Cutting-edge crossing-boundaries interdisciplinary or even multidisciplinary research – wasn’t that what we were all interested in and encouraged to do? Sadly, our incentive systems do not correspond with this dream (as not to say utopia). Meet the deans at EABIS came with news for e.g. CSR scholars: sure, you are not going to be rewarded to do interdisciplinary research but still you should follow this path. Now that is sthg for established tenure faculty, but if your career is not advancing just because you e.g. published in the “wrong” (note, not bad, just not in your discipline) journals, you may think twice about where you submit your paper to.
Journal ranking “lists” are particularly good at giving a good last stab to this ideal. ABS encourages you to publish in your discipline only (however weirdly it may define “your” discipline for you, i.e. only OM journals count for SCM research, and if you are a geographer, do not dare to publish in any geography journal that is not on the business school list, after all, you are not an engineer or a natural scientist, are you?). Above all, it’s the death of interdisciplinary research. CSR researchers beware. Health care logistics, what’s that. The list goes on and on. The problem is, all these topics would indeed be cutting-edge and cross boundaries, with a good potential to push our limits of knowledge. But that is not what science is all about – or is it?
Gyöngyi
