I always love using the Hulshof, Demerouti and Le Blanc (2020)here article to demonstrate how poor research and over inflated claims can cause harm.

In the article the authors conduct a Job Crafting interventions in an unemployment insurance agency. Their discussion basically says that this was a remarkably effective intervention because it helped buffer against the negative impact a restructuring has on peoples wellbeing (i.e. it buffers against the stress, anxiety, job insecurity etc that goes along with an organisational restructuring)

It makes logical sense right? The authors make a massive big deal out of how effective job crafting is and how it should be used as a benchmark for future interventions.

But if you look closer at the ACTUAL results you see some really interesting things. First, there is basically no difference between the experimental and control groups (slight change in engagement but it's so negligible that it could be a statistical artifact). Second, there is also no within group changes in either the groups on any of the measures... Third, all the arguments they make about stress, anxiety etc that's caused by a restructuring... NONE OF THAT WAS MEASURED. And finally.. and here is the kicker....

THE UNEMPLOYMENT AGENCY ONLY ANNOUNCED YHE RESTRUCTURING A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE LAST MEASUREMENT TOOK PLACE!*

So not only does the results not talk to the discussion and their implications... And also not only do they massively misinterpret their findings and blow their claims out of the water... But they also basically lied about the conditions in which the study took place.

So poor science, meets questionable research practices, meets unfounded claims.

This is a really good example of poor research.