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Early career researchers in Management receive expert feedback at Birkbeck’s Paper Development Workshop

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The workshop invited delegates from universities across the globe to present their work-in-progress research papers to well-published academics from Birkbeck’s Department of Management.

The Department of Management’s Paper Development Workshop welcomed students from institutions across the globe to share their research and receive feedback from well-published academics.

The Workshop was organised by Dr Konstantinos Chalkias, Director of the PhD Management Programme; Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean (Research) in the School of Business, Economics and Informatics; Dr Neil Pyper, Assistant Dean (Learning and Teaching) in the School of Business, Economics and Informatics; and Mark Thurgood, PhD student in Birkbeck’s Department of Management.

In total, 27 papers were accepted for the event, with submissions from the UK, Germany, India, Spain and the Netherlands.

The workshop began with a keynote address from Professor Yehuda Baruch, Southampton Business School, on ‘Transforming PhD research into publishable papers’. Yehuda advised delegates on how to produce a strong paper and how to capitalise on their PhD research in further publications, reminding students that this is “probably the only time in your career when you’re able to devote a full three years of your life to a big project without competing demands on your time.”

Yehuda encouraged students to think ahead to the kind of role they would like to have after their PhD, contrasting the benefits of teaching vs research-oriented institutions and academic roles vs postdoctoral research positions.

Following the keynote, participants were divided into groups based on their research interests, where they presented their papers to an expert reviewer from Birkbeck.

Prizes were awarded for the best full paper and best developmental paper and all accepted attendees were offered a year of British Academy of Management membership. Congratulations to our prizewinners:

Saurabh Jain, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad

Best Developmental Paper Award for ‘Impact of Service Innovation on Social Media Entrepreneur’s Performance’.

Thanos Fragkandreas, Leo Leitzinger and Marius Liebald, Goethe University Frankfurt

Best Full Paper Award for ‘Is the Linear Model of Innovation Actually Dead? A ‘Topic-Sentiment Analysis’ of Policy Documents.’

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How to become and thrive as an impactful scholar 

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Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics welcomed Professor Morten Huse for the first in a series of talks on how to conduct rigorous, impactful research.

At a time when academics face increasing and competing demands on their time, how can researchers ensure that they are conducting theoretically rigorous and practically impactful research? 

On Monday 15 November, the School of Business, Economics and Informatics welcomed Professor Morten Huse, Professor Emeritus at BI Norwegian Business School (Oslo) to deliver the first in a series of talks entitled ‘How to become and thrive as an impactful scholar’. The talks draw on reflections from Morten’s award-winning book: ‘Resolving the Crisis in Research by Changing the Game’. 

The session was chaired by Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean (Research) in the School, who welcomed Professor Huse and colleagues to the event. 

Morten began by sharing his motivations for writing the book that forms the basis of this series, which he described as an “introspective journey”. The book began as part of an ERC Advanced Research Grant Application exploring a sharing philosophy in academia and the concept of engaged scholarship. 

Morten introduced the idea of a “scholarly ecosystem”; a holistic view of academia that encompasses the institution, the community, its audience, messages and communication channels. In particular, he highlighted the importance of the community and transferring from a “publish or perish culture into true scholarship”. 

The key elements in the sharing philosophy are:  

  • Caring for each other 
  • Open innovation 
  • Impact driven 
  • “Life is too short to drink bad wine” 

Open innovation 

Morten argued that open innovation is a holistic process, in which individuals’ scholarly lives cannot be separated from their private identity. It is about the integration of head, heart and hands. 

He explained: “I think we all agree that scholarship goes beyond learning the tricks of the trade. Still, I’m seeing that the most popular sessions in conferences are about how to learn to publish, how to learn the tricks of the trade, more than really getting into the research.” 

Reflecting on his experience at Witten/Herdecke University from Chapter 7 of the book, Morten discussed the importance of open dialogue and contributions from across the academic community to create a communal experience. 

During his time at Witten, Morten began to define himself as a mentor and to use a policy of “starting with the heart”, discovering that the head and the hands would soon follow. 

An impact-driven approach 

Morten shared some examples from Chapter 8 of his book to show the importance of an impact-driven approach. 

