Journals and social media, some YouTube as well #mtw3 #twinity
Things are moving with Management Theory at Work #mtw3 , an online stage for a third conference ( see previous posts). The starting point is an update by John Burgoyne on a keynote from the first one. He varies this a bit but I think the basis is going back to ideas around the learning organisation updated for current technology. Still optimistic some of the time.
The blog at
has been updated to link to a YouTube clip of the sound from a similar lecture at Suffolk University Campus. With slides as well. By the way, I completely agree with Linda Shelton's concerns about Twinity. Any conference intended for the Work Foundation will benefit from a walk in the Twinity London to connect with other locations and discussions. Not so easy without the mapping information. I know another avatar - source.dubious10 - with a flat near Fleet Street, but really it is the street that makes the Twinity experience.
Listening to the full John Burgoyne sound you get the asides around the questions that you might not get in an edited extract. He mentions a talk in Lancaster by Hugh Wilmott that considered the downside of current journal publishing. I think I have found the relevant page on the Lancaster site and an online version of the paper, referencing another from Cardiff.
I have tried to read the papers in full but I have just skipped through enough to comment. Could there be a blog version in something like a thousand words or so? The issues with journals will remain much the same if only discussed in the format of a journal publication. Just my thought about it. I do agree about Checkland and soft systems being worth a look as Operations Research. But also I think quality ideas are worth more consideration than the HR scene has afforded since "Making Quality Critical", a very biased and destructive book in my opinion.
Anyway this #mtw3 thread is moving and the journals publishing situation is becoming part of it. There is a practitioner conversation which is more or less on another planet.
Peter Wells writes about "sustainability" as represented on the journal rankings from the Association of Business Schools. He concludes-
Of particular personal concern, within the context of BRASS, is the
inability of the ABS list to find room for sustainability as a theme. This is part of a
wider problem, and one that will become worse with time as the ABS list becomes
enshrined as mandatory rather than as a guide. That problem is the systematic
exclusion of some areas of work, some journals, and all other types of output as being
beyond the scope of the discipline. The result will surely be the atrophy of the
discipline and a decline into irrelevance, a retreat in to the ivory towers and a reduced
social justification for academic work at a time when public budgets are under
increasing scrutiny. We have built a monster, and it will now devour us.
I also notice that quality is not an obvious heading. It must be in there somehow. The word crops up as the apparent rationale.
There will be a meeting in March about an ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide. So I wonder how the quality is decided. Is it part of a process around being discovered or understood? Is the intended audience just academics?
Meanwhile David Weinberger has a new book out. There is a video online which explains what it is about. There is an explicit Creative Commons licence. So this will reach a wide audience. I think video should be part of the assessment.