authorship issues at a new zealand academic institution

background: authorship of peer-reviewed publications can create conflict among academics. objective: to document authorship conflicts of academics at a tertiary faculty. methods: an anonymous questionnaire eliciting authorship conflicts and knowledge of authorship criteria was administered online to 154 academic staff members at a new zealand university. results: 43 academics responded, a response rate of 27.9%. about half of the academics reported authorship conflicts, mainly regarding ownership of data, gift authorship and academic competition. of the 43 academics, 31 were aware of formal authorship criteria but only 21 could identify the appropriate source. 23 academics correctly identified all the appropriate criteria for authorship according to the international committee of medical journal editors guidelines. conclusion: authorship conflicts are prevalent in a new zealand university that may be related to lack of knowledge of authorship criteria.