Winning at the Publication Game

McDaniel, Thomas R.; Childers, Pamela B.

doi:10.1080/00098655.2011.583904

Cited by 1 publication

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“…For example, scholars are said to be involved in a “publication game” (Townsend, 2012), a “publish-or-perish game” (Martin, 2014), or a “research game” (Lucas, 2006). While some commentators suggest that journal publishing is “something of a game” (McDaniel and Childers, 2011: 171) that ought to be played in the pursuit of academic success, others worry about the risks–both to one’s research practices and to the culture of collegiality in universities–involved in “playing the game” (Kalfa et al, 2018; Prasad, 2013). Scholars are thus encouraged to follow the “rules of the game” (Gioia, 2019) to survive in an increasingly competitive academic environment at the same time as they are urged to avoid engaging in forms of “gamesmanship” that could lead to questionable research practices (MacDonald and Kam, 2007, 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

Academics at play: Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor

Butler

Spoelstra

2020

Management Learning

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It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a “publication game,” a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic. In particular, the metaphor allows scholars to make a convenient, but ultimately misleading, distinction between figurative game-playing on one hand (i.e. pursuing external career goals through instrumental publishing) and proper research on the other hand (i.e. producing intrinsically meaningful research). In other words, the “publication game” implies that while academic researchers may behave just like players, they are not really playing a game. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we show that this metaphor prevents us, ironically, from fully grasping the lusory attitude, or play-mentality, that characterizes academic work among critical management researchers. Ultimately, we seek to stimulate reflection about how our choice of metaphor can have performative effects in the university and influence our behavior in unforeseen and potentially undesirable ways.

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