Publishing Strategies
(and Tactics):
(Some) Rules of the Game
Nicolai Foss
IVS-CBS & NHH
Books and Journals
 Books have much more lenient review procedures, if any.
 Relatively easy to get a book proposal accepted by a
publisher (they are almost guaranteed a sale above the
break-even level).
Rather few really classical papers have been
published in books.
Although European Schools and Universities will
consider book chapters, US Schools and
Universities typically won’t.
 However, books may be proper vehicles for
certain kinds of publications, e.g., the
presentation of the collective endeavours of a
research group (e.g., Dosi et al. 1988).
-- in general, you should aim at journal publication.
Imagine you have written and
submitted your great paper…
Wait, oh yes wait a minute mister postman
Wait, wait mister postman
Mister postman look and see
You got a letter in your bag for me
I been waiting such a long time
Since I heard from that editor of mine
Etc.
-- liberally adapted from The Beatles
What kind of letter do you want
from the editor? And what kind is
it likely that you will get?
One possible letter
• “I regret the referees are not
at all happy with this paper
... You are ... a long way
away from the sort of paper
we seek ... please consider
my advice to turn your
energies to other things and
take up writing a JEL article
several years down the road
when you will have
accumulated more skills in
writing these sorts of papers”
Could this have been avoided? Yes -- easily!!!
Or….
”… I think that the present manuscript makes only a dubious
contribution … the manuscript is more of a rambling
manifesto of loosely connected thoughts … The
condescending attitude is clearly impeding your ability to
organize a coherent overall argument. I invite you to get
down off of the high horse … the core argument of the paper
appears fundamentally and hopelessly flawed” (excerpts
from 11 (eleven) pages (single space) review report from
SMJ).
Could this have been avoided? Perhaps.
Or…
”We have read your manuscript with boundless
delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be
impossible for us to publish any work of lower
standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next
thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our
regret, compelled to return your divine composition,
and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short
sight and timidity.”
-- Rejection from a Chinese economics journal.
Or….
”I now have two review reports on the
above manuscript … In view of these and
my own reading, I have decided to publish
your paper in JITE provided you prepare a
revised version which takes into account
the comments and suggestions of both
referees”
…Not bad, but it can be even better ...
The letter we really want:
The champaign letter
”I would like to offer my
congratulations on a paper well
done. I am pleased that you have
submitted it to Organization
Science. The reviewers and Senior
Editor feel that your ideas offer
new insights, and that they would
be a valuable contribution to the
field, and I concur”
-- Claudia Bird Schoonhoven,
Editor in Chief.
Types of letters
• 1. Outright rejection (by far the most common).
• 2. Non-committing invitation to (strongly) revise
and resubmit.
• 3. Acceptance, if certain revisions are carried out.
• 4. Immediate acceptance (very rare -- except at
crappy journals -- and perhaps not
psychologically good to receive).
Adhering to the following rules will increase
your probability of getting no. 2. - 4. letters and
avoiding the no. 1. letters.
Rule no. 1: Prepare yourself at the
earliest possible stage
• Think about publishing
at an early stage of
your Ph.d. study
– 1.1. Write in English
– 1.2. Consider writing
your dissertation so
that articles can
relatively easily be
written on the basis of
it.
Rule no. 2: (Try to) Write every day
• Writing is a skill that needs to be constantly nurtured.
• ”The importance of a regular schedule -- this same half hour
every day -- is vital; a definite rhythm is created both mentally
and physically and the writer automatically goes to his desk
at that certain time, drawn by habit” (Principles of Good
Writing 1969: 88).
• Keeps writers’ block problems at bay.
• You can be surprisingly productive with only 30 - 45
minutes -- which everybody should be able to find -- of
concentrated writing every day.
• Compose first, do the nitty-gritty later.
• Consider working on multiple projects simultaneously.
Rule No. 3: Present, circulate, and
discuss your stuff!
• Present as much as
possible and as often
as possible
– 3.1. Don’t be
embarrassed to send
your stuff to senior
people -- they expect
it!
– 3.2 However, you
can’t expect people
to read multiple
drafts
Rule No. 3 (cont’d)
– 3.3. Don’t send too polished papers; this
will reduce comments to mere formalities
– 3.4. Don’t write too self-serving cover
letters (e.g. “Are 4,5 million Danes right or
are [the author’s protagonists] wrong.
– 3.5. Send your paper to those senior people
whose work you cite, criticize, extend,
test… -- they are the ones will take a
natural interest in your work.
Rule No. 4
• Remember to
acknowledge those
who offered
substantive comments
– 4.1. Most seniors are
busy!!
– 4.2. Don’t ever play
games
– 4.3. Remember the
standard disclaimer
Rule no. 5: Revise, revise, revise, revise
and then revise again
1. Never be too impatient.
• You may have an idea that is great, but because your paper
is written crappily it will only be published in an inferior
journal.
• Always let your paper ”mature” for 1-2 months before you
look at it again. Then revise … and revise once more. Then,
perhaps it may be submitted.
• The typical SMJ paper has probably been presented 10
times and revised perhaps as many (”job-market paper”).
