Another Journal Jere(h)miad

20 November 2006 at 8:16 am Nicolai Foss 3 comments

| Nicolai Foss|

A feuilleton here at O&M is what Omar at orgtheory.net (see here) has christened our “jerehmiads” (aka “jeremiads”) concerning journals. The implication is that we are grumpy old men who moralistically denounce the rationality of the journal institutions (e.g., here, here, here, and here). Whatever that may be here is another, errr, observation on our journals:

All journals that I know of require that for the final submission of a manuscript, it must be submitted in a certain format, including meeting rules for spacing, margins, maximum number of words, etc. Many, and perhaps most, journals also formally require that first submissions must stick to such a format, usually specified under “Instructions to Authors.”

However, at least until recently, very few journals would desk-reject a submission that did not follow the specified format (save for manuscripts that were obviously too long), and no reviewer would dream of complaining about manuscripts not following the journal’s specified format.

Indeed, requesting that first submissions must follow the possibly highly idiosyncratic formatting system of a given journal seems highly inefficient from a welfare point of view. A good student assistant can reformat a paper in about 2 hours, but assistants are not always readily available so you may have to undertake the tedious task yourself. Your paper may be rejected, and prior to submitting to another journal reformatting is required. Of course, reference manager software lowers the costs substantially, but certainly does not eliminate the costs. Given the rejection rates of the quality journal several rounds of reformatting will likely have to take place for any given manuscript.

This seems clearly wasteful. Moreover, it is not clear why journals themselves should request (and enforce this) that first submissions follow specified formats (again, final submissions is another thing).

Nevertheless, admittedly casual empiricism indicates that

While the requirement that even a first submission must follow the journal’s format is unusual in economics (at least the journals I am familiar with), it is quite widespread in management.
An increasing number of journals in management practice the requirement by desk-reject non-conforming manuscripts.
Reviewers increasingly whine if manuscripts do not conform to the format.

If I am right about these tendencies, what explains them? That the manuscript/journal ratio is steadily increasing and editors are desperate for anything that may help them controlling the inflow?

Entry filed under: - Foss -, Institutions.

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3 Comments Add your own

1. Bo | 20 November 2006 at 2:20 pm

You may be right that this is a way of controlling the inflow, however, at least some journals actually have important formats that may indeed help improve the rigor (and potential value) of contributions. In Org. Studies, for instance, you are required to provide the entire name(s) of the authors in the reference lists – not merely the last name and first initial. This format practially means that you may have to actually read (or at least track down a copy of) the original manuscript in order to find the first (and more difficult middle-names) of the authors. I often read papers (and this point has been raised here earlier) where it seems that referencing is made haphazardly or directly in conflict with the orginal argument of the original reference – perhaps this is due to “stealing references from other, later uses” – a practice that reduces costs of searching for a useful reference but runs the risk of misrepresentation, eventually leading to poor scientific progress.

Perhaps there is some value to some of these “odd” format requirements?
2. Nicolai Foss | 20 November 2006 at 2:33 pm

Bo, I like your idea. And I do agree with you that much referencing in management is terribly sloppy and probably based on imitating others’ references, referencing for strategic reasons, etc. rather than actually reading the stuff. The Org Studies practice could indeed be a means to reduce sloppy referencing. But I wonder whether
* there other journals that do this?
* you wouldn’t expect the (supposedly) best journals to do it? While Org Studies is a fine journal, it isn’t quite the SMJ, Org Science or AMJ league — and they don’t reference in this manner (OK, they may have other “offsetting” mechanisms).
* you wouldn’t expect more journals to adopt this practice, if your story is correct?
3. Bo | 21 November 2006 at 12:54 pm

You are probably right and i suspect that Org Studies may indeed do this for the wrong reason: simply to be different and distinguish themselves – but since it used to be European I cannot be sure – perhaps they do indeed try to improve the process? I am not aware of other management journals that do this, however, in the natural sciences the rigor of referencing is much higher.

Another – and perhaps related problem – is that I just did a “thorough” literature review for a piece I am working on, only to find that several of the “well-known” authors have published their work (at least) twice in different journals – sometimes with the same title etc and only two years apart! This is scandalous in my view and does nothing to further academia. Why would you publish the same study in two different journals within two years? Particularly, as was the case with one paper, when the first one was published in an A journal – why then reuse this study in a B- journal the next year?

I fear that the pressure to publish has instilled some rather shady practices in some scholars. If you reuse the data then at least give the study a new twist – and for Christ sake – change the title!

Bo