This presentation is intended to novice researchers who are not sure about what they want to research on but want to write a good paper as soon as possible! I used it to insinuate my collleagues into research by making them believe it is very easy!

1. Enhancing Research Publication
Quality
Dr. K.B.C. Saxena
Fortune Institute of International Business
New Delhi
December 24, 2014

2. What is this thing called “research”?
Range:
• Desk research: ascertaining information from published sources.
to
• Doctoral research for a doctorate degree, or post (pre?)-doctoral
research conducted to create/extend knowledge in a knowledge-
domain.
Purpose:
• applied research: research conducted to solve an
immediate problem.
• evaluative research: research to assess the performance/
impact of an action/policy on a person, group or organisation.
• Basic research: research to develop or test some theory,
with varying degree of abstraction.
Enhancing Research Publication
Quality
2

3. Enhancing Research Publication
Quality
3
Types of Research
1. Academic Research
Objectives: (a) Advance theory; (b) Create new knowledge; (c) Develop new
methodologies; (d) Sustain the doctoral/Fellow programme; (e) Underpin
innovative teaching programmes
2. Practice-oriented Research
Objectives: (a) Inform management practitioners; (b) Enhance students’
learning; (c) Research sponsored by specific companies; (d) Improve
management practices; (e) Understand current business environment; (f)
Update contents of a course/programme
3. Pedagogical Development
Objectives: (a) Create new course material; (b) Create new programmes; (c)
Develop new learning methodologies; (d) Create new learning tools

4. Research Value-adding Cycle
Enhancing Research Publication Quality 4
Knowledge Creation
Knowledge
Dissemination
Knowledge
Impact

5. Research Types, Audience & Outputs
Research Type Target Audience Research Output Research Impact
1. Academic
Research
Academic peers,
Research students,
Int. academic
knowledge market
-- Papers
--Conf. publications
--Res. Monographs
-- Dissertations
-- Citations
-- Journal
Impact factors
--- Funding
support/ awards
2. Practice-
oriented
Research
Students, MDP
participants,
management
practitioners,
consulting clients
-- Books/ monographs
-- Papers/ articles
-- Reports/ studies
-- Industry
adaptation
-- Intellectual
property
creation
-- Consulting
practice
3. Pedagogical
Development
Trainers, students,
MDP participants,
teachers
-- Management cases
--Business games
-- innovative courses/
programs
-- Academic
adaptation
-- Intellectual
property
creation
Enhancing Research Publication Quality 5

6. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 6
Asian Management Research
“…most of the research effort has simply scratched the surface, largely
limited to simplistic comparisons that provide no insight into
underlying processes. The result is a lack of theory development,
which in turn leads to low levels of contribution to management
research and practice. Questions of similarities and differences –
comparative research using both replications and in-study comparisons
– have clearly been the dominant concern of researchers focused in
Asia. The comparisons, however, are normally benchmarked to US
contexts, and they have been largely limited to understanding the
differences as opposed to examining the processes that give rise to
these differences.”
- White, S. “Skimming the Surface: Rigor and Relevance in Asian
Management Research”, INSEAD Working Paper.

7. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 7
Typical Characteristics of Asian
Management research
• Mostly descriptive, comparative or conceptual
• Weak in rigour

8. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 8
Choosing a Research Topic
Potential research area
Growing/popularresearch
area
Mature
research area

9. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 9
Generating a Research Topic
Analyse
Analogise
Synthesise
Components
Metaphors
New Model

10. Key to Scholarship
Enhancing Research Publication Quality 10
Observe the phenomenon &
think

11. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 11
Scholarship Process
Think
Question
Conceptualise
Read
Observe
Listen
Write
Record
Speak
Feedback
?

12. Research comes from Scholars, but where are they?
Enhancing Research Publication Quality 12
`
Knowledge Acquisition
Knowledge Dissemination
Knowledge Processing
Knowledge Development
Reader
Writer
Processor
Thinker
Scholarship

13. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 13
The Journal Paper
• Also known as the ‘refereed’, ‘learned’, or scholarly paper.
• The refereed journal has evolved as the medium typically
used by researchers to record formally for their peers the
original results of their investigation.
• The refereeing process (before publication) is to confirm
that the results described in the paper deserve archival
recording in terms of originality, significance and
implicitly on the correctness of the results.

14. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 14
Why do you want to publish a
journal paper?
• Getting recognition of scholarship
• Getting publication credit
• Communicate your recent research
• None of these
• All of these

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What is an International Refereed
Journal?
• International editorial board
• International readers
• International authors
• Abstracted by international abstracting services

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Determinants of Journal Quality
• Difficulty of publication
– (Total no. of papers published/ Total no. of papers
submitted) x 100
• Quality of papers published
• Scholarly reputation of authors published
• Quality of readers/subscribers
• Circulation of the journal
• Citations of its papers (Journal Impact Factor)

17. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 17
Journal Impact Factor
• Number of citations of a journal’s material divided
by number of citable material published by that
same journal.
• While impact factors may be useful for the
qualitative evaluation of journals, the usefulness
does not extend to jndividual papers published in a
journal.

