David,
This would be my considered response to your question. It appears in an Elgar volume on "Getting Published" from a year or two ago. I am firmly convinced that the long-term a) most successful and b) happiest academics will not be those who try to maximize their score according to the current, formal incentive system. Why? Because the current system always has flaws, and therefore will be changed to something else, with other flaws. Better focus on doing good, meaningful research that interests you!/Per
***
Getting Published – and Cited – in Entrepreneurship:
reflections on Ten Papers
Per Davidsson
Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research,
Queensland University of Technology
and
Jönköping International Business School, Sweden
Background
I grew up in academic heaven. At least for me it was. Not only was Sweden in the late 1980s paradise for any kind of empirical research, with rich and high-quality business statistics being made available to researchers without them having to sign away their lives; 70+ percent response rates achieved in mail surveys to almost any group (if you knew how to do them), and boards of directors opening their doors to more qualitatively orientated researchers to sit in during their meetings. In addition, I perceived an environment with a very high degree of academic freedom, letting me do whatever I found interesting and important. I'm sure for others it was sheer hell, with very unclear career paths and rules of the game. Career progression (something which rarely entered my mind) meant that you tried as best you could and then you put all your work – reports, books, book chapters, conference papers, maybe even published articles – in a box and had some external committee of professors look at it. If you were lucky they liked what they saw for whatever reasons their professorial wisdom dictated, and you got hired or promoted. If you were not so lucky you wouldn't get the job or the promotion, without quite knowing why. So people could easily imagine an old boys club – whose members were themselves largely unproven in international, peer review publishing – picking whoever they wanted by whatever criteria they choose to apply. Neither the fact that assessors were external not the presence of an appeals system might have completely appeased your suspicious and skeptical mind, considering the balance of power.
I did not bother much about these things and naively believed that if I did good things – with high integrity – good things would happen to me. Rather than trying to understand the prevailing incentive system and maximizing my performance by its criteria, I did what interested me; what felt right, and what made sense to me. It is a philosophy I have basically applied throughout my career. That is, I haven't bothered much about politics, tactics, sheer rhetoric, bean counting, or the "Kremlinology" of putting in the right references and other cues to please potential editors and reviewers (or trying to tease out who they are). By my criteria this has worked wonderfully – which is not to say I could not have achieved more, had I sometimes been more thoughtful and careful about how I positioned and disseminated my research.
The academic culture I was brought up in, more precisely, was the Stockholm School of Economics – the elite business school in Sweden – and its department of Economic Psychology. I then spent four years at the still relatively young Umeå University, before moving to the entrepreneurship-focused academic start-up venture called the Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) in 1994. The system I saw was one with great academic freedom (and integrity). I was allowed to ask almost any research questions I came up with, using any methods I saw fit (and which were approved of somewhere in existing academic literature). It certainly helped that I was in an emerging field – entrepreneurship – where there was lots of virgin ground. But note that I was allowed to choose to enter this field; no-one tried to stop me from making this "risky" choice. The perception of existence of virgin ground was further helped by ignorance. The absence of the Internet, electronic repositories, and an agreed upon set of outlets to which "everybody that mattered" had access and paid attention meant that in essence, if you couldn't get it directly or indirectly through institution's library, it did not exist. It was a very different world.
Publishing in peer reviewed, international journals was optional, and we had little sense of a hierarchy of journal prestige or heard of impact factors, the H-index (it was not invented yet!), or anything like that. In Economic Psychology with its closer links to the underlying disciplines, journal publication was – thank heavens! – somewhat more on the radar screen than it was for other young management scholars, but there was no strong pressure. So I did not have to worry about maximizing the number of publications I got my name on; splitting up my work into "minimum publishable units", or spending much time "kneading the dough" in rounds of revisions – perhaps on papers I did not believe had that much important to say, anyway. Instead I moved on to the next thing that had triggered my curiosity. I enjoyed the luxury of leaving things be after writing a conference paper or research report – the point where I thought I had learnt what I could learn from that particular piece of research – only sending manuscripts to journals when I felt like it or thought I had something important to say. Besides, I was not very interested in having to listen to how others thought I should streak the brush when I composed my pieces of art.
