[AISWorld] Addressing the Financial Times 45 Journal List Revision

[Robert Johnston]

Paul

Which "deans" are we referring to here?
Deans of US business schools?

Cheers Johno

On 9/06/2016 11:16 AM, Prof. Paul Benjamin LOWRY wrote:
> That is a good question, which reveals more problems with their process:
>
> The FT wants deans to suggest 5 journals to add to the list and 5 journals
> to drop from the list. The journals that are "under review" for dropping
> consideration are the following:
>
> - Academy of Management Perspectives
> - Academy of Management Review
> - Administrative Science Quarterly
> - California Management Review
> - Econometrica
> - Harvard Business Review
> - Journal of Political Economy
> - Journal of the American Statistical Association
> - Quarterly Journal of Economics
> - RAND Journal of Economics
>
> FT is somewhat opaque about why they are "reviewing" these 10 journals.
> Supposedly, it is for low volume of publication in b-schools or low impact
> factor. Hence, it is baffling AMR is on this list. It is also odd that some
> lower-quality journals are not on this "review" list, such as J. of Business
> Ethics (impact = 1.32), Contemporary Accounting Research (impact 1.26),
> Review of Accounting Studies (impact = 1.39). Few b-schools treat these
> three journals as A journals. Nonetheless, this is a clear example of some
> of the problems of deans "voting" on a list that is set up by a news
> organization.
>
> Regardless, I think a strong case can be made to drop some journals from the
> above list: First both HBR and SMR are hybrid practitioner magazines that
> are more akin to CACM or IEEE Computer in style and scientific quality. They
> do not follow traditional peer-review and editorial practices, nor do they
> follow scientific standards of theory, evidence, analysis, and
> reporting/disclosure on studies.
>
> Moreover, the Journal of the American Statistical Association is not a
> business-discipline journal, so it is also an easy target.
>
> Finally, depending on one's business school (and the role of economics in
> it), one can further argue dropping several of the economics journals simply
> because of poor fit and volume. For example, the Quarterly Journal of
> Economics, Econometrica, RAND Journal of Economics, are definitely top
> economics journals, but most of their foci are outside of business
> disciplines. Thus, few business scholars ever publish in these, so at a
> large number of b-schools there is a serious fit issue. Listing these is
> somewhat akin to having "Science" or "ACM Computing Surveys" on the list.
>
> Hopefully this information helps. Good luck out there!
>
> Paul
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AISWorld [mailto:aisworld-bounces at lists.aisnet.org] On Behalf Of Aron
> Lindberg
> Sent: Wednesday, June 8, 2016 8:28 AM
> To: Dennis, Alan R. <ardennis at indiana.edu>; 'Templeton, Gary'
> <GTempleton at business.msstate.edu>; aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
> Subject: Re: [AISWorld] Addressing the Financial Times 45 Journal List
> Revision
>
> Hi All,
>
> Is there any information available on what the contents of the survey are?
> How will the Dean's prioritize the journals? Can they leave free-form text
> comments?
>
> If we can provide a set of "talking points" to our Deans, we may be able to
> have a stronger impact on this process.
>
> Best,
> Aron
>
> ________________________________________
> From: AISWorld <aisworld-bounces at lists.aisnet.org> on behalf of Dennis, Alan
> R. <ardennis at indiana.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2016 8:17 PM
> To: 'Templeton, Gary'; aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
> Subject: Re: [AISWorld] Addressing the Financial Times 45 Journal List
> Revision
>
> We just finished examining the results of the AIS Senior Scholars Journal
> Basket survey.  We got 975 responses. MISQ and ISR were one and two.  JAIS
> was three and JMIS was four, although there was no significant difference
> between JAIS and JMIS.
>
> So I strongly recommend MISQ, ISR, JAIS, JMIS, and a journal of your choice.
>
> Alan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AISWorld [mailto:aisworld-bounces at lists.aisnet.org] On Behalf Of
> Templeton, Gary
> Sent: Monday, June 6, 2016 11:27 PM
> To: aisworld at lists.aisnet.org
> Subject: [AISWorld] Addressing the Financial Times 45 Journal List Revision
>
> IS faculty,
>
> Financial Times is adjusting their list of top 45 business journals. Deans
> across the globe are being surveyed for journals that should be on the list.
> IS faculty across the world are making suggestions to their deans about the
> proper contents of the list.
>
>
> How many IS journals should be on the list? The current list contains 2
> (MISQ and ISR) of the 45, or 4.4%. My recent publication with Bruce Lewis on
> business journal fairness addresses this issue. According to AACSB faculty
> data, 9.45% of business faculty are in the IS discipline. This translates to
> 4.25 (9.45% X 45) journal slots for the IS discipline.
>
>
> Because FT45 is largely a public relations venue and not scientific, the IS
> discipline should respond accordingly. We should certainly have at least 4
> on the list, but that assumes it is a scientific list. I think we should ask
> for 5 for fear of selling ourselves short.
>
>
> Bruce and I have published two rankings (one IS and the other all business)
> that summarize samples of institutional lists (those used in "practice"). We
> found strong evidence that our field views JMIS to be the clear third most
> esteemed journal in our field.
>
>
> At a minimum, I think the vast majority would agree that MISQ, ISR and JMIS
> should be in the top three. However, only submitting 3 (or 4) to our deans,
> may not serve our field well. I suspect there would be more argument about
> #4 and #5. It would help if members of our research community could come to
> an agreement and pose this top 5 to our deans.
>
>
> I wonder if our group could come to an agreement in such a short time, and
> we could make recommendations to our deans in a uniform way.
>
>
> Gary
>
>
> Reference:
>
> Templeton, G.F. & Lewis, B.R., 2015. "Fairness in the Institutional
> Valuation of Business Journals," MIS Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 523-539.
> _______________________________________________
> AISWorld mailing list
> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> AISWorld mailing list
> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> AISWorld mailing list
> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AISWorld mailing list
> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org

-- 
Robert B. Johnston

Professor of Business Information Systems
School of Business
The University of Sydney
and
Adjunct Professor
Faculty of IT
Monash University

Mobile +61 (0) 414 493 255
Skype: johno.home