The Politics and Practicalities of Publishing in Organization and Management Studies (Publishing in Academic Journals)

Writing and publishing is integral to academic life. This course introduces PhD students to the process of writing an academic article, by supporting their own writing process. This course will not provide you with an idealized process to write an academic article, instead, our main objective is to shed some light on the actual writing process and its several twists and turns.

The course is divided into two parts: workshops and actual writing. The course starts with an intensive three-day workshop, when we will walk through the usual phases of writing, and discuss the writing process as well as its emotional and political labor involved in getting publications that we are proud of accepted in good journals. It will expose the participants to certain conceptual ideas and some practical tools, and exchange and discuss alternative writing practices.

After the workshop, the participants are expected to develop a draft paper. The course creates a supporting environment to focus PhD students on the writing task:

• 15.12: Submission of the abstract, introduction and some structure of the text (feedback of a course responsible)
• 28.02: Final Submission of draft paper for review (2 student peers will review your draft)
• 06.03: Submission of reviews to author

Lectures, group work, individual work, presentations by course participants, final report (paper draft).

Preparation:
- Your publication list
- 1-3 Publication ideas: Tentative title and 5-10 line summary
- Choose an object (e.g. painting, building, sculpture…) that represents a facet of your writing process

The learning objectives for the participants are to:

• Describe the overall academic writing process and its requirements and apply it on your own writing
• Identify the content expectations of the various parts of a journal article
• Learn to articulate own key contributions
• Analyze academic landscape of own research
• Articulate a publication plan
• Constructively provide and respond to peer review feedback
• Learn about other fundamentals of academic publishing, such as types of plagiarism and writing style guides
• Create an informal writing support network for PhD students

The course participants will be assessed based on their class participation and final deliverable (i.e. paper draft). The submission will be evaluated as pass/no pass, and only through internal examiner(s).

The course is based on journal articles about publishing, examples of outstanding journal publications and chapters of books, some of which are listed below. The reading list can be used on a ‘as needed’ basis.

Day 1: Framing

Davis, M. S. (1971). That's interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of the social sciences, 1(2), 309-344.

Huff, A. S. (1999). Writing for scholarly publication. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of management review, 36(2), 247-271.

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Day 2: Structuring

Cuervo-Cazurra, A., Caligiuri, P., Andersson, U. & Brannen, M.Y. (2013). How to write articles that are relevant to practice. Journal of International Business Studies, 44(4), 285-289.

Partington, D., & Jenkins, M. (2009). Deconstructing Scholarship: An Analysis of Research Methods Citations in the Organizational Sciences, 10(3), 399–416.

Patriotta, G. (2017). Crafting Papers for Publication: Novelty and Convention in Academic Writing. Journal of Management Studies, 54(5), 747-759.

Wallace, M. and Wray, A. (2006). Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates. Sage.

Weick, K. E. (1989). Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of management review, 14(4), 516-531.

Whetten, D. A. (1989). What Constitutes a Theoretical Contribution? Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 490–495.

Practical Case Example:

Berg Johansen, C. & De Cock, C. (2018) ‘Ideologies of time: How elite corporate actors engage the future’. Organization,  vol. 25 (2), 186-204. 

De Cock, C., Baker, M., & Volkmann, C. (2011). Financial phantasmagoria: corporate image-work in times of crisis. Organization, 18(2), 153-172.

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Day 3: Reviewing and progressing

Cossette, P. 2004. Research integrity: An exploratory survey of administrative science faculties. Journal of Business Ethics 49: 213–34.

Barczak, G. (2013) Thoughts on Academic Research Misconduct. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30(3), 406.

Clarke, C. and Knights, D. (2015) ‘Careering through academia: Securing identities or engaging ethical subjectivities?’, Human Relations. (online early: 1-24).

Geraldi, J. (2021) Plagiarism in Project Studies. Project Management Journal, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/8756972820982443

Geraldi, J. (2021) Self-Plagiarism in Project Studies: A call for action and reflection. Project Management Journal. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/8756972820982445

Jeanes, E., Loacker, B. and Sliwa, M. (2014) ‘Research collaboration: Learning from experience’, in E. Jeanes and T. Huzzard (eds) Critical Management Research. London: Sage, pp. 41-60.

Parker, M. (2013) ‘Becoming Editor: Or, Pinocchio finally notices the strings’, tripleC. 13(2): 461-474.

Group exercise on case examples of the review process:

It is based on four papers published in ABS/AJG three star journals listed below and their complete review processes including letters to and from the editors and reviewers:

Beyes, T. & De Cock, C. (2017). ‘Adorno’s Grey,Taussig’s Blue: Colour, Organization and Critical Affect’, Organization, vol. 24 (1), 59-78. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350508416668189  ]

De Cock, C., Nyberg, D & Wright, C. (2021) ‘Disrupting climate change futures: Conceptual tools for lost histories’,  OnLine First, Organization, [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1350508419883377 ]

Muhr, S.L., De Cock, C, Twardowska, M. & Volkmann, C. (2019) ‘Constructing an Entrepreneurial Life: Liminality and Emotional Reflexivity in Identity Work’. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. [https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2019.1596348 (Links to an external site.) ]

Nyberg, D. & De Cock, C. (2019). ‘Processes of domination in the contemporary workplace: Managing disputes in the Swedish health care sector’. The Sociological Review. [https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026118825235 (Links to an external site.) ]

Please note that your registration is binding after the registration deadline.
Maximum of 20. Priority is given to PhD students in the field of Organization Studies. The course will be open to external students, but CBS students will have priority. Due to the history of the course emerging at DTU, DTU Management Engineering students will also be prioritized.