I had my first real encounter with the US academic system and culture during an extended trip to three universities in 1991. I found them absolutely absurd. This goes especially for the obsession with numbers of works; I have later found reason to contemplate the strong emphasis on competition and relative disregard for true collegiality and having some intellectual fun, and the strong reliance on indicators like journal ratings rather than direct evaluation of contents. I remember on this first trip asking a dean what to me was a most obvious question: "Why don't you limit the number of works on which an applicant can base their application (so they can focus on doing deeper, better studies and you get less material to assess [naively assuming they would actually read the works of applicants rather than just scoring them based on proxy indicators])? The suggestion was so alien that he laughed out loud. As a matter of fact, after some 50 more academic visits to the US I still think aspects of the US-type research publication and evaluation system – to which I have never been fully subjected employment-wise as I have pursued my career in Sweden and Australia – are extreme, absurd, or at least unsound. I also fear that other parts of the world may currently be importing too much of it, and that we are and will be paying dearly for this in some respects. But there are two sides to everything. There is no perfect system, and the ideal system of academic publishing and promotion would probably be something in-between the US of today and the academic Sweden I grew up in. By the way, when moving to Australia I was baffled by a national evaluation system which assigned one point equally to every peer reviewed output, whether it was an award-winning paper in the Administrative Science Quarterly or some dodgy little conference the participants had colluded to arrange for the specific purpose of scoring points in this system.
An important drawback of the Swedish system I was part of during my early career was the incredible waste of not (regularly) taking research to such dissemination that international colleagues cold realistically learn from and build on it. As a case in point, one important reason that it took a while for Gregor Mendel's important findings on inheritance to catch on was that he published them in the local dust collector Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn, where it was lucky to get cited three times over the first 35 years after its publication. We owe it to research funders and our colleagues to disseminate our research better; it is not just about satisfying one's own curiosity in the incredibly self-centered way the younger version of me did[1]. Further, if we want our colleagues to learn from and build on our research it is certainly fair enough that we be asked to subject them to tough scrutiny of our peers before they are accepted and published. I have come around completely as concerns appreciation for the peer review process. Sure, it isn't perfect, but arguably it is our most important tool for continuous competence development. It is by subjecting our work to the scrutiny of competent colleagues that we force ourselves to learn more theory, the latest developments in methods, and important findings that we may have missed in our own review, as well as helping us improve our writing skills. The biggest regret I have about the early years of my career is that had I been pushed more to (expand) my limits by sending more work to more competitive journals, I would have learned more and achieved more. It sure was nice to get all the positive feedback I got back then in my immediate environment, but some more "tough love" would probably have helped taking my scholarship to higher levels, or – if I have reached my maximum – to do so earlier. The lost opportunities to learn and develop are the other big waste of the system from which I came. And most Scandinavian colleagues of my cohort did much less than I did in terms of trying to get published in international journals.
This said, it is also worth emphasizing that I did certainly not need any sticks to put in 60+ hour weeks back then. That came from pure love of the work I was doing. This raises concerns about the extreme pressure and unrealistic expectations that are imposed on some junior colleagues of today by deans who have not done the math and expect their particular crew to take an unreachable percentage of the space in a small number of elite journals. Under such conditions, the perhaps arrogant young man I then was may not have chosen to stay in this game at all. In more general terms, by increasing the demands universities may end up not with better and more highly motivated young scholars; selection effects may lead to just the opposite.
- - -
1) To be fair, through the 1990s I engaged in quite a bit of dissemination directly to policy makers, and it is not entirely without amusement or pride that I note that with around 100 GS citations each, some of our main reports – in the Swedish language! – fare better in this regard than do many entrepreneurship articles published in respected journals during the same era (Davidsson, Lindmark, & Olofsson, 1994; 1996).
***
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of David Deeds
Sent: Friday, 27 May 2016 1:03 PM
So I see lots of unhappiness with journal lists. So here is the question are you better off without them? Do you like a clear goal or an opaque goal based on subjective assessments alone? If you have a better solution then some weighted average of letters, subjective evaluation and a journal list please let me know, because 23 years at this has failed to provide me a better solution.
D. Deeds
On May 26, 2016 12:57 PM, "Norris Krueger" <norris.krueger@gmail.com> wrote:
Todd- Ian was way ahead of the curve there. (I still remember his half-in-jest pitch for us to learn from volcanology - rare, unpredictable, but vital phenomena!)**
** p.s. believe it or not, I found that volcanoes often "intend" to erupt. It might as well be the TPB! :)
Norris
"How can I help you to grow entrepreneurs?"
