the editors-in-chief, because it has been found to plagiarise already published work.
An article in the Swedish press — which does not identify Johansson — about the matter quotes a Linnaeus University official as saying that a researcher is under investigation and that the case could have:
consequences for the researcher’s future career.
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Looks like he will soon get to do some first-hand research into the labor market!
Well, his past work seems to have been second-hand.
Internal investigation at the Linnaeus University has now found Johansson guilty of plagiarism. The university have put out a statement in Swedish (http://lnu.se/1.107140/utredning-visar-pa-plagiat), and there have been various news reports, also in Swedish. The most informative one I’ve seen is this: http://www.friatider.se/antirasistisk-forskare-fast-f-r-grovt-plagiat. It says Johansson is on leave of absence and disciplinary measures will be decided by a committee in September.
He seems still to be employed and is publishing: Johansson, J. (2014). Swedish Employers and Trade Unions, Labor Migration and the Welfare State : Perspectives on Swedish Labor Migration Policy Debates during the 1960s and the 2000s. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies. 4. 97-118.
He is still employed; https://lnu.se/en/staff/jesper.johansson/