Scholarship and Publishing:

Are There Best Practices?

S. Tamer Cavusgil

The John W. Byington Endowed Chair in Global Marketing

Michigan State University

Internationalizing Doctoral Business Education in Business

A Ph.D. Seminar

29-31 July 2004East Lansing, Michigan

An Art that can be Mastered

• Just as in teaching, there are skills in successful publishing

• Can learn from the masters, as well as from your own experiences

• “Luck is the residue of planning, preparation, and discipline”

• Crafting manuscripts for publication should be rewarding in itself; need to “enjoy the process!”

Target Suitable Journals

Character of publication outlets varies greatly:

• Topical coverage• Empirical vs. qualitative papers• Managerial vs. academic focus• Refereed vs. open submission vs by

invitation• Target audience/readership profile• Acceptance rate• Frequency of publication…

Do this BEFORE you…!

• Have your methodology reviewed prior to collecting data

• Decide on a target outlet before you write the paper

• Peruse recent issues of the target journal to gather impressions of length, formatting, etc., before submission

• Have your manuscript reviewed before you submit it to a journal

Academy of Management Review

Academy of Management Journal

Advances in International Marketing (Elsevier)

Asian Journal of Marketing (Singapore)

Business Horizons (Indiana University)

California Management Review

European Journal of Marketing

Industrial Marketing Management (Elsevier)

International Business Review (Elsevier; EIBA)

International J. of Research in Marketing (EMAC)

Journal of Business Research (Elsevier)

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (AMS)

Knowing Where to Submit…

Journal of Consumer Research (ACR)

Journal of International Business Studies (AIB)

Journal of International Marketing (AMA)

Journal of Macromarketing

Journal of Marketing (AMA)

Journal of Marketing Research (AMA)

Journal of Public Policy and Marketing (AMA)

Journal of World Business

Long Range Planning (Pergamon)

Management International Review (Germany)

Sloan Management Journal (MIT)

Strategic Management Journal

Thunderbird International Business Review (Wiley)

Knowing Where to Submit… (cont.)

JIBS Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief Arie Y. Lewin, Duke University, USA

Associate Editors-in-Chief Henk W. Volberda, Erasmus University, The NetherlandsS. Tamer Cavusgil, Michigan State University, USA Donald Lessard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Joan Enric Ricart, IESE Business School, Spain Jiing-Lih Farh, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, PR China

Departmental Editors Economics, Finance and Accounting Raj Aggarwal, Kent State University, USA Tarun Khanna, Harvard Business School, USA Jose Manuel Campa, IESE Business School, Spain

Bernard Yin Yeung, New York University, USA

Marketing, Consumer Behaviour and Supply Chain Management G. Tomas M. Hult, Michigan State University, USA Guliz Ger, Bilkent University, Turkey

Business Dynamics and Strategy J. Myles Shaver, University of Minnesota, USA Brian Silverman, University of Toronto, Canada Nicolai Juul Foss, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Pankaj Ghemawat, Harvard University Business School, USA

Organization and Management Anand Swaminathan, University of California, Davis, USA Charles Galunic, INSEAD, France Terri Scandura, University of Miami, USA

Culture, Conflict and Cognition Kwok Leung, City University of Hong Kong, PR China Rick Larrick, Duke University, USA

International Political Economy and Comparative Capitalism Lorraine Eden, Texas A & M University, USA Mary A. O'Sullivan, INSEAD, France

Entrepreneurship and New Ventures Phil Anderson, INSEAD, France Mike Lubatkin, University of Connecticut, USA and EM Lyon, France

Strategic HR and Industrial Relations Mari Sako, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, UK Mary Ann Von Glinow, Florida International University, USA

Technology and Innovation Tom Murtha, University of Minnesota, USA

JIBS and JIM

• Journal of International Business Studies is published quarterly by the Academy of International Business; an association of 3,000 professionals worldwide

• Journal of International Marketing is published quarterly by the American Marketing Association, an association of 25,000 professionals

• Journal of International Business Studies is guided by an editor, associate editors, departmental editors, and editorial board (~40), and ad hoc reviewers (~300)

JIBS and JIM (cont.)