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Determinants of Paper Quality
• Quality of Journal publishing the paper
• Paper citations and the quality of the source where
citation occurs
Depends on journal quality

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Assessing the Publication
Turnaround & Reach of a Paper
Acceptance
Possibility
Circulation &
Citation Possibility`

20. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 20
Assessing the Research Market for a
Planned Paper
• Identify what you consider to be the top four or five
journals in your field.
• Scan the table of contents and the abstracts in each issue of
them for at least the last five years, and whenever an
abstract appears relevant to your research interests, read
the entire paper.
• Judge if your envisioned research paper sincerely and
substantially draw on and contribute to the research
already published in the top journals of your field.
• If yes, then an audience for the envisioned paper exists,
and you can target your paper for the readers of that/those
journals.

21. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 21
Related Professional Literature
• Notes or Communications: report potentially important
findings that have not been subjected to the degree of
testing normally associated with journal publication.
• Conference papers describe generally work-in-progress.
• Survey and review papers may be published in an
emerging area of investigation where there is a need for
unifying information. However, the insights and
relationships revealed must be useful to the author’s active
peers, rather than simply to those who have failed to stay
abreast of the literature. Also, development of the material
in the paper must have required original thinking of the
author, not just hard work at the library (or Internet!).

22. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 22
Life History of a Paper
Memo Note
Concept
Paper
Research
Paper
Working
Paper

23. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 23
Judging Contribution of a Paper
to decide its publication worthiness
• Usually subjective (to referee’s opinion) involving a
combination of criteria
• Journals want a paper giving result that is not obvious,
and/or one that requires considerable creativity or
ingenuity of the author.
[Target Unusual topic and/or Unusual approach and/or
Unusual results]
• Paper results may appear to be sound to the referee, but
nonetheless such a trivial and obvious extension to present
knowledge that its publication is not justified!
• Length may be too long!

24. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 24
Potential Attractiveness of a Paper in
a Journal
Surprise Value
(Topic or Result)
Research
Methodology Quality
Quality and Number
of References

25. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 25
Characteristics of a Journal Paper
• Rigour
• Professional ethics: falsification of results, submission
to more than one journal, not attributing an idea to its
originator.
• Efficient reporting of new information
– avoid superfluous information

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Parts of the Journal Paper
• Author(s) names
• Title
– Will be published in separately published indexes.
– Must begin focusing the attention of readers onto the
specific contribution documented.
• Abstract
– Must provide as much information about the
contribution as space allows.
• Introduction
– Should describe fully the author’s contribution and
paper structure

27. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 27
Checklist for ‘Introductions’
• After having read the introduction, will the author’s peers
Understand exactly the nature and extent of the
contribution?
See its relationship to current related knowledge?
Have sufficient background information to appreciate
its significance?
Have some understanding of its implication for the
discipline?
Have a little knowledge of the methodology used?
Know something about the structure and contents of
the rest of the paper?

28. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 28
Checklist for ‘Introductions’(contd.)
• Regardless of the kind of beginning used,
Has a terse summary of the contribution been
provided?
Was it provided as soon as readers could assimilate it?
Was it assumed that readers knew nothing about it
from having read the title and the abstract?
Has the description been confused by the inclusion of
any other kinds of information?
Was the opening that was chosen, appropriate for the
contribution?

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Some Journal Paper Beginnings
• Statement-of-the-Contribution beginning
• Historical beginning
• Statement-of-the-Problem beginning
• Statement-of-Objective beginning

30. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 30
Writing Formal Arguments
• Formal arguments are well-developed arguments that do
not follow specific academic conventions of a particular
discipline.
• They state a clear position and present evidence to support
that position. Informal arguments rely mostly on assertions
whereas formal arguments include specific supporting
evidence.
• Components of a formal argument:
– A clear statement of position
– Introductions
– Evidence of proof
– Conclusions
– Citations

31. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 31
What you think
What readers think
Common ground
Knowing what others
think about the topic,
makes one an authority.

32. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 32
Forms of Proof
• Proof is anything that can be considered proven, is
accepted as fact by your audience, and is
authoratitive.
• Proof should meet the following criteria:
– Comes from a Source your audience will consider
reputable.
– Emerges from well-accepted Research Methods in the
field.
– Replicable either by reading, experimentation, or
conducting the same interviews.
– Based in research using evidence the audience consider
factual.

33. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 33
Purpose of References
• Direct readers to further information about a
subject.
• To build on information that has been established
as correct in the formal literature by other
researchers.
• To describe claimed new results by fitting them
into the framework of previously reported
findings.

34. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 34
Knowledge of the Literature
• New findings cannot be fitted into the fabric of
existing knowledge unless the author “knows the
literature”.
• Most common reason for lack of knowledge of
related work is the emergence of so many new and
often overlapping sub-specialities and so many
new journals to report the results of the work.

35. Enhancing Research Publication Quality 35
How do you track literature?
• Books
– library
– bookshops
– specific publishers’ catalogues/web sites
• Tracking specific journals
• Tracking review/survey publications
• Searching specific publishers’ electronic versions of
journals
• Specific Conference proceedings
• Specific peers’ working papers
– Give names of three peers in your area whose work you are
tracking.
Which journals you
track? How?

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Good luck scholars!

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37
Questions?