2. On the other hand, you can also hesitate too long -- e.g.,
when the journal is of low quality or you know that others are
trying to publish similar ideas.
Rule No.6 : Know what you are aiming at
• Target your paper
– 4.1. There is a journal
for your paper
somewhere in the
world
– 4.2. Write with this
journal in your mind
Rule No. 7: The choice of journal
is a strategic one
• Think long and hard
about publishing
strategies
– “Go ugly early”
– “Begin in the top”
• Construct a
submission tree
– Maps your options.
– Helps you to avoid
undesirable pathdependence effects.
An example of a submission tree
• A cross-disciplinary (economics, sociology, pscyhology)
paper on the theory of the firm:
Org.
Sc.
AMR
JMS
Kyklos
JEBO
JITE
JMG
Rule No. 7 -- Cont’d
Consider the ”journal hierarchy” -- e.g., in general business
administration/management studies:
A: ASQ, SMJ, AMR, AMJ, OS, MS
B: JMS, Journal of Management
C: SJM, Journal of Management Inquiry, Long Range Planning,
In Organization: A: Org Science, Journal of Organizational
Behavior; B: Organization Studies, C: Certain small university
press journals.
• However, the ”journal hierarchy” is locally constructed (e.g.,
compare Bocconi, Wharton, Rotterdam and Copenhagen).
• Inherently difficult to compare specialized and general journals.
Rule No. 7 -- Cont’d
Some Rules of Thumb:
•Avoid journals that accept papers without formal review
(increasingly common) as the plague! Quality is almost
certainly low.
• Check whether the journal is in the Social Science
Citation Index.
• New, ”rising star” journals (e.g., ICC, JMG) that are not
be listed in the SSCI may still be attractive -- you basically
get in ”at a low price.”
Rule No. 8: Conformity Generally Pays
• Many journals have almost completely fixed formats for papers
-- Typically
” 1.Introduction, 2. Litterature Review, 3. Theory development
and hypothesis, 4. Data and measures, 5. Results, 6.
Discussion, 7. Conclusion”
for a mainly empirically oriented journal, e.g., SMJ, Journal of
Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior. Journals that
allow more conceptual papers often adopt the same format, but
then skips 4 and 5.
• In general it pays to stick to this format.
Rule No. 9: Length
• Don’t write too
many pages
– 9.1. Editors are
automically suspicious
of long ms.
– 9.2. For most journals
30 dbl.spaced pages
are more than
sufficient.
Rule No 10: The Language is Standard
English -- Not Your Version of It
• This is too often neglected by
authors (in fact, even
sometimes by Americans or
Englishmen).
• May not consistute an
independent ground for
rejection -- but surely
influences the decision.
• Read, e.g., Principles of Good
Writing; King, Why Not Say It
Clearly?; Strunk & White, The
Elements of Style
“the paper is written in an extremely
sloppy manner, with lots of typos,
terribly bad English phraseology (see,
e.g., the very first sentence in the
paper), and sentences that are
occasionally
outright
meaningless.
However, in principle these are all
remediable mistakes, and although it is
painful to review a paper that is so badly
written, perhaps this shouldn’t constitute
an independent ground for rejection”.
Rule No. 11
• Don’t write too much to
editors --- thus,
”Dear Professor Wisdom,
Please find enclosed three
copies of a paper, “Postmodernism and operations
planning”, which I ask you
to consider for Journal of
Management Crap. I look
forward to your response
on this paper.
Sincerely yours,
Hopeful”
will be sufficient.
Rule no.12
If a journal invites suggestions for
reviewers and/or editors (as OS does),
exploit this opportunity:
• Editors often have difficulties finding reviewers.
• You can influence the review process to your
advantage.
Rule No. 13
• If an editor rejects your
paper and gives a
specific reason, normally
your paper is finished
with that journal
• Sometimes you can
fight a rejection
(normally requires
you are a big gun)
Rule No. 14
• Resubmitted papers
should include all the
major comments of the
editor and the referees
-- unless you are
convinced that they
are wrong. (Explain
this).
Rule No. 15
• Referees (and
sometimes editors too)
can be extremely nasty
Try not to care too
much; they are the
ones with a problem.
Rule No. 16
• Always quickly
resubmit a rejected
paper to another journal
– Use the submission
tree.
– Think about whether it
is worthwhile to
include the referees’
comments in the new
submitted paper (it
often is).
Rule No. 17: Don’t give up
• .. Or, at least, don’t give up too easily.
• Typically Scandinavian disease to drop a ms
after one or two rejections.
• However, if your ms has been rejected 4-5
times, it probably isn’t a great paper.
• BUT: Remember that Robert Pirsig (Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) received 121
rejections!!!
Tenure/promotion-related rules
• Be the sole author of some papers (at least 1/3 of your
output).
• Try to publish a peer-reviewed paper a year in a
respected journal (emerging European norm).
• Identify a niche within which your research can earn you
a national and -- potentially -- also an international
reputation (nat and int nat reputations may conflict for
certain topics).
• Seek external funding for your research.
• Have publications in the areas that you teach.