Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] Date: 11 January 2016, At: 23:24
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
The Trend Toward Multiple Authorship in Business
Journals
Edgar J. Manton & Donald E. English
To cite this article: Edgar J. Manton & Donald E. English (2007) The Trend Toward Multiple
Authorship in Business Journals, Journal of Education for Business, 82:3, 164-168, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.82.3.164-168
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.82.3.164-168
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 35
View related articles
ABSTRACT. Universities and colleges
of business have experienced evolving
mis-sions and accreditation pressures that have
increased the emphasis on the scholarly
endeavors of the faculty. In this article, the
authors reviewed 6 major representative
business journals for the periods
1970–1972, 1980–1982, 1990–1992, and
2000–2002. During this period, all journals
experienced (a) an increase in the average
number of authors per article, (b) a dramatic
decrease in the percentage of articles
authored by a single author, and (c) a
signif-icant increase in the percentage of 2 or 3
coauthored articles.
Key words:authors per article, coauthors,
gift authorships, multiple authors
Copyright © 2007 Heldref Publications
The Trend Toward Multiple Authorship in
Business Journals
EDGAR J. MANTON DONALD E. ENGLISH
TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY–COMMERCE COMMERCE, TEXAS
review of the articles in six broadly representative business periodicals revealed that a large major-ity of articles are coauthored. Table 1 shows that more than 70% of the arti-cles published in six business journals between 2000 and 2002 are coau-thored. Has this always been the case, or has there been a trend toward increasing multiple authorship in busi-ness journals during recent years? Aca-demic careers, promotions, and granti-ng of tenure in the university are directly linked to the record of pub-lished articles in scholarly journals or periodicals (Garfield, 1995). What impact has the aforementioned factors had on faculty collaboration in seeking to publish refereed journal articles?
Research Objective
Our purpose in this study was to ana-lyze six representative business journals to determine whether there has been a trend in increased multiple authorship by comparing the average number of authors per article and the percentages of coauthorship during the periods 1970–1972, 1980–1982, 1990–1992, and 2000–2002, a period in which uni-versities and the faculties of colleges of business were under increased pressure to produce more research. The research question for the study was: As business discipline knowledge has grown and as accrediting bodies and universities have
increasingly emphasized research in faculty performance, has there been a growing trend toward coauthorship in business journal articles?
Literature Review
Universities and colleges of business have experienced evolving missions that have increased the emphasis on the scholarly endeavors of the faculty. Pub-lication records of the faculty serve as an indicator of academic performance and scholarly productivity (Endersby, 1996). Because of the standards of accredita-tion set by the accreditaaccredita-tion organiza-tions (e.g., the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools [SACS] and the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business Interna-tional [AACSB]), institutions have placed more pressure on business
facul-A
TABLE 1. Coauthored Articles (2000–2002), in Percentages
Journal %
Academy of Management
Journal 78.6
The Accounting Review 73.2
Administrative Science
Quarterly 74.2
The Journal of Finance 76.0
Journal of Marketing 78.4
Management Science 81.6
ty to publish and participate in other scholarly activities (Pettijohn, Udell, & Parker, 1991). At most business schools today, promotion, tenure, and merit-increases are increasingly based on per-formance in research (Sohail, 2006).
Given the importance of research and other scholarly work in the evaluation of business faculty performance, what impact has this had on the numbers of single versus multiauthored articles published in refereed journals? Hart (2000) reported that “during the past several decades the publication of scholarly articles has increasingly become a collaborative effort of two or more authors pooling their resources and talents, rather than that of a single author working alone” (p. 339).
With the AACSB’s strong emphasis on scholarly contributions by the facul-ty, one would expect that there would be increasing trends in multiple authorship in business journals. Petry and Kerr (1981) studied 15 business journals and found that the average number of authors had increased from 1.57 to 1.77 between 1973 and 1977.
Fields and Swayne (1988) found that the percentage of two-authored articles increased from 15% to 44% in the Jour-nal of Consumer Research,theJournal of Marketing, and theJournal of Mar-keting Research between 1960–1964 and 1985–1986. They also found that the percentage of three or more authors per article rose from 2% to 21% in the same periods. According to Floyd, Schroeder, and Finn (1994), the proportion of multi-authored articles in the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and Administra-tive Science Quarterly increased from 18.3% in the 1960s to 47.7% in the 1970s, and 60.1% in the 1980s.