• Annual submissions are over 300 (JIBS) and 100 (JIM)

• About 20 percent are desk rejected• About 20 percent are asked to

revise• About 10% (JIBS) / 18% (JIM) are

eventually published• Moving toward electronic

manuscript handling

JIBS Domain is IB including…

• Multinational and transnational business activities, strategies and managerial processes that cross national boundaries

• Joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions

• Interactions of such firms with their economic, political and cultural environments

•Cross national research involving innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge based competition, judgment and decision making, bargaining, leadership, corporate governance and new organizational forms

•Inter-disciplinary contributions, challenging the paradigms and assumptions of single disciplines or functions, are especially welcome

JIBS Domain is IB including(cont.)

JIM

Daniel C. Bello EDITORDiana ZaharievaASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR

Editorial Review Board

Lyn S. Amine St. Louis University

Catherine Axinn Ohio University

Paul W. Beamish University of Western Ontario

Jean J. Boddewyn Baruch College

Muzaffer Bodur Bogazici University, Istanbul

Frank Bradley University College, Dublin

Roger J. Calantone Michigan State University

S. Tamer Cavusgil Michigan State University

Michael R. Czinkota Georgetown University

Adamantios Diamantopoulos Loughborough University

Susan P. Douglas New York University

Dale Duhan Texas Tech University

Hubert Gatignon INSEAD

Robert T. Green Thammasat University, Bangkok

David Griffith Michigan State University 

Hartmut Holzmüller Universität Dortmund

John Hulland University of Pittsburgh

G. Tomas M. Hult Michigan State University

Subhash C. Jain University of Connecticut

Johny K. Johansson Georgetown University

Kostas Katsikeas Cardiff Business School

Warren J. Keegan Lubin School of Business

Gary A. KnightFlorida State University

Masaaki Kotabe Temple University

Philip Kotler Northwestern University

V. Kumar University of Houston

Tage Koed Madsen Odense University

Naresh K. Malhotra Georgia Tech Institute of Technology

Lars-Gunnar Mattsson Stockholm School of Economics

Hans Mühlbacher Universität Innsbruck

Aysegül Özsomer Koç University

Jaqueline Pels Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

Nigel F. Piercy Warwick Business School

John K. Ryans Kent State University

Saeed Samiee University of Tulsa

Bodo B. SchlegelmilchVienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Bernd Schmitt Columbia University 

Jagdish N. Sheth Emory University

Aviv Shoham University of Haifa

Barbara StöttingerVienna University of Economics and Business Administration

Nader Tavassoli London Business School

Vern Terpstra University of Michigan

Hans B. Thorelli Indiana University

Jean-Claude Usunier University of Lausanne

P. Rajan Varadarajan Texas A&M University

Lawrence S. Welch University of Melbourne

George S. Yip London Business School

Shaoming Zou

University of Missouri, Columbia

Proper Positioning

• Does your paper have a non-ambiguous purpose as primarily:– Empirical– Methodological– Conceptual / thought piece– Replication– Case study– Literature review or meta analysis?

• Does it fit nicely with a literature stream?• Does it represent a programmatic evolution?• Does it have a modest, rather than

ambitious, promise? (The narrower the better!)

New or Novel Contribution?

• Fresh insights, explanations• Crystallize thinking• Offer new constructs or

conceptualization• Prescriptions for management• Explain industry or executive

behavior• Add to a debate

Now, the Crafting Part…

• Your skill as a story teller: Take the reader through the steps

• Don’t be a mystery writer! Convey your message early and simply; grab the reader’s interest

• Be meticulous with respect to structure, organization, flow, style, referencing, grammar…

• Get help from professional editors to improve readability

• Make ample use of tables, charts, illustrations• Is the length commensurate with contribution?

Those Gatekeepers!

• Until accepted, you have written the paper for 3-4 gatekeepers!

• Try to anticipate their potential objections

• Acknowledge key contributors to research stream

• Be prepared for harsh and inconsistent reviews; don’t take it personally

• Rejection is not failure if you learn from it!

Discipline in the Revision Process

• Invitation to revise: Cause for celebration!

• Revision = Success at major journals

• Be prompt; revision at a top journal should be a top priority!

Top 10 Reasons for Rejection

10. Wrong journal!9. Topic too trivial8. Results too obvious7. Analysis is flawed6. Measures are weak5. Inappropriate method4. Weak empirical support3. Inadequate conceptualization/theory2. “Half-baked” ideas1. Marginal contribution

Useful Reading…

“From the Editor: Reflections on Research and Publishing,” P.R. Varadarajan, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60 (October 1996), 3-6.

“Guidelines for Conducting Research and Publishing in Marketing: From Conceptualization Through the Review Process,” J.D. Summers, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 29 (Fall 2001), 405-415.