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The value of research activities “other than” publishing articles: reflections on an experimental workshop series

Yasmine Chahed (Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK)
Robert Charnock (Metis Institute for Climate Strategy, Singapore, Singapore) (Department of Accounting, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK)
Sabina Du Rietz Dahlström (School of Business, Orebro Universitet, Orebro, Sweden)
Niels Joseph Lennon (Aalborg University Business School, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark)
Tommaso Palermo (Department of Accounting, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK)
Cristiana Parisi (Department of Accounting, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark)
Dane Pflueger (Department of Accounting and Management Control, HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas, France)
Andreas Sundström (Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden)
Dorothy Toh (UCL School of Management, London, UK) (King’s Business School, King's College London, London, UK)
Lichen Yu (The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia)

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 22 March 2024

380

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this essay is to explore the opportunities and challenges that early-career researchers (ECRs) face when they seek to contribute to academic knowledge production through research activities “other than” those directly focused on making progress with their own, to-be-published, research papers in a context associated with the “publish or perish” (PoP) mentality.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing broadly on the notion of technologies of humility (Jasanoff, 2003), this reflective essay develops upon the experiences of the authors in organizing and participating in a series of nine workshops undertaken between June 2013 and April 2021, as well as the arduous process of writing this paper itself. Retrospective accounts, workshop materials, email exchanges and surveys of workshop participants provide the key data sources for the analysis presented in the paper.

Findings

The paper shows how the organization of the workshops is intertwined with the building of a small community of ECRs and exploration of how to address the perceived limitations of a “gap-spotting” approach to developing research ideas and questions. The analysis foregrounds how the workshops provide a seemingly valuable research experience that is not without contradictions. Workshop participation reveals tensions between engagement in activities “other than” working on papers for publication and institutionalized pressures to produce publication outputs, between the (weak) perceived status of ECRs in the field and the aspiration to make a scholarly contribution, and between the desire to develop a personally satisfying intellectual journey and the pressure to respond to requirements that allow access to a wider community of scholars.

Originality/value

Our analysis contributes to debates about the ways in which seemingly valuable outputs are produced in academia despite a pervasive “publish or perish” mentality. The analysis also shows how reflexive writing can help to better understand the opportunities and challenges of pursuing activities that might be considered “unproductive” because they are not directly related to to-be-published papers.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the constructive feedback on drafts of this paper provided by Thomas Ahrens, Keith Robson, David Cooper, Chris Chapman, Hiroyuki Suzuki, Yves Gendron and attendees at the 2021 Interdisciplinary Perspectives Accounting (IPA) Conference, the Webinar on the Future of Interdisciplinary Accounting Research held on September 3–4, 2020, and participants attending the brown bag research day at the Discipline of Accounting at the University of Sydney Business School in November 2019.

Citation

Chahed, Y., Charnock, R., Du Rietz Dahlström, S., Lennon, N.J., Palermo, T., Parisi, C., Pflueger, D., Sundström, A., Toh, D. and Yu, L. (2024), "The value of research activities “other than” publishing articles: reflections on an experimental workshop series", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2022-5818

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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