Toward a sustainable academic publishing system at university business schools

Abstract

This article suggests that universities in general and university business schools in particular need to rethink the reward and merit system in terms of limiting the number of works any scholar is allowed to publish yearly; reward assistance of colleagues equally high as publishing per se; and to rethink authorship in a way that collectives instead of individuals appear as authors, or even skipping authors altogether. As a result, these remedies can help to create a more sustainable working environment at university business schools.

One can frequently read that the academy is currently undergoing a crisis when it comes to academic publishing and the university business schools’ reward and merit system. In fact, we believe that the crisis has become so serious that it is now beyond internal solution. In this article, we briefly set the scene for how a career in education is managed when it comes to academic publishing, outline the system’s repercussions, and offer policy solutions on how to rectify the reward and merit system, which is currently too publication-record based. To retain a narrower rather than a wider focus and make suggestions on how to manage the reward and merit system in a more sustainable way, we remain in a context which we have expertise and experience in—the university business school. While the university business school seems an extreme case when it comes to publishing demands, the problems we sketch are hardly unique for university business schools. For instance, Fang et al. (2012) alarmingly report that under the pressure to publish (more), the rate of falsification and fabrication of data submitted to medical journals around the world has been increasing noticeably since the 1990s. Also, Resnik (2014: 424) claims that faked research results may potentially “lead to approval of unsafe drugs or the construction of dangerous buildings,” which testifies that the problems of and with publishing are not unique to the university business schools only. With this article we hope to reach the accrediting and ranking agencies, who set the rules of the game which the university business schools and academics then have to (and choose to) follow in return for “license to live.”

We realize (and also hope) that the issues below concern neither all universities nor disciplines, but they are frequent in university business schools in many countries, hamper the careers and work life of thousands of academics and, thus, deserve to be addressed and relevant policy measures implemented.

The university business school as a factory

Just as the assembly-like production of graduates in university business schools and schools of management has given rise for scholars to suggest the factory as a relevant metaphor (Browne et al., 1995; Jensen, 2006), we believe that the same applies to academic publishing. Rather than being a garden and a place for contemplation, deep studies, and teaching, the university business school has become a factory where the number of research outputs and the journals where this research is published is the most important (and sometimes the only) contributing factor to the reward and merit system (see also Chatio et al., 2024).

In the remainder of this article, we will comment on the current university business school reward and merit system concerning academic publishing, and suggest fundamental changes for and in the academia.

The ranking hysteria

Even though the usefulness of the ranking game has been considered contentious (Williams, 2008) and the ranking methods used subject to different interpretations (Gora, 2011), global academic competitiveness of university business schools on the various ranking lists is, to a large extent, still determined by publications and citations in high impact international journals (see e.g. Meriläinen et al., 2008). Apparently, publications and citations in such journals contribute to a university’s quality. Although research warns against the blind pursuit to be ranked well—it does not show all the characteristics which make a reputable university, it does not consider engagement with its local community and contribution to social-economic development of a country, there is a strong skewedness towards publishing in international journals which hesitates publishing the much-needed research in the local setting, and more—universities still find it hard to resist the “climbing up the greasy slope in the academic ranking league” (Tie, 2012: 437). Subsequently, such obsession with the league tables determines a university business school’s reward and merit system.

Also accrediting bodies (e.g. AACSB and others) set standards which frequently prioritize research productivity as a measure of academic excellence (Carraher, 2014). Subsequently, the rules of the game dictate that the most valued faculty are those who translate their intellectual property into journal articles.

What the ranking lists and the accreditation agencies tend to forget, though, is that good journals often reject excellent papers, and good journals have in them quality papers which are known as quality papers because they appear in good journals (e.g. Johnson and Podsakoff, 1994), “highly prestigious journals publish quite a few low-value articles, [and] low-prestige journals publish some excellent articles” (Starbuck, 2005: 196), “[publishing] rewards [in academia] come from producing the indicators of research [e.g., citations and the like] rather than the research itself” (Macdonald and Kam, 2007: 644), and what matters more is where you publish, rather than what you publish (Holub et al., 1991), all of which impedes the development of knowledge.