On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 1:47 AM, Todd Finkle <0000000fb1372094-dmarc-request@aomlists.pace.edu> wrote:
Having been an entrepreneur before entering the doctoral program studying ENT in the late 1980s, I was very disillusioned with almost all of the academic research. I was frustrated with the lack of relevance. I sent out an announcement on this list serve about this and Ian MacMillan (Penn) responded to me. When making a case for your research, you shouldn't just focus on the journal, citations, etc., but you need to make a case for the content of your article and its impact on the field. I have kept that with me for my whole career and it has allowed me to study non-traditional areas that make a significant impact on the field. I justify my research to my colleagues and administrators based on what Ian said. I have not focused my career on main stream areas to get a high number of citations. This has worked for me and in my opinion we need more of this innovativeness to advance the field into non-traditional areas.
Todd Finkle
Sent from my iPad
Journal lists li,etc democracy suck except when compared to the alternatives. Citation count has too long a lag for it to be useful for junior faculty and every other method of evaluation is purely subjective and being made by people who are predisposed one way or the other towards candidate. Are lists perfect, far from it, but they are at least transparent and objective outcome based measures.
Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
-------- Original message --------
Date: 05/25/2016 8:38 PM (GMT-06:00)
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] please reply to my question rather than attacking it
i agree with your point... you do have a legitimate need...
i do apologize if i have "hectored" you...that was not my intent to make it personal, and i do have sympathy for your need....
i must explain that i have heard the expression "count" for a few decades and sat through countless faculty promotion meetings that wasted the time of 50 talented individuals while a few argued whether a particular journal or publication would "count" or not.
I came to detest the term when used in this context...it seemed to remove any professional judgment from the case of whether a person should be promoted or not. I always believed in a diversity of journals... diversity in content, diversity in philosophy-of-science, and diversity in challenge. I always believed that a promotion decision should be based on a diversity of criterion.
I believed any sensible faculty member should make a holistic judgment about whether a person should...overall... be deserving or not, and should not make these important decisions that affect one's life so much just on the basis of whether a journal publication should "count" or not..
I do believe this issue should be a matter of discussion.... i aimed to stimulate a debate... but, alas... my attempt at "tongue-in-cheek" was perhaps not well founded.
Again, yes, you are correct...there is a legitimate need for nontenured to know the reputation and regard for specific journals.
Unfortunately, this expression of whether a journal "counts" or not has firmly entered our academic jargon. I deplore this expression.
Again, i apologize to you and did not mean to bring offense....
my best wishes for success in your quest.
Sorry to be late to the witch-burning! :)
Having seen someone told that Science & Nature didn't count (both solo-authored) because they weren't biz journals... nothing surprises me. :(
I did meet someone who got a lead-authored AER not counted for the same reason.. but the Provost bought him a fancy dinner :) I think I'd rather have the posh meal!
Alex, your question is a tough one. I know that this something that many will face. But we live in a time where the journal is becoming less important than the article's value. Instead of rationalizing for a C journal... isn't the same true for A journals?
If you need an "A" then go for it. If AMD is the right audience, though, I know that too is important to you. But if you write something brilliant in a C journal, we'll find it via G-Scholar, RG, etc. We might even find it in an "A" journal. :)
These days, you need to share your stuff proactively* anyhow... so get it published in a top journal then tell us where to look!
* social media (if you teach/research entrep & aren't active on FB/Twitter/LinkedIn & RGate/SSRN/etc. you probably should retire, LOL) Lots of people add their key articles to their email sig, etc. - just when I think "how pretentious"... I see an article I have to read! LOL)
Norris
"How can I help you to grow entrepreneurs?"
On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 2:36 PM, Stewart, Alex <alex.stewart@marquette.edu> wrote:
As it happens, I have published a highly contrarian paper back in 1995, called "Journal ranking in Nacirema ritual..." (Advances in Strategic Management). I do not need to be hectored on the meaning of science, nor the suggestion that I write in order to be counted. I do, however, need to work within the constraints of my employer, and yes I have an employer (Marquette University) whether or not I agree with their policies. As I stated, if we publish in AMD and it is not in our list it will not count in merit or, more importantly, renewals of my chair. So if some of you would please help me rather than misrepresent my views I'd much appreciate it.
Alex
Alex Stewart, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship
Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881
Office: 414 288-7188
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--
(for musings and stories, see hanksims.com)
Henry P Sims, Jr
Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior
Department of Management and Organization
Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland
410-360-4767
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