It is clear that scholarship from every part of the globe should have influence, and that business and management research has a key role to play in tackling the world’s biggest environmental and societal challenges. For many academics, directing their research towards these aims and publishing them in the right journals has been the clear route for them to pursue; however, it has also become apparent for many that this path has been closed to them, and that some kind of paradigm shift would be necessary to clear the way.
When Thomas Kuhn first coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ in the early 1960s, he probably failed to anticipate how much this new term would be used in the ensuing decades. Understood as a fundamental change in the basic concepts, theories or practices in a scientific discipline, it has now been applied to a whole range of disruptions and upheavals in academic research and society as a whole, to the extent that we are probably guilty of diluting something which was designed to describe something rare and epic in nature.
That being said, we were probably in need of the words or concepts to describe major changes in the ways we conduct our lives, and when it comes to subjects like the essential value of academic research, it feels like we need to free ourselves up linguistically to get our meaning across. Especially when it involves how we publish the research agendas our universities have pursued so ardently.
False idols
So, what would a paradigm shift look like in academic publishing? Well, it’s not something that has happened yet, but it is a change that is much needed and has been signposted for years. Put simply, it is a wholesale revaluation of what good research looks like, and it starts with the need to make some sacrifices on the altar of ‘prestige’ journals.
As a result of a chance meeting at a GBSN Beyond event in Lisbon in 2019, I have been researching with Haub School of Business academic Dr David Steingard to look again at how business and management journals are judged when it comes to quality. Using the Cabells Journalytics database and AI expertise from Haub, we identified that the so-called premium journals included in the Financial Times 50 massively underperformed journals focused on sustainability and the environment.
This may not be so surprising. However, one of the more instructive conclusions from the research was that we no longer viewed the ‘FT50’ as the gods of business journals they are perceived as; using the lens of alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), these gods became mere mortals, and those journals which focused on demonstrable improvements to the way we lived became the new deities.
Changing climate
Different notions of impact have been swirling around academia, funding bodies and publishers for many years now, with little sign that views on what impact actually means when it comes to research. In the UK there are structural definitions embedded in its Research Excellence Framework (REF), but most other countries don’t have such a centralized framework for funding, and as such the understanding of what impact involves is very varied. That is not to say that impact goals are not being worked towards and achieved – and the SDGs have played an important part in this – but assessing impact across different disciplines, cultures and activities is fraught with difficulty.
Even clear impact goals such as reversing climate change have become increasingly political in the US and other countries with populist governments, or where those in power seek to minimize the threat climate change poses should it conflict with their growth agendas. As such, while there has been much progress globally to enable and encourage impact agendas for research, their progress has been stymied at several turns due to political and commercial barriers placed in their way.
Nevertheless, there is hope. A paradigm shift towards evaluating research on its relevance, reach and diversity and away from citations and Western perspectives will not only benefit the communities where real impact is needed most, it will also elevate those researchers who are directly engaged with those communities. When it comes to business and management research, therefore, business schools based in the Global South or those with active collaborations with those schools will see the value of their research programs grow as global appreciation of what they are trying to achieve intensifies.
New perspectives
On Wednesday 21 October, GBSN will be hosting a webinar with a panel of experts that will offer guidance on how to develop effective research and publishing strategies against the backdrop of geopolitical upheaval and confusion surrounding the impact question. Hopefully we will see debate around the potential of a paradigm shift, and how researchers and business school leaders can position themselves to take advantage of new modes of research evaluations.
There are, of course, other considerations that also need to be included into the mix – such optimizing journal publication choices, research visibility, predatory publishing practices, implications of the now dominant open access model, the emergence of China as the largest research producer, and of course AI and the varied implications of its use in research. All of this and more should offer a great webinar to tune into.
Thank you to Cabells for their sponsorship of GBSN Beyond 2026! Simon Linacre is the Chief Commercial Officer at Cabells.