Referencing his work on the ‘getting women on boards’ research agenda during the 1980s and 1990s, he explained: “We wanted to be open and share, in that way learning so much more than when we were just protecting things for our own credit. We could risk that somebody worked faster than us in publishing and getting credit: what mattered was that the important things were understood. In that period, we were not afraid of sharing with each other what we were doing, because we were learning so much more and so much faster. “ 

Polymorphic research 

Morten defines polymorphic research as “alternative ways of thinking and doing research.” This involves avoiding formulaic methods as shortcuts to publication and instead pursuing impactful research by challenging assumptions, methods, interpretations and how research is communicated beyond publications to make a change in business and society. 

An example of this type of research is the ‘champagne method’: action research featuring interaction and co-creation between the actor and the researcher. The champagne method involves a holistic approach and requires trust, positive energy and continuous reflection. It represents the integration of research, teaching and action. 

“Life is too short to drink bad wine” 

Throughout the event, the talk returned to the catchphrase “Life is too short to drink bad wine”, which embodies Morten’s philosophy that researchers should spend their time on the projects that will be truly meaningful, with colleagues who share their passion. How to achieve this type of research and the scholarly journey will be explored in-depth in upcoming sessions in this series. 

The presentation was followed by discussion from delegates, which further explored the impact of individualistic vs communal cultures and how to scale-up an open innovation and communal approach. 

Places on session two of this series on thriving in different stages of an academic career are available to book now. 

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Just look the other way: Job seekers’ reactions to the irresponsibility of market-dominant employers

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Birkbeck’s Responsible Business Centre seminar series returned with a thought-provoking discussion on how jobseekers respond to Corporate Social Irresponsibility in prospective employers.

When it comes to attracting new talent, research shows that there are two factors affecting a company’s attractiveness:

  1. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which signals to jobseekers that a company might be a good employer and treat its employees fairly.
  2. The company’s dominance in its industry, which implies a good level of resources to pay employees well and to offer opportunities for career development.

What happens when jobseekers’ positive impression of a dominant company comes into conflict with Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI)?

In the first of this term’s Responsible Business Centre seminars, Dr Benedetta Crisafulli, Deputy Director of the Centre, presented research published with Professor Paolo Antonetti, NEOMA Business School, and Dr Aybars Tuncdogan, King’s College London, on jobseekers’ reactions to CSI. Their research explores how job seekers react to situations where potential employers behave irresponsibly, with a particular focus on unravelling the circumstances under which job seekers overlook the wrongdoing altogether.

Benedetta explained: “When we analyse the effects, we are interested in the tension: CSI tells me that the company lacks integrity, but market dominance might tell me that a company is treating its employees very well. CSI might give me a signal of incompetence, but dominance tells me the exact opposite. That’s where the tension comes and that’s why it’s relevant to look at them together.”

The study asked jobseekers in retail to evaluate market dominant employers involved in CSI. The results show that CSI has a negative effect on perceived competence, ethicality and thus attractiveness. However, as hypothesised, this effect is not as pronounced for dominant employers, where people who are interested in a particular industry seem to be happy to turn a blind eye to CSI.

Benedetta explained what is happening from the perspective of the jobseekers: “When a dominant employer is involved in CSI, we try and elaborate in our mind what might justify the negative event, to be able to say that the company didn’t mean to do it. This is even more so if we are genuinely interested in building a career in the industry where the dominant employer operates.

“The more we are certain of our initial positive impression of an employer, the more likely we are to engage in defensive thinking. The opposite happens if we are not certain of our impression of the company. In such a case, we are even more critical of the company.”

Concluding the presentation, Benedetta warned that CSI remains detrimental for companies, yet not so much for dominant ones. Non-dominant employers are likely to suffer more from CSI in terms of talent recruitment. Non-dominant employers might ponder ways to signal dominance, while media and policymakers should raise their bar when it comes to scrutinising dominant brands, who might think that irresponsibility won’t hurt them.

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Department of Management Meets the Editor with Professor Geoffrey Wood

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The Editor of Academy of Management Perspectives and Human Resource Management Journal shared advice with researchers looking to publish in highly-ranked journals.