Hudson (1996) studied the trend in multiauthored articles in the field of economics and reported that several decades ago, the overwhelming major-ity of articles appearing in leading journals of economics had a single author. In 1950, for example, only 6% of the articles published in the Journal of Political Economy, and just 8% of the articles published in The American Economic Review, were written by more than one author. These figures have changed dramatically. According
to Hudson, by 1993 the proportion of multi-authored papers in these two journals had risen to 39.6% and 54.9%, respectively.
Although we found several discipline related studies that considered the growth in collaboration in authoring business journal articles, we did not find studies that systematically and over a long period of time studied the growth in coauthorship in broadly representa-tive business journals. This study was intended to plug this gap.
METHOD
For this study, we chose six business journals that are representative of the major business disciplines. They were the Accounting Review, the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Marketing, and Management Science. These were cho-sen because they reprecho-sented the lead-ing journals in their respective disci-plines and they had been in publication prior to 1970.
The articles contained in the six journals were reviewed for four 3-year periods (1970–1972, 1980–1982, 1990–1992, and 2000–2002) to deter-mine the trends in (a) the mean num-ber of authors per article and (b) the percentages of coauthorship at the decade junctures.
A graduate assistant reviewed each issue, and one of us verified the review. The number of authors for each article was recorded on a form designed for cal-culation of statistics by Microsoft Excel. Only research articles were considered. We eliminated items like editorials, essays, comments, replies, and notes.
First, the mean number of authors per article for each journal for each of the four 3-year periods was computed. We used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test for the statistical significance differ-ence among the means for the four 3-year periods. The samples were the average number of authors for the six journals for each of the four 3-year periods.
We classified the journal articles by the number of authors (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more authors) for each 3-year period, and then we calculated the per-centages of single-authored articles and 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more coauthored arti-cles. To compare the category count fre-quencies for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more authors in the four 3-year periods and to test the significance of the data, we employed the chi-square test. In this study, we tested the relationship of the percentages of coauthors against the four 3-year periods advancing in time.
RESULTS
Table 2 shows the mean number of authors per article for each of the four 3-year periods reviewed, which is a clear indication of the trends observed in mul-tiple authorship. It is evident that for all of the journals analyzed, there has been a growth in the average number of authors per article through the years. For exam-ple, the Academy of Management Jour-nalrose from a mean of 1.48 authors per article in 1970–1972 to 2.28 in 2000–2002. All of the journals reviewed showed an increase in the mean number of authors per article published between 1970–1972 and 2000–2002. ANOVA results revealed high statistical signifi-cance for differences among the means of the four 3-year periods.
TABLE 2. Mean Number of Authors per Journal Article
Journal 1970–72 1980–82 1990–92 2000–02
Academy of Management Journal 1.48 1.95 2.09 2.28
The Accounting Review 1.34 1.51 1.82 2.12
Administrative Science Quarterly 1.53 1.78 1.86 2.14
The Journal of Finance 1.37 1.60 1.82 2.13
Journal of Marketing 1.48 1.81 1.74 2.22
Management Science 1.45 1.81 1.96 2.24
Note. p< .00001.
It is interesting that until 1980–1982, none of the journals averaged two authors per article. During 1990–1992, one journal—the Academy of Manage-ment Journal—exceeded this average. However, by 2000–2002, all of the jour-nals reviewed had exceeded an average of two authors per article.
Only one journal experienced a decline in the average number of authors per article between two consec-utive 3-year periods. The Journal of Marketing went from 1.81 authors per article from 1980 to 1982 to 1.74 for 1990 to 1992. However, this journal’s average subsequently rose to 2.22 authors per article by 2000–2002.
The primary statistical analysis used in this study was the chi-square test, comparing the counts for the articles in
each journal having 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more authors for the four 3-year periods investigated (see Table 3). Chi-square test results revealed a statistically sig-nificant difference among the time peri-ods for the percentage of coauthors per article for all six journals for the four 3-year periods. This implies that, during the period reviewed, there was signifi-cant growth in multiple authorship per article for those journals.
During 1970–1972, at least 60% of the articles for all journals reviewed had a single author. By 2000–2002, the per-centage of single-authored journal arti-cles for the six journals had declined to the range from 18.4% (Management Science) to 26.8% (The Accounting Review). In the period 2000–2002, over 40% of the articles published in five of
the six journals were authored by two authors. The exception was the Journal of Marketing, with 39.8% of its articles coauthored by two authors.
