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Issues and Opinions—Publication Opportunities in Premier Business Outlets: How Level Is the Playing Field?

Department of Information Systems, College of Business, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164
Department of Information Systems, College of Business, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164
Department of Information Systems, College of Business, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164
Information Systems Department, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
jsv{at}wsu.edu
mark{at}wsu.edu
schneiderc{at}wsu.edu
ardennis{at}indiana.edu

This paper reports an analysis of the proportion of faculty publishing articles in premier business journals (i.e., the ratio of authors of premier business journal articles to total faculty of a discipline) across the disciplines of accounting, finance, management, marketing, and information systems (IS) for the years 1994–2003. This analysis revealed that over this period the management discipline had on average the highest proportion of faculty publishing in premier journals (12.7 authors per 100 management faculty), followed by finance (9.4 authors per 100 faculty), marketing (9.2 authors per 100 faculty), IS (5.5 authors per 100 faculty), and accounting (4.8 authors per 100 faculty). A further analysis examined these ratios for the different disciplines over time, finding that the ratios of authors to faculty have actually decreased for the disciplines of marketing and IS over this time period but have remained stable for the disciplines of accounting, management, and finance. Given steady growth in faculty size of all disciplines, the proportion of faculty publishing articles in premier journals in 2003 for all disciplines is lower than their 10-year averages, with IS having the lowest proportion in 2003. A sensitivity analysis reveals that without substantial changes that would allow more IS faculty to publish in the premier journals (e.g., by increasing publication cycles, number of premier outlets, and so on), IS will continue to lag far below the average of other disciplines. The implications of these findings for IS researchers, for institutions and administrators of IS programs, and for the IS academic discipline are examined. Based on these implications, recommendations for the IS discipline are presented.

Key Words: academic discipline; tenure; academic promotion; research journals; publication; scientometrics
History: This paper was received on May 10, 2005.