An early-career researcher who discovered a nearly identical version of her manuscript published by the researcher who reviewed — and recommended rejecting — the work for another journal is still awaiting a resolution 10 months after reporting her concerns.
Shafaq Aftab, now a lecturer at the University of Central Punjab in Pakistan, learned of the published study last fall in an alert from ResearchGate. The paper, published in Systems Research and Behavioural Science (SRBS) in September 2024, was not only similar to research she completed during her Ph.D. coursework, it was the exact work she had submitted to another journal in late 2023, Aftab told Retraction Watch.
An email exchange she had with the editor of that journal, Information Development (IDV), confirmed the author of the published study was a reviewer of Aftab’s manuscript.
Social scientist Davood Ghorbanzadeh of Islamic Azad University of Tehran North Branch in Iran denies he plagiarized any portion of Aftab’s work and said his study was based on independent research of “the highest ethical standards.”
Ghorbanzadeh had two papers retracted in December and January for significant overlap with other researchers’ work.
A spokesperson for Wiley, which publishes SRBS, confirmed the publisher is still investigating the claims, which Aftab raised to the journal in September 2024.
The discovery of the SRBS study was “deeply upsetting, both personally and professionally,” Aftab said.
In November 2023, Aftab submitted a manuscript to IDV. The paper came from work she did as part of her doctoral research.
After two rounds of revisions, the article was rejected on Aug. 24, 2024, she said.
Ghorbanzadeh’s paper was submitted to SRBS on Jan. 26, 2024, and published on Sept. 18, 2024. A comparison of the published study with a copy of the manuscript Aftab provided to us reveals several similarities. The article’s data structure, analysis, and text are markedly similar to Aftab’s original work, including frequent verbatim paragraphs. For example, the text and citations in the introductions of both papers are identical.
The data do differ, however. The SRBS study, for instance, states the primary data were collected “from 340 employees from firms located in the industrial hub of a developing economy using a simple random technique” and “analysed using Smart-PLS 3 from the manufacturing sector.”
Aftab collected data “from 260 employees from firms located in the industrial hub of a developing economy using a simple random technique” and analyzed them “using Smart-PLS 4 from the manufacturing sector.”
The text of Ghorbanzadeh’s study conclusion is identical to that of Aftab’s conclusion.
Ghorbanzadeh told us by email, “I categorically deny these allegations.” He added:
I did not review Ms. Aftab’s manuscript for the Journal of Information Development (IDV), nor did I suggest its rejection, as has been claimed. These accusations are entirely unfounded and appear to be an attempt to discredit my work. My study is the result of original research conducted with academic integrity, and I have not accessed or utilized any part of Ms. Aftab’s manuscript.
But in a Sept. 22, 2024 email Aftab shared with us, Stephen Parker, then-editor of IDV, told her Ghorbanzadeh was a reviewer of both versions of Aftab’s manuscript for IDV, and the same reviewer who recommended it be rejected.
“We cannot be held accountable for this behavior from reviewers,” Parker wrote in the email. “However, we can provide proof that Ghorbanzadeh reviewed this manuscript for us. It seems to us that Wiley should start an investigation with these authors and they might consider sending a complaint to these authors’ institutions.”
Juan D. Machin-Mastromatteo, who took over as editor of IDV in January, declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Wiley confirmed the editorial office at SRBS, as well as Wiley’s research integrity team, are aware of the concerns. Wiley initiated an investigation in September 2024, soon after receiving the complaint, the spokesperson told us.
“The authors of the article, including Davood Ghorbanzadeh, have been contacted as part of our investigation,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We have also been in contact with the other publisher involved. We expect a final outcome soon, which we will then share directly with the involved parties.”
In an Oct. 16, 2024 email to Aftab and shared with us, Max Owen Williams, associate research integrity auditor for Wiley, wrote that an inquiry by the company had confirmed “there is indeed a large degree of overlap between the text and the figures presented in the two manuscripts.”
Ghorbanzadeh told us “any perceived similarities” between the two works “would be purely coincidental and not indicative of plagiarism.” He has been “fully cooperating” with Wiley’s investigation and has provided all relevant documentation, data, drafts, and correspondence, to support the originality of his work. He said he trusts Wiley will “thoroughly examine the matter and reach a fair conclusion.”
Ghorbanzadeh has had two studies retracted for plagiarism in recent months. A 2024 study in Emerald’s Journal of Health Organization and Management, titled “Empirical nexus of corporate social responsibility, service quality, corporate reputation and brand preference: evidence from Iranian healthcare industry,” was retracted in January because “a large portion of this article is taken, without attribution from an earlier, unpublished original work” by other coauthors, according to the retraction notice. The notice also states all coauthors besides Ghorbanzadeh “would like it to be noted that they were not aware of this situation.”
Similarly, the December retraction notice for a paper in Current Psychology stated the article “significantly overlaps with a previously published article with a largely different authorship,” with one of the authors stating “they were unaware of the submission of this article.”
Ghorbanzadeh’s coauthors of the SRBS study did not return our messages seeking comment.
Aftab said she reached out to all the authors of the SRBS study, and that she heard back from coauthor Juan Felipe Espinosa Cristia. Espinosa Cristia indicated he had no knowledge of any unethical actions or related to the study, and said he was not privy to the initial data collection.
Aftab said she hopes her experience leads to changes and creates more awareness for early-career researchers about protecting their work.
“It raises serious concerns about the peer review system,” she said. “If such actions go unaddressed, it sets a precedent that anyone in a review position can misuse their access to original work without consequence.”
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Unfortunately, the current peer review system is failing badly. It not only allows the publication of erroneous articles but also cannot handle such situations and protect submitting authors’ work. Ideally, the editors and publisher of IDV would be responsible because they sent the article to the reviewer who pirated the work. However, in reality, they hold no control over reviewers. It’s truly unfortunate. We don’t think SRBS will retract the paper.
There’s being caught with your hand in the cookie jar, and then there’s being caught stealing the oven. This is much closer to the second one.
This was so distressing to read…
I am part of a nationwide research/study group, and a member has shared his frustration about a major theoretical work he had developed with his colleagues (which he characterize as a model that is potentially paradigm-shifting). It has been under review for many months with a journal but, apparently, a strikingly similar model was recently published in another traditional journal.
Sure, the model’s name and some of its parts/premises differ but the core ideas remain the same and, thus, my colleague is convinced that a reviewer has misappropriated their work. This suspicion is partly based on the nature of the feedback received during the review process, which my colleague characterizes as “constant goal-post shifting” designed to get the paper rejected.
What a world we live in… Personally, hearing about these incidents only encourages me to go with MDPI and Frontiers journals with good metrics, so I can get the paper out quickly with transparent review and let the audience decide how good my work is.
I concur with your sentiments. More and more colleagues now fear posting their preprints and making available their protocols on public domains for the same reasons.
The journal publishing system has failed us again.