Articles with two coauthors became the most frequent coauthorship arrange-ment for four of the journals by 1980–1982 (e.g., the Academy of Man-agement Journal, Administrative Sci-ence Quarterly, theJournal of Market-ing, and Management Science). Those journals were joined by the Journal of Finance in 1990–1992 and by The Accounting Review in 2000–2002. By 2002, articles with two authors were the most frequent arrangement for all six journals.
The dramatic increase in percentage of coauthors occurred in the three-coau-thor classification. During the period
TABLE 3. Percentages of Coauthored Articles in Leading Business Journals (1970–1972 to 2000–2002)
Journal Author per article 1970–72 1980–82 1990–92 2000–02 p
Academy of Management Journal 1 63.5 32.3 22.2 21.4
2 28.2 46.6 55.6 41.9
3 5.9 16.5 16.1 27.0
4 1.2 3.8 4.9 7.9
5 or more 1.2 0.8 1.2 1.8
< .00001
The Accounting Review 1 71.5 55.6 43.6 26.8
2 23.8 37.6 40.3 41.2
3 4.0 6.8 12.1 24.7
4 0.7 0.0 2.4 7.2
5 or more 0.0 0.0 1.6 0.0
< .00001
Administrative Science Quarterly 1 60.0 35.9 35.7 25.8
2 28.3 51.1 47.1 42.4
3 10.8 11.9 12.9 25.7
4 0.0 1.1 4.3 4.6
5 or more 0.8 0.0 0.0 1.5
< .0016
The Journal of Finance 1 63.1 46.8 33.9 24.0
2 36.9 46.0 54.7 43.3
3 0.0 7.2 10.4 29.3
4 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.3
5 or more 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
< .00001
Journal of Marketing 1 60.5 33.6 26.0 21.6
2 31.3 49.6 74.0 39.8
3 8.2 16.1 0.0 34.1
4 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.5
5 or more 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.0
< .00001
Management Science 1 66.3 39.4 35.2 18.4
2 24.9 43.2 39.9 48.9
3 7.1 14.5 19.3 25.1
4 1.4 2.5 5.3 6.3
5 or more 0.2 0.3 0.3 1.2
< .00001
reviewed, the percentage of articles with three coauthors increased from single digits in all but one case during 1970–1972 (Administrative Science Quarterly, 10.8%) to more than 25% by 2000–2002. Only the Accounting Review had slightly less than 25% of articles having three authors (24.7%). TheJournal of Financewent from zero 3-authored articles to 29.3% during the period considered. By 2000–2002, four of the six journals—the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Finance, theJournal of Marketing,and Management Science—had higher per-centages of three-coauthored articles than of articles with a single author. For the remaining two journals, the Accounting Review and Administrative Science Quarterly, the percentages of single and 3-authored articles were very close (26.8% vs. 24.7%, and 25.8% vs. 25.7%, respectively).
DISCUSSION
These results clearly indicate that a dramatic increase in the level of coau-thorship in the six refereed business jour-nal articles occurred from 1970–1972 to 2000–2002. The average number of authors per article and the percentages of coauthored business articles for the six journals reviewed grew significantly during the period studied. This time-frame was marked by an increased emphasis for business faculty to conduct research and to engage in other scholar-ly endeavors. The increased level of coauthorships appears to be a direct result of this pressure.
Reasons for Coauthorship
What are the reasons behind a rising trend in multiple authorship? First, with the rapid growth of information within a discipline, it is more difficult for indi-viduals to have complete knowledge of a discipline. Individuals engaged in research have increasingly specialized in more narrowly defined areas. Adding a researcher who complements one’s knowledge within a discipline would enhance a study and hopefully improve its quality (Schroeder, Langreh, & Floyd, 1995; Zook, 1987). Another rea-son is the movement toward introducing interdisciplinary studies—(i.e., research
that crosses business and other disci-plines, which requires multiple expertise to analyze properly; Floyd et al., 1994). Still another possibility is the need for the support of sophisticated use of math models, statistics, computer hard-ware support, or specialized computer software to analyze the data of a study (Zook, 1987). Many times individuals with the expertise in a discipline lack knowledge in the statistics or computer applications required to perform sophis-ticated analyses. Inviting persons with these skills to serve as coauthors is a common occurrence among researchers. A person with expertise in designing and documenting research results or with knowledge of publication source possibilities may also be invited to be a coauthor (Schroeder et al., 1995).
