‘The rules of the game’: How business research journals discourage knowledge translation to practice and what needs to change

Abstract

What makes business research seemingly irrelevant outside of the closed circle of academia? This question has been discussed and debated in various forms in academic circles. Concerns such as increased relevance, access, and better communication are routinely touted as the way forward. However, these recommendations are often targeted towards researchers rather than academic journals which have strict publishing requirements.

This research explores the role of academic business journals, the key means of communication between research and practice, in contributing to the research-practice divide and, hence, research irrelevance. We analysed the journal requirements and guidelines for authors of top-rated business journals from research areas including management, marketing, accounting and finance and tourism. Factors related to article structure, content, writing style, focus on theoretical and practical implications, journal subscription methods and fees, as well as journal primary target audiences and contributors, were analysed and qualitatively coded.

Our analysis suggests that journal guidelines and requirements inhibit research communication to practice and, hence, contribute to business research irrelevance. We provide various recommendations as a way forward to improve the ‘rules of the game’, and develop a publishing model that will allow business research to contribute to the challenges facing our planet, societies and businesses.

Keywords:

• Business research
• research relevance
• journal guidelines
• publications
• research-practice gap
• research-practice divide

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor Anne Tsui for her guidance and feedback on this commentary. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor, Bjørn Andersen for their feedback and assistance in helping us improve this manuscript; and a special thanks to Ch. M. Akmal. The authors declare no funding obtained for this work.

Ethical approval

The commentary relied on journal guidelines and other publicly available data on journal websites. No ethical issues were identified in the process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adeel Akmal

Adeel Akmal is a research fellow associated with the Centre for Health Systems and Technology (CHeST), Otago Business School, University of Otago. His current research interests includes quality improvement in production and service organisations (with a particular interest in healthcare organisations), operations and organisational management.

Robin Gauld

Robin Gauld is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Commerce) and Dean, Otago Business School, a role he moved to in December 2016. He is also the Co-Director of the Centre for Health Systems and Technology (CHeST) which spans the Business School and Health Sciences Division at the University of Otago. Robin has authored over 160 peer-reviewed journal articles, 40 book chapters and several books including The New Health Policy (Open University Press, 2009) which was awarded First Prize in category at the 2010 British Medical Association Medical Book Awards, and Dangerous Enthusiasms: E-Government, Computer Failure and Information System Development (2006; co-authored with Shaun Goldfinch) which has been widely-used globally including in key reading lists at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Nataliya Podgorodnichenko

Nataliya Podgorodnichenko is a Lecturer in DBA programme at the Otago Business School, University of Otago. Her primary research interests include corporate social responsibility, sustainability, human resource management, sustainable and green human resource management, and lean thinking. She has published in Production Planning and Control, Human Resource Management Review, Employee Relations.