ABDC Journal Quality List and the Indian Business Academia: Towards Resolving Some Misconceptions

The Indian Business Academia have begun to religiously follow ABDC Journal Quality List for the following:

• Recruitment of new faculty
• Promotion of existing faculty
• Promote research culture (equating ‘research’ with ‘publication in ABDC List’)

The ABDC List categorizes journals into 4 categories – A*, A, B, C. The order of alphabets signify the prestige (or the so called 'rigor'). I respect the intention of ABDC Journal Quality List. This is created by Australian and New Zealand business academicians for the benefit of their countries.

Is this list appropriate for emerging markets like India? Is Indian Business Academia going in the right direction by adopting the ABDC Journal Quality List? Given that the revised list would appear in December 2019, this is a relevant question.

Before giving out the answer (if there is one), let me dig deeper into various dimensions of this journal quality list. Note: The content below, in quotes, is shamelessly copied from the website resources of ABDC (https://abdc.edu.au). This is done to capture their voice in its purest form.

History

"In 2007, the Australian Business Deans Council determined that it would establish a Journal Quality List for the use of its members. While the Council accepted that it was impossible to establish a journal list that would meet with the full agreement of all interested parties given the diversity of subjective opinion that surrounds academic journal quality, the Council nonetheless recognized that there were benefits from establishing a journal list. There was a growing proliferation of journal lists internationally and various Council members were using different lists for internal purposes. A review of international journal lists was undertaken and it was agreed that an Australian Business Deans list was required as there were shortcomings in the available international lists. These shortcomings included regional biases, insufficient coverage of Australian journals, too heavy an emphasis on some criteria that worked against specific disciplines, and lack of consensus of a definitive list. The development of the initial ABDC Journal Quality List was undertaken by a disciplinary representative working group under the leadership of the ABDC subgroup of Associate Deans of Research. The subsequent list was ratified by the Council and published in early 2008."

Mission of this journal list

"The Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) is the authoritative and collective voice of pro vice-chancellors, executive deans and heads of all 40 university business faculties and schools in Australia. Our mission is to advance and promote excellence in business education and research through engagement across Australian universities, industry, the government and the community.

As their peak body, ABDC’s role is to ensure that those with political, social, cultural and economic influence appreciate and support how business education contributes to Australia’s future. As the peak body, ABDC fosters the national and global impact of Australian business education and research.

The main purpose of the ABDC journal list is to serve the interests and needs of ABDC members and the business-related academic community located in ANZ (which won’t necessarily coincide with the considerations relevant in other country settings).

We do however encourage letters of support (included in submissions) from eminent scholars worldwide. However being mindful of minimising panel workloads and the over-riding ANZ focus, we require that submissions emanate from within the ANZ academic environment. We recommend that the primary submitter be independent of the journal to avoid any conflict of interest impacting on a journal submission. However if you are a publisher or editor from outside ANZ and you notice that the details of a listed journal need to be corrected please complete a change factual details form."

Criteria for inclusion of journals

"To date, the discipline expert reviewers, who review the ABDC Journal Quality List and review eligible submissions to add a journal, have been given latitude to exercise their judgement. Criteria considered regarding listing of journals have included:

• Have a ‘substantive business element’ evidenced by >50% of articles over three years written by a business faculty; or >50 per cent of articles over three years being of a business nature.
• Relative standing of the journal to comparable journals listed in the specific discipline; relying mainly on citation metrics and other reputable journal quality lists including recognised disciplinary lists.
• International standing of the editorial board
• Quality of peer-review processes
• Track record of publishing influential papers
• Sustained reputation
• Influence of publications in the journal in relation to hiring, tenure and promotion decisions.