World championship in article publishing

This game (e.g. Butler and Spoelstra, 2020; Townsend, 2012) has turned the university business school into a sports arena, where scholars compete more than cooperate and where everything revolves around publishing as much as possible, in as high-ranked journals as possible. If one does not publish, one does not count—the universalized “publish or perish” which has become indoctrinated as a general truth about the world, and where academics who do not comply with this lose respect, creditworthiness (Brown, 2015), and jobs (De Rond and Miller, 2005).

This leads academics to damage the reputation of the profession, undermine their own trust among fellow researchers (Bülow and Helgesson, 2019), corrupt novice academics who learn from them as the more established ones (Madikizela-Madiya, 2022), and ultimately face vanished “citizenship concerned with public things and the common good” (Brown, 2015: 38). The consequences of all of this are hard to overestimate.

When excellence becomes the norm

While the sustainability of such publishing mania is questionable in the long run for the “winners” (those who go along with the game), it is not sustainable for the “losers” (those who rebel against such game) even in the short run. However, regardless of their reluctance to compete, the counting of publications and citations remains, leading to faculty stress and burnout, which undoubtedly affects their well-being (see e.g. Li et al., 2019), as a pack of antidepressants on the office working desk of a colleague of one of the authors of this article vocally testifies.

One may wonder why so few academics themselves protest—while many have written about the problems and the crisis, we have seen hardly any signs that the same scholars also protest in practice (see Örtenblad, 2025, for a few examples). Instead, they dance to the tune of the system, although they do not like the system, and overtly scorn it (see e.g. the last section entitled “You have to laugh” in Macdonald and Kam, 2007).

University business school leaders are fanning the flames

While it is the accrediting and ranking agencies who call the tune, the university business school leaders do not do much to instigate change. Under the cover-words such as “efficiency” and “throughput rate,” and with objectives such as “triple accreditation” in sight, their approach helps to fan the flames of “the more [publications], the merrier” principle.

Many before us have made a number of relevant improvement suggestions. Fowler et al. (2024), for example, recommend that business schools should “shift their focus away from quantity of publications to integrity and impact of publication” (Fowler et al., 2024); Schimanski and Alperin (2018) suggest that university leaders should redefine the criteria for faculty evaluations and promotions; that more robust support should be afforded to faculty who conduct high-quality research (Niles et al., 2020); and that university business school leaders should incentivize faculty to conduct studies which address significant, pressing challenges and societal needs (Masic, 2021). Regardless, the tables do not seem to be turning, as our aggregate 56 years of experience in and with the university business school testify.

Changes to the very system

The current modus operandi follows the principle “the more, the merrier.” We first would like to suggest that the “system” embraces the principle “the less, the more responsible.” Based on this, our first suggestion is that a scholar would only be allowed to publish one text (article, book chapter, or book) per year, or possibly even every other year, and that this restriction comes from those dictating the rules of the game, which would then trickle down to the business school and from there on to the academics.

Not only would this hopefully deal with the academics’ well-being, but also with the sheer amount of publications which is exponential and frequently impossible to navigate, as de Solla Price’s (1975) statistics vividly illustrated already five decades ago. Most of what is published is inconsequential (Fowler et al., 2024), and not impactful (Reed et al., 2021). Lewin et al. (2016: 650) add that research in management and organization theory lacks “connection with the practice of management and organization practice, and the vulnerability of its scientific claims.” All of this begs a justified question—“what it is that we [academics] are actually doing when we are involved in the conduct of research?” (Biesta, 2012: 417).

Alternatively, but with the same aim in mind, the system could continue rewarding for publishing but change the rewards one gets for publications. One could, for example, use a regressive reward system, where one gets “a full point” for the first publication per year, but for any additional publication on the same year the reward diminishes.

