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  • 1.  7/50 Target Journal Validity

    Posted 04-22-2008 15:54

    <st1:place w:st="on">OB</st1:place> Colleagues,

     

    Many business schools facing accreditation have moved towards a specified list of target journals for their faculty to publish in to maintain their AQ status. As our school goes through the process (with 7 "A" and 50 "B" journals, I have wondered what kind of quantitative evidence supports the practice. From a HR performance management perspective (and as the results of the publications impact tenure/retention, etc.) you would anticipate a validity study of the practice.

    Many schools have had the practice in effect for years, but I have not found any studies in the literature. If you have any related studies, I would appreciate you passing them on to me, providing the citations or a synopsis of your unpublished results. Specifically, I'm looking for evidence that the process of reifying x # of journals facilitates productivity.


    Dan

    Daniel E. Martin, Ph.D.

    Assistant Professor

    Department of Management

    California State University, East Bay

    (510) 885-2060

     

    Vice President

    Alinea Group

    SF, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">CA-Washington</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">DC</st1:state></st1:place>

    (800) 590-8095

     



  • 2.  7/50 Target Journal Validity

    Posted 04-23-2008 12:18

    Dan,

    While not directly related to the quantitative evidence you requested, I suggest reading "How Much Better Are the Most-Prestigious Journals? The Statistics of Academic Publication" by Bill Starbuck (Organization Science, Vol. 16, No. 2, March-April 2005, pp. 180-200).

    Alan

    Alan N. Miller, Ph.D.
    Professor of Management
    College of Business
    University of Nevada, Las Vegas
    4505 Maryland Parkway
    Box 456009
    Las Vegas, NV 89154-6009

    Email: alan.miller@unlv.edu
    Phone: (702) 895-3814
    Fax: (702) 895-4370

    Website:     http://faculty.unlv.edu/amiller

    Daniel Martin <dmartin@ALINEAGROUP.COM>



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    Subject

    7/50 Target Journal Validity

    OB Colleagues,

    Many business schools facing accreditation have moved towards a specified list of target journals for their faculty to publish in to maintain their AQ status. As our school goes through the process (with 7 "A" and 50 "B" journals, I have wondered what kind of quantitative evidence supports the practice. From a HR performance management perspective (and as the results of the publications impact tenure/retention, etc.) you would anticipate a validity study of the practice.
    Many schools have had the practice in effect for years, but I have not found any studies in the literature. If you have any related studies, I would appreciate you passing them on to me, providing the citations or a synopsis of your unpublished results. Specifically, I'm looking for evidence that the process of reifying x # of journals facilitates productivity.

    Dan
    Daniel E. Martin, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor
    Department of Management
    California State University, East Bay
    (510) 885-2060

    Vice President
    Alinea Group
    SF, CA-Washington, DC
    (800) 590-8095



  • 3.  7/50 Target Journal Validity

    Posted 04-23-2008 13:01

    Colleagues,

     

    What is the benefit to business schools and the faculty when the publications are limited to the ones the schools want? 

     

    We are already suffered from a problem of "sameness" in curriculum, textbook, etc.  This means that we tend to converge toward the same things.  If this happens with the journals selected, meaning that most schools converge  toward the same journals, then what kind of bottle neck in access to publication venues will be created for the faculty?  And, how much more difficult it would for faculty from "non-famous" schools to gain access to the "universally accepted" journals?

     

    We need to pay attention to the unintended consequences!

     

    Thanks,

     

    Ivan

     

     

     

    From: Organizational Behavior Division Listserv [mailto:OB@AOMLISTS.pace.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Martin
    Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 2:54 PM
    To: OB@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
    Subject: 7/50 Target Journal Validity

     

    OB Colleagues,

     

    Many business schools facing accreditation have moved towards a specified list of target journals for their faculty to publish in to maintain their AQ status. As our school goes through the process (with 7 "A" and 50 "B" journals, I have wondered what kind of quantitative evidence supports the practice. From a HR performance management perspective (and as the results of the publications impact tenure/retention, etc.) you would anticipate a validity study of the practice.

     

    Many schools have had the practice in effect for years, but I have not found any studies in the literature. If you have any related studies, I would appreciate you passing them on to me, providing the citations or a synopsis of your unpublished results. Specifically, I'm looking for evidence that the process of reifying x # of journals facilitates productivity.


    Dan

    Daniel E. Martin, Ph.D.

    Assistant Professor

    Department of Management

    California State University, East Bay

    (510) 885-2060

     

    Vice President

    Alinea Group

    SF, CA-Washington, DC

    (800) 590-8095

     



  • 4.  7/50 Target Journal Validity

    Posted 04-23-2008 13:12

    Dan,

    For background see:
        McWilliams, A., Siegel, D.S., & Van Fleet, D.D. Scholarly Journals as Producers of Knowledge:  Theory and Empirical Evidence Based on Data Envelopment Analysis.  Organizational Research Methods, (2005), Vol. 8, No. 2, 185-201.
        Van Fleet, D.D., McWilliams, A. & Siegel, D.S., A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Journal Rankings: The Case of Formal Lists.  Journal of Management, Vol. 26, No. 5, (2000), 839-861.

    Attached is an Excel file with data from the 2000 study.

        I am not a fan of such lists when used for evaluative purposes.  Some interesting findings regarding so-called A+ or "top-tier" journals in management. I wonder if other fields would find the same results [I do know that economics is having some interesting developments - "Over the past decade there has been a decline in the fraction of papers in top economics journals written by economists from the highest-ranked economics departments." Ellison, G. (2007). Is peer review in decline? NBER Working paper 13272.).

    See also:
        Starbuck,W. H. (2005). How much better are the most-prestigious journals: The statistics of academic publication. Organization Science, 16: 180–200.  "Highly prestigious journals publish quite a few low-value articles" (p. 196)
        Glick, W.H., Miller, C.C., and Cardinal, L.B. (2007). Making a life in the field of organization science. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28: 817-835.  "reviewers and editors [of top journals] accepted articles that no one found useful." (p. 820)
        Singh, G., Haddad, K.M., and Chow, C.W. (2007). Are articles in "top" management journals necessarily of higher quality? Journal of Management Inquiry, 16: 319-331.  "Our findings, therefore, suggest that using 'top journal' publications as the sole or primary criterion for evaluating research and publication performance is a classic case of 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater.'" (p. 327)  "It is the article that adds value to the discipline, and an indiscriminant emphasis on journal ranking will motivate individuals and institutions to shift resources, including time and effort, toward publishing in a top journal even if such a move undermines the institutional mission. The magnitude of this resource misallocation can be quite substantial when one considers that not everyone has the training, skills, and institutional infrastructure to satisfy a top journal's screening process and the relatively heavy time and effort demands of crafting manuscripts for a top journal" (p.329)

     These seem to present a consistent view that using journal rankings is not a valid way to evaluate our colleagues' work - evaluations should be based on actually reviewing their work, not simply where it was published.

     I hope that some of this helps.

    David

    Dr. David D. Van Fleet
    Professor of Management
    School of Global Management and Leadership
    Arizona State University
    P.O. Box 37100
    Phoenix, AZ 85609-7100
    602-543-6104
    ddvf@asu.edu
    http://www.west.asu.edu/vanfleet/