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Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige

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  • J. Scott Armstrong

    (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

Abstract

Modest support was found for the “Dr. Fox phenomenon”: Management scientists gain prestige by unintelligible writing. A positive correlation (+0.7) was found between the prestige of 10 management journals and their “fog indices” (reading difficulty). Furthermore, 32 faculty members were asked to rate the prestige of four passages from management journals. The content of the passages was held constant while readability was varied. Those passages that were more difficult to read were rated higher in research competence.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Scott Armstrong, 1980. "Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 80-86, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:10:y:1980:i:2:p:80-86
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.10.2.80
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    Cited by:

    1. Dolnicar, Sara & Chapple, Alexander, 2015. "The readability of articles in tourism journals," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 161-166.
    2. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis & Huang, Julie Y. & Parhankangas, Annaleena, 2020. "Less is more? Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between readability and screening evaluations across pitch competition and crowdfunding contexts," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    3. Vastag, Gyula & Montabon, Frank, 2002. "Journal characteristics, rankings and social acculturation in operations management," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 109-126, April.
    4. Dowling, Michael & Hammami, Helmi & Zreik, Ousayna, 2018. "Easy to read, easy to cite?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 100-103.
    5. Ante, Lennart, 2022. "The relationship between readability and scientific impact: Evidence from emerging technology discourses," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    6. Green, Kesten C. & Armstrong, J. Scott, 2015. "Simple versus complex forecasting: The evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1678-1685.
    7. Alejandro Avenburg & John Gerring & Jason Seawright, 2023. "How do social scientists reach causal inferences? A study of reception," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 257-275, February.
    8. Feld, Jan & Lines, Corinna & Ross, Libby, 2024. "Writing matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 378-397.
    9. Schwartz-Landsman, V., 2020. "A Chasm to Cross: From Research to Practice and Back," ERIM Inaugural Address Series Research in Management EIA 2020-081-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam..
    10. Amy Richter & Kelvin Tsun Wai Ng & Bahareh Fallah, 2019. "Bibliometric and text mining approaches to evaluate landfill design standards," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 1027-1049, March.
    11. Armstrong, J. Scott, 2003. "Discovery and communication of important marketing findings: Evidence and proposals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 69-84, January.
    12. Brown, Zachariah C. & Anicich, Eric M. & Galinsky, Adam D., 2020. "Compensatory conspicuous communication: Low status increases jargon use," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 274-290.
    13. Berninger, Marc & Kiesel, Florian & Schiereck, Dirk & Gaar, Eduard, 2021. "Citations and the readers’ information-extracting costs of finance articles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    14. Song, Ningyuan & Chen, Kejun & Zhao, Yuehua, 2023. "Understanding writing styles of scientific papers in the IS-LS domain: Evidence from abstracts over the past three decades," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    15. Geuens, Maggie, 2011. "Where does business research go from here? Food-for-thought on academic papers in business research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 1104-1107, October.
    16. Kumar, Dhananjay & Bhowmick, Plaban Kumar & Paik, Jiaul H, 2023. "Researcher influence prediction (ResIP) using academic genealogy network," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    17. Amon, Julian & Hornik, Kurt, 2022. "Is it all bafflegab? – Linguistic and meta characteristics of research articles in prestigious economics journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).

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    professional: OR/MS standards;

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