The recommendation would probably raise eyebrows of the few prolific researchers, who, were such a rule not set, would otherwise publish lots of (relevant) papers. Nevertheless, we believe that there are strong reasons not to create rules considering the prolific ones only. On top of an overproduction of research outputs in a global perspective, too many papers contain similar arguments and over half of academic papers (three-quarters in the area of management studies) remain uncited (Hamilton, 1991)—most academics receive less than three citations over their lifetime (Phelan, 1999).

Instead, the prolific researchers could do other things than publish—they could work even harder on the one paper per year to increase relevance and originality, and additionally make sure that their research is disseminated also outside the academia. On top of that, they could help their colleagues and novice academics with their research and, perhaps, also teach more to make sure that students, too, benefit from their genius.

As a second suggestion, “the system” should require that any text published in an academic journal is also publicized in nonacademic, but equally relevant outlets (targeted public media, targeted blogs, targeted radio and TV programs, and the like) with relevant readership. This requirement would ensure that research really breaks out the walls of the academic vacuum and makes an impact—after all, the academia is at the service of society not only at its own service. Under today’s system, research hardly ever reaches outside of academia: “we are judged primarily by other academics, on the basis of publications read only by other academics and research grants awarded by academics to academics!” (Piercy, 2000: 31).

A third suggestion is to change the reward system(s) for publishing within the academy. One may, for example, start to reward scholars for assisting/supporting their colleagues, similar to what is the case in sports such as ice hockey, where a point for assistance to score counts more or less as much as a point for scoring does. For example, such support would be helpful and appreciated when a less experienced colleague submits their work to one of those high-ranked journals, with all their demands, for the first time.

It must be borne in mind, though, that the third suggestion can be implemented only if the first principle (“the less, the more responsible”) is instituted by the accreditation and ranking agencies. While the reward system currently differs (slightly) by the country and the university business school, it still remains similar in broader terms—credibility, respect, promotion, retention of the job, and tenure currently depends on the number of publications, quality of the journal it is published in, and number of citations.

Related to the previous, our fourth suggestion is to change the way we regard authorship. For example, one could skip the individual author names and, instead, have the affiliation be the collective author. Thus, in our case the business school at which we work would be the author. However, since we know how keen university business schools (leaders) are at playing the publication game, we see a clear risk here that to collectivize authorship would not create a better, less stressful working environment. For this reason, let us share an even more radical suggestion, namely to skip author names altogether. We understand that this may sound outrageous to some (if not most), but especially to those of us who build their whole identity on individual accomplishments. The idea, though, would certainly make a significant change to the current university business school working environment. It is based on the idea that any individual by necessity exists in a context, consisting of researching colleagues with whom one discusses one’s research ideas, and teaching colleagues who take care of the educational duties, thereby leaving more time for the researchers to engage in research.

Our final and fifth suggestion goes beyond publishing. In order to deal with the frequently prevalent factory efficiency and competitive sports arena sentiment among faculty, we suggest that “the system” treat in their evaluations, certifications, etc., teaching excellence as equally important and that universities recognize and reward excellent teaching accordingly. Also, perhaps recognition should be given for being a good colleague, and contributing to a good and encouraging atmosphere at the workplace. While such collegiality and teaching excellence are an integral part of tenure and promotion process in some countries and/or universities, in many others it yet is not, but could and should be once the requirements set by the accrediting bodies trickle down to day-to-day management of business school education and redesigning of the reward-policies.

Concluding remarks

To summarize, in this short piece, we have put forward some ideas how to rethink the reward and merit system. Any authority that wants to assist in creating better conditions at business schools (or any other institution within academia) could choose to implement any single of our suggestions, or regard them as “a package” to be implemented. Something needs to be done to make the academy a more sustainable place—a kind and healthy environment for contemplation and deep studies. We believe that this policy change should start with the leaders for the academia (the accreditation and ranking agencies), and be implemented by the leaders in the academia. Having said this, we are also aware (and weary) of Brown’s (2015: 17) warning that “radical democratic dreams may not survive.” However, nothing ventured, nothing gained.