About the Reviewed Original Article
Title: You Put My Name, I Put Your Name: Exploring Unethical Practices in Academic Publishing Using the Authorship Misappropriation Diamond Framework
Authors: Oyenuga, Apata, Oladele & Jeresa
Journal: Ethics & Behavior (Taylor & Francis), Vol. 36, 2026
DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2026.2661701
Overview
This recently published qualitative study from Nigerian academia has struck a chord that resonates far beyond West Africa, including, unmistakably, in Nepal. The authors investigate what they call the “Put My Name” (PMN) syndrome, the widespread practice of including individuals as co-authors of research papers without any meaningful intellectual contribution. Through semi-structured interviews with 18 Nigerian university lecturers, the study identifies five distinct patterns of authorship misappropriation and introduces a powerful new theoretical model: the Authorship Misappropriation Diamond (AMD).
This review examines the article’s key contributions and asks a pointed question:
How different, really, is Nepal?
Key Findings of the Study
The researchers identified five types of unethical authorship practices:
- Transactional Authorship: Authorship granted in exchange for paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) or direct financial contributions.
- Promotion-Driven Padding: Last-minute addition of names to meet promotion quotas before deadlines.
- Patronage/Hierarchy Authorship: Senior faculty or department heads included by default, regardless of contribution.
- Reciprocal Authorship Exchanges: Informal ‘you add mine, I’ll add yours’ arrangements between colleagues.
- Unauthorized Inclusion / Covert Claim: Names added without consent, or mentors reassigning themselves as lead authors on a junior researcher’s work.
Three overarching themes emerged: uneven awareness of authorship standards, systemic institutional and financial drivers, and entrenched hierarchical dynamics.
The Authorship Misappropriation Diamond (AMD)
The study’s most significant theoretical contribution is the AMD model, which extends the classical Fraud Diamond (Wolfe & Hermanson, 2004) by adding a fifth dimension : Normalization.
The five components are:
| Component | What It Means in Academia |
| Pressure | Publish-or-perish culture, promotion quotas |
| Opportunity | Weak enforcement, high APCs, lack of ethics training |
| Rationalization | ‘Everyone does it,’ mentorship norms, cultural deference |
| Capability | Senior academics wielding power over authorship decisions |
| Normalization (new) | Repeated misconduct becoming institutionally accepted |
The AMD argues that authorship misappropriation is not an individual moral failure: it is a systemic, self-reinforcing cycle embedded in institutional culture.
Reflecting on Nepal: A Familiar Story
Reading this article, one cannot help but recognize the Nepali academic landscape in almost every finding. While no large-scale empirical study has yet formally documented the “Put My Name” syndrome in Nepal, anecdotal evidence and informal academic discourse suggest that the same five patterns are deeply embedded in our universities.
1. Promotion-Driven Padding in Nepal
Nepal’s university promotion system, particularly under Tribhuvan University (TU) and other affiliated universities, heavily weights the number of publications for promotion from the entry level and further up the ladder. This creates the same ‘publish-or-perish’ pressure documented in Nigeria. Academics approaching promotion deadlines are known to seek co-authorship opportunities not based on contribution but on urgency.
2. Hierarchical Patronage
The culture of ‘guru-chela’ (teacher-disciple) relationships in Nepali academia, while valuable in many respects, can become a vehicle for coercive authorship. Junior faculty and students often feel compelled to include supervisors as co-authors, not because of intellectual contribution, but out of respect, fear, or institutional expectation. This mirrors exactly what the study calls ‘Patronage/Hierarchy Authorship.’ However, several supervisors are good to work vis-à-vis to the scholars and mentor and work together for research outcomes.
3. Reciprocal Name Exchange
Informal networks among Nepali academics, often built along lines of university affiliation or other identity, can facilitate the same “you add mine, I’ll add yours” arrangements described in the study. People rarely discuss these exchanges openly, but they widely understand them.
4. Transactional Authorship and APCs
With the rise of open-access publishing and the pressure to publish in indexed journals, Nepali researchers increasingly face high article processing charges. In contexts where research funding is scarce and institutional support is minimal, the temptation to bring in a financially contributing “co-author” is real and growing.
The Normalization Problem
Perhaps most troubling is the AMD’s concept of Normalization: the process by which repeated misconduct becomes culturally accepted. In Nepal, where formal research ethics training is still nascent in most institutions, and where whistleblowing carries significant professional and social risk, normalization of authorship misconduct is a genuine and growing concern.
What Nepal Can Learn and Do
This article offers not just a diagnosis but a roadmap. Drawing from its policy implications, here are recommendations relevant to the Nepali context:
- Revisions can be made to promotion criteria at TU, other universities, and other institutions to reward quality and contribution over sheer publication count.
- Mandate author contribution statements in all institutional and national journals, specifying each author’s role.
- Establish a national research integrity framework aligned with ICMJE and COPE guidelines, and enforcement mechanisms.
- Integrate research ethics training into PhD programs and faculty development programs, not as a one-time workshop, but as a sustained institutional culture.
- Create safe reporting mechanisms for junior researchers and students who experience coercive or unauthorized authorship.
- Increase public research funding to reduce the financial desperation that drives transactional authorship.
Finally
“You Put My Name, I Put Your Name” is a timely, theoretically rich, and practically relevant study. Its greatest strength is the AMD framework, which reframes authorship misconduct as a systemic institutional problem rather than individual dishonesty. For Nepali academics, administrators, and policymakers, this article is essential reading, not because Nigeria’s problems are identical to ours, but because the underlying forces of pressure, hierarchy, opportunity, and normalization are strikingly universal.
Nepal’s academic community stands at a crossroads. As our universities push toward international research visibility and accreditation, the integrity of our scholarship must be the foundation, not an afterthought. This article gives us both the language and the framework to begin that conversation.
Author: Gangaram Biswakarma, Phd
Learning Often happens in the classroom, but it doesn’t have to.