Publishing in the Majors: A Comparison of Accounting, Finance, Management, and Marketing

Publication in top-tier journals is the primary criterion for promotion at many business schools and a strong influence on salary, teaching load, and research support. Business schools evaluate publication records by comparing the quality and quantity of top-tier research articles to those of peers within the same discipline (intradisciplinary) and to those of academics from other business disciplines (interdisciplinary). An analytical model of the research review process (the q-r model) predicts that interdisciplinary differences exist in the standards that top-tier journals use for accepting articles. If true, decision makers should consider these differences. I examine the period from 1980 to 1999 and, consistent with the model's predictions, find that significant differences exist in the number of articles and proportion of faculty who published in the "major" journals in accounting, finance, management, and marketing. Most notably, top-tier accounting journals publish substantially fewer major articles than journals in the other three business disciplines. In addition, I find the proportion of doctoral faculty publishing a major article has declined in all four disciplines over the 1980 to 1999 period.