Guest or Gift Authorships
The reasons for multiple authorship discussed in the previous section would generally be beneficial and should result in higher quality research endeavors. However, an additional possibility for increasing levels of multiple authorship must be considered. With the AACSB-driven increased emphasis on writing and research for achieving tenure, pro-motion, or merit pay increases in col-leges of business, there may be a trend toward gratuitously listing as coauthors the faculty members who have con-tributed little or nothing to research efforts. Some would argue that research has become a more important factor in faculty evaluation than has teaching (Weis, 1990). Even small state universi-ties have not been exempt from this emphasis on research and scholarly endeavors as they attempt to achieve national business accreditation.
Authors identified on a journal article should have contributed significantly to the work. They should have participated extensively in one or more of the follow-ing: project concept, design, execution, data gathering, data analysis, study find-ings and interpretation, and preparation and revision of the manuscript. Author credits should not be given for perform-ing minor tasks, such as editperform-ing, proof-reading, and typing. Minor support can be cited by a footnote (Endersby, 1996).
One major question, which needs to be addressed by colleges of business, is
“To what extent do guest or gift author-ships exist in business disciplines?” One article reviewed in the literature broached the issue of friendship in rela-tion to coauthorship in business journals and how it related to productivity. It was indicated by the study respondents that friends may not be pushed too hard to perform certain activities previously agreed on, but they felt strongly that even friends should abide by earlier agreements for the project workload (Schroeder et al., 1995). Also in this study, unequal contribution was sug-gested as being a problem by 13% of the respondents, and 15% indicated that a coauthor who had a “free ride” was also a problem. Another article reported one third of the respondents indicating prob-lems of unequal contribution and went on to indicate that this problem may be due to different priorities or work pace or timeframe between authors (Holder, Langreh, & Schroeder, 2000).
The issue of coauthorship and recog-nition of contribution has been a recent concern in the field of medicine. There has been an increase in the level of coauthored articles in scientific journals in conjunction with increased pressure to publish. This has caused various unethical authorship practices and abuse of coauthorship in medicine (Bennett & Taylor, 2003).
Medical researchers have investigat-ed what is referrinvestigat-ed to as guest,gift, or honoraryauthorship—the naming of an author who does not meet authorship criteria. In their study of 577 authors, Mowatt et al. (2002) reported that their survey indicated 39% of the respon-dents had evidence of honorary or gift authors. Bennett and Taylor’s (2003) results indicated that one third of the respondents would willingly list an undeserving author on an article to increase the chance for publication and for benefiting their research career.
The International Committee of Med-ical Journal Editors has developed crite-ria to identify coauthors on medical journals. According to this committee, the following criteria must be met for persons to qualify for authorship (Ben-nett & Taylor, 2003): (a) substantial contribution to the conception and design of a study, to the acquisition of data, or to the interpretation of data; (b)
drafting the study manuscript or criti-cally revising it for important intellectu-al content; and (c) giving finintellectu-al approvintellectu-al of the version to be published.
In spite of the existence of the criteria for authorship, Flanagin et al. (1998) showed evidence of guest or gift author-ships in possibly as many as 26% of arti-cles published in six peer-reviewed med-ical journals. In their study, Mowatt et al. (2002) showed evidence of 39% of the publications having honorary authors.
Business journals have no universal criteria for identifying or listing the order of authors. There is no general definition of what is expected to identi-fy an author and, for the most part, it is left to the authors to identify the coau-thors and to list the order of their inclu-sion. It would appear that the medical journal criteria could appropriately be applied to business journals.
With the rapid increase in coauthored work in business journal articles, a question that needs to be asked by col-leges of business is, “To what extent do guest or gift authorships exist in busi-ness journal publications?”
Conclusions
We reviewed six business journals in the periods 1970–1972, 1980–1982, 1990–1992, and 2000–2002 to compare (a) the average number of authors per article and (b) the percentages of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more coauthorships per article for each of the four 3-year periods. Dur-ing this period, the average number of authors per article for all journals grew from an average of about one and one half to more than two coauthors per arti-cle. All journals experienced a dramatic decline in the percentage of articles authored by a single author and signifi-cant increases in the percentages of two and three coauthored articles between 1970–1972 and 2000–2002.
The main test of the data involved grouping authors per article into cate-gories of counts for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 or more authors per article and conducting a chi-square test. Very high statistically sig-nificant differences were found for all of the journals over the 30-year period. Sin-gle-authored articles represented more than 60% of the articles in 1970–1972 for
all journals. By 2000–2002, two-authored articles had increased to a range from 39.8% for the Journal of Marketing to 48.9% for Management Science, whereas three-authored articles for the six business journals ranged from 24.7% for the Accounting Reviewto 34.1% for the Journal of Marketing.
