A paper written by Olga Ryazanova and Peter Mc Namara of Maynooth University and Herman Aguinis of George Washington University has been selected from 7000 research papers as one of five finalists of the Dexter Best International Paper Award.
This paper challenges the perception of the public and much of academia that only a group of 100 to 200 elite Business Schools can be considered research active in organisational sciences, while the research contributions of thousands of other institutions worldwide are negligible. The research by Dr Ryazanova and her co-authors demonstrates that there a thousands of schools publishing high quality research, including all eight universities on the Island of Ireland. This is good news for hundreds of thousands of students that graduate from non-elite Business Schools every year, for taxpayers, and for those who work in these institutions.
A team of researchers led by Dr Olga Ryazanova at Maynooth University School of Business (including Peter Mc Namara of Maynooth and Herman Aguinis of George Washington Univeristy), has found that over 2720 business schools on all five continents are actively publishing research in the top 160 business, management, finance and public administration journals. They have created a database that enables readers to establish the volume and quality of research published in these 2720 institutions overtime. This enables schools to see how they are doing over time and in comparison to other institutions. The faculty of thousands of non-elite school worldwide can now prove to a wider world that that they publish high quality research, that is then embedded in their teaching of business subjects.
The contribution of this work has been recognised by the Academy of Management, an organisation with over 20,000 worldwide members, being honoured as one of five finalist of the prestigious Carolyn Dexter Best International Paper Award of the Academy of Management in 2016. The Carolyn Dexter Award is given to the paper that best meets the objective of internationalizing the Academy of Management.
Paper title: A Comprehensive and Multi-Purpose Global Research Performance Information System
Authors: Olga Ryazanova (Maynooth University), Peter Mc Namara (Maynooth University), and Herman Aguinis (George Washington University).
Paper abstract: We offer the research performance database, which is a research performance information system that will empower the majority of business education institutions worldwide. We seek to change the narrative in measuring research performance by stepping away from traditional ranking-based ordinal scales and creating a system that allows assessing the research performance of business schools reliably, validly, transparently, and in a manner that can be verified independently by others. The database includes 2,720 institutions worldwide and is based on publications in 160 top business, management, finance, and public administration journals. By offering an inclusive and global approach to the measurement of research performance, we make a contribution that is relevant for business school stakeholders including researchers and aspiring researchers, alumni, current and prospective students, administrators, policymakers, government agencies, and donors. The availability of this research performance database also has implications for theory and future research on sociology of science, internationalization of business education, networking, careers, and mobility.
Another recent study by Dr Olga Ryazanova and Peter Mc Namara of Maynooth University is forthcoming this year in the Academy of Management Learning & Education journal.