Authorship, 25 per cent, and special section

Citation

Carrahe, S.M. (2013), "Authorship, 25 per cent, and special section", Journal of Management History, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmh.2013.15819caa.001

Authorship, 25 per cent, and special section

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Management History, Volume 19, Issue 3

Welcome to Issue number 3 of Volume 19. In this issue we have a special section which started as a special issue and three additional papers. We also have hit a new milestone. As I wrote about in the last issue we have been having some big changes with the journal. As I write this editorial according to Publish or Perish the number of citations for Journal of Management History papers has increased from 2,280 to 2,370 since the last issue. Our h index has increased from 21 to 22 but our g index has stayed the same at 34. We have two papers that have been cited 22 times – Ryan (1999) and Mendenhall et al. (2000) – and our most cited paper remains Roehling (1997). The most cited paper per year is Murphy et al. (2006) at 11.38 citations per year. We also have an Age Weighted Citation Rate of 233 so we are getting cited more and more over time. With the last issue I mentioned that we were about to drop below a 30 per cent acceptance rate. At this point we are at a 23.1 per cent acceptance rate. When I finish processing all of the papers currently in the ScholarOne system we will have just under a 25 per cent acceptance rate at 24.5 per cent. While I am working on this editorial I am also accepting the final papers for the first issue of Volume 20. Beginning with Volume 20 we are also looking at starting to include two interviews a year with major figures from management history. I think that Karl Moore has enough of them to last for the next 50 volumes or so.

I had hoped to provide some additional information about the Marry-Go-Round measure presented in the last editorial but unfortunately I have not been able to acquire any data to examine it yet. I still hope to include some information about it in a future issue.

Earlier this month I was asked about the differences in authorship between journal articles and presentations – and how to determine the order of authorship for articles and presentations. When it comes to making a contribution to a presentation there are typically five different ways to contribute. These include coming up with the idea, data collection, data analysis, writing up the results, and actually making the presentation. Data entry CAN be important but it typically does not by itself justify coauthorship neither would funding the presentation or the project. Typically order of authorship should be determined by contribution to the paper with the data analysis being the most important contribution and making the presentation would be the least. When it comes to journal articles “making the presentation” is not part of the article process and therefore typically there are only four major ways to contribute – and I have heard some professors say that data collection or supplying the data does not contribute enough to be a coauthor – but data analysis is still the most important factor in determining authorship for empirical papers and idea generation for non-empirical ones. I think that a nice paper could be written looking in these types of issues as well as differences between the various business disciplines. For instance in Law and Accounting it is not unusual to begin by submitting abstracts of articles to multiple journals and then once an acceptance is received then the paper is written. In Management and Marketing this would typically be frowned upon.

In “Upward defiance in organizations: management lessons from the battle of Blair Mountain” John H. Humphreys of Texas A&M University – Commerce, Jane W. Gibson of Nova Southeastern University, and Jennifer D. Oyler of Texas A&M University – Commerce examine illustrate the process of escalation towards hostility to offer practicing managers guidance on appropriate steps to interrupt the extreme escalation of member resistance. They examined the significant historical insurrection within the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain. With the case of the Blair Mountain War, the historical record provides ample narrative data for a textual, interpretive, pseudo-ethnographical analysis. Their examination of the Battle of Blair Mountain provides additional support for the upward organizational defiance framework. In “What is good for general motors: the contributions and influence of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr” Jeffery D. Houghton of West Virginia University provides a review and analysis of the contributions and influence of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr, to contemporary business practices and management thought. The paper begins with an introduction and brief biographical sketch followed by an overview of Sloan’s administrative principles as applied at GM. It then continues with a review of empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of Sloan’s principles along with some theoretical explanations for their success. Although he was not a management scholar, Sloan’s applied work at General Motors resulted in significant and enduring contributions to business practices and management theory. Yet Sloan’s contributions are somewhat overlooked today and have not been extensively or critically examined in our current business and managerial contexts. In “Modern to postmodern management: developments in scientific management” Linzi J. Kemp of the American University of Sharjah examines the development of scientific management through the lens of postmodernism. The four principles of scientific management are deconstructed through a postmodern lens. Current management practices are analysed for indicators of development in scientific management. The principles of scientific management are found within current management examples; measurement of knowledge production; empowerment; total quality management; teamwork. Scientific management, when deconstructed through the lens of postmodernism, is discovered to have developed over time.