Clearly, there has been a significant increase in author collaboration in the journals reviewed during the 30 years. We suggested four factors that may have contributed to this trend: (a) the need to enhance discipline knowledge on a pro-ject, (b) the need for increased multidis-ciplinary efforts, (c) the need for increased computer, mathematics, and statistical support, and (d) the need for expertise in the research and publication processes.
One of our recommendations is to broaden the study by considering addi-tional business journals for the trend in author collaboration. Also, expanding the timeframe for the review to 1960–1962 would probably add further clarification to the trend because this was the time period that marked the beginning of a strong push for colleges of business to seek accreditation.
Recommendation
Guest and gift authorships have been found to be extensive in the field of med-icine (Flanagin et al., 1998). Criteria have been developed by the medical pro-fession to properly identify authors who have made significant contributions to a scholarly work. If the level of unde-served authorship positions on business research articles is significant, then aca-demic administrators must become aware of the issue and determine how to address it. Such a condition could have significant implications for faculty morale and fairness in the faculty perfor-mance reward system. It is recommend-ed that the extent of undeservrecommend-ed coau-thorship positions in business journals be studied to determine whether this rep-resents a significant problem in business publications. If it does, then standards should be developed to appropriately identify authorship on academic jour-nals. The AASCB in conjunction with the editors of leading business journals
can provide a proper forum to develop such standards.
NOTE
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Donald E. English, Business Administration and MIS Department, Texas A&M University at Commerce, 2600 South Neal St., Commerce, TX 75429.
E–mail: donald_english@tamu-commerce.edu
REFERENCES
Bennett, D. M., & Taylor, D. McD. (2003). Unethical practices in authorship of scientific papers. Emergency Medicine, 15, 263–270. Endersby, J. W. (1996). Collaborative research in
the social sciences: Multiple authorships and publication credit. Social Sciences Quarterly,
77, 375–392.
Fields, M. D., & Swayne, L. E. (1988). Publica-tion in major marketing journals: 1960–1986.
Journal of Marketing Education,10, 36–48. Flanagin, A., Carey, L. A., Fontanarosa, P. B.,
Phillips, S. G., Pace B. P., Lundenberg, G. D., et al. (1998). Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals. Journal of the American Med-ical Association, 280, 222–224.
Floyd, S. W., Schroeder, D. M., & Finn, D. M. (1994). Only if I’m first author: Conflict over credit in management scholarship. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 734–749.
Garfield, E. (1995). Giving credit only where it is due: The problem of defining authorship. The Scientist, 9(19), 13.
Hart, R. (2000). Coauthorship in academic library literature: A survey of attitude and behaviors.
Journal of Academic Librarianship, 26, 339–346. Holder, M. E., Langreh, F. M., & Schroeder, D. M. (2000). Finance journal coauthorship: How do co-authors in very select journals evaluate the experience? Financial Practice and Education,
10(1), 142–153.
Hudson, J. (1996). Trends in multi-authored papers in economics. Journal of Economic Per-spectives, 10(3), 153–158.
Mowatt, G., Shirran, L., Grimshaw, J. M., Rennie, D., Flanagin, A., Yank, et al. (2002). Prevalence of honorary and ghost authorship in Cochrane reviews. Journal of The American Medical Association, 287, 2769–2771.
Petry, G., & Kerr, H. (1981). The rising incidence of coauthorship as a function of institutional reward systems. Journal of Financial Educa-tion, 10, 78–84.
Pettijohn, J. B., Udell, G., & Parker, U. (1991). The quest for AACSB accreditation: Must finance faculty really publish or perish? Finan-cial Practice and Education, 1(1), 52–55. Schroeder, D. M., Langreh, F. W., & Floyd, S. M.
(1995). Marketing journal coauthorship: Is it a hit or a miss with co-authors? Journal of Mar-keting Education, 17, 45–58.
Sohail, S. (2006). Gift authorship practices: Histo-ry, trends, and remedies. Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan, 16(1), 1–2. Weis, W. L. (1990). What’s going on in business schools? Management Accounting, 71(11), 49–52.
Zook, A. (1987). Trend toward multiple author-ship: Update and extension. Journal of Coun-seling Psychology, 34,77–79.
