Business faculty management wants staff to publish in “the top international and management journals” –it is, some suggest, a misplaced idea

An incentive scheme rewards researchers appearing in journals rated by the Australian Business Deans Council, Financial Times and MU itself – they get points that go to funding research support. Those that publish elsewhere get no, or negative, points.
This was not universally popular when announced last month. Learned readers suggested it would penalise people working on subjects that don’t interest journals for and by US and Euro economists (CMM September 29).

Others wonder how it sits with Macquarie U’s Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom policy which, states,” staff and students should be free to conduct research, undertake learning and teaching, communicate, and publish, without unreasonable interference and restriction” and “not disadvantage or subject its staff and students to less favourable treatment for exercising their right to academic freedom …”

And pragmatists suggest the preferred journals policy is irrelevant. They point to last week’s Elsevier database of the top 2 per cent of researchers by field, based on Scopus citations. There are ten plus Macquarie bized people on it, who, learned readers point out, publish in journals that aren’t management faves.