There are few more familiar aphorisms in the academic community than “publish or perish.” Venerated by many and dreaded by more, this phenomenon is the subject of the authors’ essay. Here they consider the publish or perish principle that has come to characterize life at many business schools. They explain when and why it began and suggest reasons for its persistence. This exercise elicits questions that appear as relatively neglected but are integral to our profession, namely, the effect of publish or perish on the creativity, intellectual lives, morale, and psychological and emotional states of faculty.
Amis, K. (1998). Lucky Jim. London: Penguin. (Original work published 1954)
2.
Astley, W. G. (1985). Administrative science as socially constructed truth. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30(4), 497-513.
3.
Bailey, J., & Ford, C. (1996). Management as science versus management as practice in postgraduate business education. Business Strategy Review, 7(4), 7-12.
4.
Bedeian, A. G. (1989). Totems and taboos: Undercurrents in the management discipline. Academy of Management News, 19(4), 1-6.
5.
Bedeian, A. G. (1996). Lessons learned along the way: Twelve suggestions for optimizing career success. In P. J. Frost & M. S. Taylor (Eds.), Rhythms of academic life: Personal accounts of careers in academia (pp. 3-9). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6.
Bedeian, A. G. (2004). Peer review and the social construction of knowledge in the management discipline. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3(2), 198-216.
7.
Behrman, J. N., & Levin, R. I. (1984, January/February). Are business schools doing their job? Harvard Business Review, pp. 140-147.
8.
Bouchikhi, H., & Kimberly, J. (2001). It’s difficult to innovate: The death of the tenured professor and the birth of the knowledge entrepreneur. Human Relations, 54(1), 77-84.
9.
Byrne, J. A. (1990, October 29). Is research in the ivory tower “fuzzy, irrelevant, pretentious”?Business Week, pp.62-63, 66.
10.
Cornford, F. M. (2003). Microcosmographia academica. In G. Johnson (Ed.), University politics: F. M. Cornford’s Cambridge and his advice to the young academic politician (pp. 93-110). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1922).
11.
Coser, L. A. (1975). Two methods in search of a substance. American Sociological Review, 40, 691-700.
12.
Darnill, A. (1996). Publish or perish. Accountancy, 118(1,237), 97.
13.
Davis, M. S. (1971). That’s interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of Social Science, 1, 309-344.
14.
Denning, P. J. (1997). Anew social contract for research. Communications of the ACM, 40(2), 132-134.
15.
Ford, E. W., Duncan, J., Bedeian, A., Ginter, P. M., Rousculp, M. D., & Adams, A. M. (2003). Mitigating risks, visible hands, inevitable disasters, and soft variables: Management research that matters to managers. Academy of Management Executive, 17(1), 46-60.
16.
Franks Commission. (1966). Report of commission of inquiry (2 vols.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
17.
Gordon, R. A., & Howell, J. E. (1959). Higher education for business. New York: Columbia University Press.
18.
Goshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1), 75-91.
19.
Kaplan Educational Centers. (1998). Publish or perish? Available at http://Violet.Kaplan.Com:81/View/Article/0,1898,1167,00.Html, p. 1.
20.
Kerr, S., Tolliver, J., & Petree, D. (1977). Manuscript characteristics which influence acceptance for management and social science journals. Academy of Management Journal, 20(1), 132-141.
21.
Lodge, D. (1978). Changing places. London: Penguin. (Original work published 1975)
22.
Lodge, D. (1985). Small world. London: Penguin. (Original work published 1984)
23.
Lodge, D. (2002). Thinks. London: Penguin. (Original work published 2001)
24.
Long, R. G., & Bowers, W. P. (1998). Research productivity of graduates in management: Effects of academic origin and academic affiliation. Academy of Management Journal, 41(6), 704-714.
25.
Miner, J. B. (1984). The validity and usefulness of theories in an emerging organizational science. Academy of Management Review, 9, 296-306.
26.
Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995). Organizational behavior: Managing people and organizations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
27.
Nozick, R. (1981). Philosophical explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
28.
Pfeffer, J. (2005). Why do bad management theories persist? A comment on Goshal. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1), 96-100.
29.
Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T. (2002). The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1(1), 78-95.
30.
Pierson, F. C., & Others. (1959). The education of American businessmen: A study of university-college programs in business administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.
31.
Piganiol, P. (1971). Scientific competition II: The effects of “publish or perish.”Impact of Science on Society, 21(2), 163-171.
32.
Porter, L. W. (2000). Observations on business education. Selections, 16(2), 29-30.
33.
Porter, L. W., & McKibbin, L. E. (1988). Management education and development: Drift or thrust into the 21st century?New York: McGraw-Hill.
34.
Queenan, J. (1989, October 16). Is it coercive, mimetic and normative? (Usefulness of academic business literature). Forbes, 144(8), 237.
35.
Smith, P. (1990). Killing the spirit: Higher education in America. New York: Viking.
36.
Sowell, T. (1995, June 19). Good teachers need not apply. Forbes, 155(13), 67.
37.
Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1991). Motivation and work behavior (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
38.
Sykes, C. J. (1988). Profscam: Professors and the demise of higher education. Washington, DC: Regency Gateway.
39.
Taylor, M. S., Locke, E. A., Lee, C., & Gist, M. E. (1984). Type A behavior and faculty research productivity: What are the mechanisms?Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 34, 402-418.
40.
Teaching spires. (1996, August 24). The Economist, 340(7,980), 14.
41.
Weick, K. (1989). Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 516-531.
42.
Wilson, R. (2001, January 5). Ahigher bar for earning tenure. Chronicle of Higher Education, 47(17), A12-A14.
