Food for Thought? A Rejoinder on Peer-review and RAE2008 Evidence

Abstract

This Rejoinder responds to criticisms made by Simon Hussain (2011) about the construction and operation of the Association of Business Schools' (ABS) Academic Journal Quality Guide. In this paper the broad purposes of journal lists and guides are outlined before an account is given of the long history and multiple forms of these lists, particularly in the field of Accounting. Having described the main features of different types of journal list, the advantages and benefits of the approach adopted in the compilation of the ABS Journal Quality Guide is outlined. The paper then ends by noting that one of the copy-editing mistakes identified by Dr Hussain has been rectified, but the remaining concerns about the rating of accounting education and accounting history journals reflect the absence of these titles from journal citation reports and international journal lists. Furthermore, the lower rating of Accounting & Finance research in the RAE2008 in comparison with Business & Management Studies research in the same year and Accounting & Finance research in 2001, has more to do with the way in which the Accounting & Finance Panel calibrated and normalized its judgements than with the ratings contained within the ABS Guide.

Keywords:

• Accounting education
• accounting history
• journal quality lists
• research assessment exercise (RAE)

Notes

These calculations make the following four assumptions. First, that research assessments such as the RAE require four academic outputs to be submitted per full-time equivalent researcher. Second, that these outputs are the primary means of assessing academic research quality or are highly correlated with other measures such as research income and esteem. Third, that the average quality-related unit of funding of £8000.00 is made available by the funding body and that this is weighted by the following multipliers: 1* = 0, 2* = 1, 3* = 3 and 4* = 9. Finally, that the funding period is six years, i.e. the forecast period between the RAE in 2008 and the REF in 2014. On this basis the formula that produces the financial returns is Funding per article = (Output Quality rating) × (Unit of funding × 0.25) × (Years of Funding).

Full details of the methods used to compile the ABS Guide are contained on the ABS website (Harvey et al., 2010).