The Department of Management’s popular ‘Meet the Editor’ series has returned for the 2021/22 academic year, welcoming Professor Geoffrey Wood as its first guest.

Professor Wood is Editor in Chief of Academy of Management Perspectives (ABS 4*) and Human Resource Management Journal (ABS 4*, World Elite), Professor and DanCap Private Equity Chair of Innovation and Department Chair and DAN Management at Western University in Canada.

Opening the session, Chair Dr Muthu De Silva, Assistant Dean for Research in Birkbeck’s School of Business, Economics and Informatics said: “We are really grateful to Professor Geoff Wood for offering to speak to us. As you all know, our key aim is to bring all of you together to meet eminent editors which will help us to together thrive in our research journey. Geoff has published over 220 articles in peer-reviewed journals, so we are very much looking forward to hearing his advice today.”

Advice for researchers aspiring to publish in highly ranked journals

Professor Wood began his presentation with some key advice for researchers:

Editors love novelty, provided that it is within the scope of the journal.

For example, the Journal of Finance is more conservative in terms of theory and methods, but open in terms of choice of topic, while the Academy of Management Journal prefers novelty in terms of theorizing.

Highly ranked journals care about how you calibrate your data.

This includes the scale of the study, for example how in-depth a survey goes, the number of interviews conducted and the quality of data sets.

It pays to do your homework: a journal’s purpose may not be obvious from its title.

In a message echoed from previous Meet the Editor events, Professor Wood gave the example of the Journal of Human Resources, which takes economics papers, to illustrate that it is worth doing some research to ensure your study is right for a particular journal.

The chance of publishing in a four-star journal may be higher than you think.

It is often assumed that a highly ranked journal receives thousands of submissions each year, but the Academy of Management Review receives just 400. The chances of publishing a high-quality paper in this journal are therefore higher than you might expect, but at the same time, leading journals expect papers with scholarly depth, inttrenal rigour, and, when appropriate, a sufficient weight of empirical evidence.

First impressions matter

Professor Wood explained “Referees are like anybody – they’re trying to make sense of a complicated world, so they will look for shortcuts and for the initial impression a paper gives.” He advised making a good first impression by ensuring a strong introduction, conclusion and abstract, and ensuring that any formula and tables in the paper are easy to understand.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Out of date references

Professor Wood explained that this mistake is commonly made by PhD students, who begin gathering data well before writing up their findings. The out of date references make it look as though the paper has already been rejected elsewhere, and, potentially ‘zombie’ papers.

Ignoring referee comments

While it is accepted that researchers may wish to submit a rejected paper elsewhere, Professor Wood cautions against ignoring comments from previous reviewers. The comments are likely to give your paper a better chance of success, but even more so, you may come across the same reviewer at another journal who will be unimpressed if you have ignored their advice!

Failing to cite the target journal

Conduct a careful keyword search in your target journal to ensure you are citing the most relevant references. Not only is it insulting not to cite your target journal; the chances are that your reviewer will be somebody who has recently published in that journal too.

Academy of Management Perspectives Journal: Insight from the Editor

AMP’s Associate Editors have a lot of past editorial experience – typically 8-10,000 citations each – which represents “a lot of knowledge and wisdom coming into your paper.” Professor Wood noted the “career-transforming effect” for scholars whose work has been published in AMP.

He reassured attendees that the chances of getting published in AMP are fairly good, as the journal receives comparatively few high-quality submissions. From the end of the year, AMP will scrap the current system of submitting a proposal before the paper to ensure a more streamlined process for researchers.

It is also worth noting that the journal offers special issues, and would normally expect at least one person within a special issue team to be a very senior and well-established scholar.

Human Resource Management Journal

As a journal of political economy, HRMJ tends to take work that provides some reflections in the broader context of research. It also takes a lot of international work. The journal accepts empirical and conceptual papers, however it does not take organisational psychology papers that do not engage with HR issues. Researchers are not expected to be HR specialists, but they do need to engage with HR literature.

Professor Wood’s presentation was followed by a question and answer session, where researchers had an opportunity to ask more specific questions about the publication process, AMP and HRMJ. One researcher commented: “I think this kind of insight is very important – I don’t usually see editors to share these insights!”

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