Shawn M. CarraherEditor, UK

Introduction to the special section

The original seed of this special section was planted in the spring of 2010 when two groups of business school professors, one at the Athens University of Economics and Businesses, Greece headed by Professor G.P Prastacos, then Rector of AUEB, and Associate Professor K.E. Soderquist, the other at the University of International Economics and Business, Beijing, China coordinated by Professor Fuming Wang, started brainstorming about ways to link their respective countries’ ancient philosophy heritage to the ethics and sustainability dimensions of leadership and management. Joining forces, our common ideas took shape in the joint organization of the June 2011 conference “Leadership and Management in a Changing World: Lessons from Ancient East and West Philosophy” held at AUEB in Greece. Sponsored and supported by Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters, whom we thank warmly for their instrumental contributions, the conference brought together over 100 delegates from around the world, including leading scholars in the rapidly growing discipline of philosophy and management.

This special section presents three papers that originate from this unique and ground breaking conference and where the authors significantly develop and formalize their original ideas. The parallels between ancient wisdom and modern business challenges are many, and within the broad spectrum of coverage of the JMH, several recent contributions, e.g. Chow Hoi Hee and Gurd (2010), Kurzynski (2012) and Lamond (2008) have been made in this area. This special section aims at further develop this research stream by presenting three papers relating aspects of ancient philosophy and thinking including trust and collaboration, “crisis management”, and diversity. This reflects the breadth of the contributions in the 2011 Athens conference, from which numerous contributions also have been published in other outlets, e.g. Prastacos et al. (2012).

We like to thank the Editor in Chief, Shawn Carraher, for his initial initiative to academically support and promote the conference, and for his continuous support and encouragement during the process of preparing the manuscripts for the present special section. We also thank, on our behalf and on behalf of the authors, the anonymous reviewers who contributed to improving the original manuscripts.

In the first paper, “Guanxi and trust in strategic alliances”, Baiyun Gong, Xin He and Huei-Min Hsu lean on Guanxi, defined as culture-based informal interpersonal relations, to explain how trust can build up in strategic alliances between auto parts suppliers in the contemporary Chinese business environment. Distinguishing between two types of Guanxi, the authors show that when it comes to inter-organizational trust in these alliances, the role-based Guanxi provides the best support for institutionalizing alliance collaboration and sustaining the success of the alliance. The essence of the contribution lies in the demonstration of how the ancient concept of Guanxi, embedded in Chinese culture for thousands of years, remains relevant in today’s business context through its evolution over time, which the authors characterize as a spiral development model. Moreover, the attempt to distinguish between role-based and soil-rooted Guanxi opens up new interesting paths for research into the effects of Guanxi in various contemporary business challenges.

Uncertainty, which indeed characterizes most contemporary business endeavours, not least the negotiations, deal-making and implementation of strategic alliances, is the theme explored by David King in his paper entitled “Managing uncertainty: lessons from xenophon’s retreat”. Taking us back to the ancient Greek history, and more specifically the Greek mercenary forces, which, following the loss of Cyrus in the battle of Cunaxa in 401 bc, ended up fighting their way out of Persia, David King explores their struggle as a lesson for managing uncertainty. The dramatic and turbulent experiences that lasted for some two years were recorded by Xenophon who had joined the forces as an observer. Leaning on Xenophon’s recites and a wealth of other studies and references, King explores three propositions related to resource exploitation, divergent ideas and the exercise of power. He uncovers an ancient case of conscious exploitation of core capabilities and constructive – effective and productive – use of politics that enabled not only survival, but final successful outcomes of an organization finding itself under extreme pressure.

The third paper and final paper of the special section, “Invoking Black Athena and its debates: insights for organization on diversity, race and culture”, by Sally Riad, draws on works by Derrida and Hegel to analyse the historical development and inclusion of the notions of diversity race and culture in management and organization. Grounding her arguments in the Black Athena debates, an account of diversity is developed that spans from the ancient Greek society to the contemporary paradigms of organizational diversity pioneered in the US. Bringing forth the arguments in Barnal’s Black Athena, Riad concludes that “diversity management” cannot be taken seriously if it is sold to organizations on the grounds of effectiveness. Instead, diversity management would imply preparing and supporting people to work in a context of ambivalence. Here, Derrida’s notion of a “double duty” gain relevance; members of organizations must be able to think, speak and act with contradictory imperatives.

Klas Eric SoderquistHigher Colleges of Technology – Dubai/Women’s Campus, United Arab Emirates

Gregory P. PrastacosHowe School of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA

Fuming WangUniversity of International Business and Economics, Beijing, P.R. China