Paper short abstract:

Integrity emerges (or not) in a context of organizational culture. This paper discusses integrity in relation to one part of that culture, namely the promotion and assessment procedures by which researchers' careers are steered. The study focuses on University Medical Centers in the Netherlands.

Paper long abstract:

Integrity as a value or virtue is not something established in a vacuum but realised in a context. In the context of research, integrity is realised (or not) in negotiation with other institutional factors such as policies, institutional cultures, and disciplinary standards. Contextual factors such as publication and career pressure have been mentioned widely as potential impediments for research integrity to be maintained. This paper investigates how the realisation of integrity in medical research practices relates to the contextual factor of assessment and promotion of researchers, and whether and how such promotion practices help to nourish integrity. The paper pays explicit attention to the notion of integrity culture, as a site where collective and individual notions of integrity are negotiated, and which is partly built through such promotion strategies. The paper is empirically centred on the Netherlands, and builds on empirical material, chiefly interviews and focus groups, acquired in the 8 University Medical Centers in the country.