Dubious or decisive? Digging deeper into the unchartered path of academic ghostwriting

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the journey of academic professors who have engaged in ghostwriting. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts qualitative exploratory methods to investigate the ghostwriters' journey into academic ghostwriting. To achieve the goal, the authors interviewed academic ghostwriters, who were working for a diploma mill company, specifically focused on PhD thesis writing in the NIS setting. Findings: This study revealed several interesting insights from ghostwriter perspective such as the origins and motivation of ghostwriters, ghostwriters life, ghostwriters' careers and impediments faced by them. Originality/value: Given the dispersed and sensitive nature of the topic, this is one of the few studies to investigate ghostwriting and offer implications.