If the journal does not appear on the online ABDC Journal Quality List, then it is not listed and will not have a ranking. Review panels generally omit journals based on one or more of the following broad criteria:

• No submission received from the academic community within Australian or New Zealand universities
• Failure to reach a minimum threshold of quality
• Failure to meet the ‘substantive business element test’
• Insufficient English language content
• Deemed to be a ‘predatory’ open access journal

The ABDC has defined its domain explicitly linked to ‘core’ research activity deemed sufficiently relevant to business schools located in ANZ, in terms of the seven primary FoR (Fields of Research) panels. FoRs outside this relevant domain are for others outside the ABDC to decide whether they wish to invest the significant relevant resources to perform a similar exercise for whatever constituency they believe needs to be represented.

To be eligible, the submission must have been made through one of the official online forms and have emanated from one of the following Australia or New Zealand (ANZ) stakeholder groups:

1.  A business school or faculty located in ANZ, or from a non-business school or faculty located in ANZ deemed to have a legitimate interest in the FoR codes covered by the ABDC list; or
2. A relevant peak body representing ANZ academics (where such a body is primarily located in ANZ); or
3. An individual academic with formal affiliation to a university based in ANZ (NB: must have a relevant minimum of 0.5 FTE position).

The basic logic for such eligibility criteria is that the core purpose of the list to serve relevant academic “needs” within the Australian and New Zealand setting (which won’t necessarily coincide with considerations relevant in other country settings) and recognition of the critical need to keep the workload of each panel reasonable and manageable. All other submissions are ineligible."

Real stories of journal addition/deletion

Recently, the journal History of Political Economy was downgraded from A to C category! (This Journal is under A Category in the 2019 List) Objection was raised by the international academic community. Following was ABDC's response:

"One submission suggested that the History of Political Economy be downgraded from A to C. The panel checked the citation data on this journal and found that this downgrade would not be justified. However, a downgrade from A to B would be justified."

The curious case of Actuarial Science

In several ANZ business schools, actuarial science is taught and researched. No wonder that a good journal (Annals of Actuarial Science) in this topic is figured in the ABDC Journal Quality List. Here is the take of the editor of Annals of Actuarial Science (taken from the respective journal issue):

"Those of you who read this journal online may have noticed a recent statement on the journal’s webpage, that the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) has ranked Annals of Actuarial Science (AAS) as A. If you are unfamiliar with journal rankings, you might ask a variety of questions:

• Who are the ABDC?
• Why do they care about actuarial journals?
• What does a ranking of A actually mean?
• Is this a good outcome for AAS?

Returning to my list of questions, the ABDC ranked journals in all business disciplines – actuarial studies is mostly taught in faculties of business and economics in Australia. The stated aim of their ranking is 'to overcome the regional and discipline bias of international lists'. 

For me, it is not the job of a body like the ABDC to determine the success or failure of a journal. It is the job of editors and referees to ensure that AAS continues to publish papers of quality that are of interest and relevance to its readership. Whether journal rankings matter depends on your perspective. I suspect that they don’t matter to the vast majority of readers of AAS, and I view that as a good thing."

Conclusion

• Now, do you understand why several premier journals (Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Resources Conservation & Recycling, etc.) do not figure in the ABDC List?
• Now, do you understand why journals on Hospitality, Tourism, Wine, Sports, etc. figure in ABDC, while journals on Waste Management/Recycling do not figure in the list?
• After reading all these, what do you feel? Should we follow the ABDC Journal Quality List? Is this a right question to ask? If yes, what could be some alternatives?
• But, do we have the spine to seek alternatives? We seem to be a country trapped by our colonial past. We have a tendency to look up to others and look down upon ourselves.

EDIT (Dec 7, 2019): Yesterday, ABDC released the 2019 List. Journal of Cleaner Production is included in A Category with the following comment: "Meets quality threshold for inclusion at A ranking". Several journal are included and several excluded. I am not getting to the nitty gritties. However, the overarching mission remains the same. The 2019 report says:

• ABDC’s mission is to make Australian business schools better, and to foster the national and global impact of Australian business education and research.
• Journal lists should be a starting point only for assessing publication quality and should not constrain researchers to a particular domain. In the end, there is no substitute for assessing individual articles on a case-by-case basis.

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