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The purpose of this paper is, first, to provide a brief account of the PhD by published work focusing especially on quality assurance issues such as eligibility of candidates, the nature of the submission itself, supervision and assessment procedures. Second, it seeks to offer a discussion of the criteria to be met by candidates in writing a critical appraisal as a central feature of the submission.

The approach taken is that of an analytical, conceptual and discursive essay.

There is still a lack of commonality in higher education about the nature of the PhD by published work. One way of gaining greater commonality would be to strengthen the use of the critical appraisal as an academic text which also should be required to meet the admittedly problematical standards of publishability.

The paper's main limitation is that many of its ideas and much of its information are derived from sources within the UK's higher education sector. Nevertheless the issues raised should have relevance to practice in other systems.

A case is made for the usefulness of the PhD by published work as an important route for achieving doctorateness especially when the critical appraisal is given greater priority and supervisory support.

Papers discussing the use and value of the PhD by published work are still relatively rare in academic journals. The emphasis on the critical appraisal in this paper is an original contribution to the debate.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the arguments developed in the PhD thesis and also to outline the journey and context from which the thesis emerged.

This paper provides a summary of key arguments in the thesis. It also provides reflections on the process of developing the thesis.

This PhD by publication process demonstrates how new philosophical thinking can contribute to the discipline literature, methodological advancements and also produce a practice tool.

Provision of a personal account of the PhD by publication journey and summary of the thesis: “Exploring the ‘lived experience’ of project work with Continental philosophical perspectives”.

Since the 1980s, the traditional research‐based route to a PhD and the PhD by publication have been joined by practice‐based doctorates, professional doctorates and recently by the new route PhD. The National Qualifications Framework was intended to provide points of reference for the setting, assessment and maintenance of standards at all levels of qualification. Qualification descriptors are intended to articulate the achievements and wider abilities which candidates at any level should be able to demonstrate. Examines the implications of the NQF for doctorates, and reviews the extent to which the various doctoral routes meet its requirements. Regulations, award processes and submission requirements frequently offer inadequate opportunities for candidates to demonstrate the NQF descriptors, and there is considerable divergence in practice as well as in title. There is a need for consistency, which could be achieved with the convergence of doctoral routes towards the new route PhD and the professional doctorate.

This paper aims to investigate the production of accounting doctorates in South Africa during the period from 2008 to 2014. The investigation was prompted by calls to qualify more academics at the doctoral level, bearing in mind that postgraduate supervision forms part of an academic’s core teaching responsibilities.

This archival study uses data obtained from the institutional repositories of four research-intensive universities in South Africa to construct a profile of the accounting doctoral theses produced.

Overall, the findings indicate a move towards the international requirement for doctoral-qualified accounting academics, implying an increased research orientation in South African university accounting departments. Some of the detail findings follow: most doctorates were produced at the University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria. The accounting fields of taxation and financial management produced the most doctorates. Almost 50 per cent of the doctorates went to members of staff. Further, 28 per cent of the doctorates went to students with the CA(SA) professional qualification. The use of the PhD by publication format is growing. The low quantity of PhDs produced can possibly be explained by the low numbers of PhD qualified professorial staff who can act as supervisors. Lastly, the accounting doctorates analysed in this paper were longer and supervised by more people than the typical commerce faculty doctorate.

Not all South African universities were included in the study and therefore some accounting doctorates might have been excluded. In addition, accounting education doctorates, possibly supervised in faculties of education, would also be excluded in view of the approach followed in this paper, which was to identify accounting doctorates via departments and commerce faculties.

This article is the first of its kind to examine the accounting doctorates produced in South Africa since Van der Schyf’s (2008) call for the establishment of a research culture in the accounting departments of South African universities. As such, this paper makes an important contribution towards how such a research culture may be enhanced through cultivating doctoral education in this context.

The purpose of this data‐based analysis is to report and reflect on the characteristics of the academic discipline concerned with logistics and supply chain management (SCM) as it is conducted in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). The paper further seeks to explain variations in the research field in terms of the demographics, research domains and methodologies, and publication patterns of the study's respondents.

An e‐mail questionnaire survey was distributed to 353 researchers based in the Nordic countries. With 144 answers returned, the response rate was 41 per cent.

The study did not provide a clear picture of a distinct Nordic research paradigm applying to the study of logistics and SCM. The analysis shows as characteristic of research issues pursued by Nordic researchers the focus on supply chains and networks and the use of dyads, chains or networks of organizations as levels of analysis. The use of case study methodology and a highly diversified publication pattern were likewise evident. Most researchers were found to rely heavily on external research funding. Significant differences were also identified for research conducted by researchers holding PhD degrees as compared to research by respondents with lower degrees, for researchers affiliated with institutions based in the technical sciences in comparison to those in the social sciences, and for institutions according to their varying degrees of experience with research in the field and external funding.

The research reported here may help individual researchers raise their consciousness about their own research.

This is the first empirical study to analyze research paradigms within logistics and SCM in the Nordic countries. It identifies a number of significant differences in regard to research patterns among various categories of researchers and institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse scholarly subjectivity in the context of citation practices in interdisciplinary PhD research.

The paper provides an analysis of longitudinal series of qualitative interviews with PhD students who write scholarly articles as dissertation components. Conceptualizations of subjectivity within practice theories form the basis for the analysis.

Scholarly argumentation entails a rhetorical paradox of “bringing something new” to the communication while at the same time “establishing a common ground” with an audience. By enacting this paradox through citing in an emerging interdisciplinary setting, the informants negotiate subject positions in different modes of identification across the involved disciplines. In an emerging interdisciplinary field, the articulation of scholarly subjectivity is a joint open-ended achievement demanding knowledgeability in multiple disciplinary understandings and conducts. However, identifications that are expressible within the informants’ local site, i.e. interactions with supervisors, other seniors and peers, are not always expressible when negotiating subject positions with journals.

This paper contributes to research on citation practices in emerging interdisciplinary fields. By linking the enactment of citing in scholarly writing to the negotiation of subject positions, the paper provides new insights about the complexities involved in becoming a scholar.

Despite the ever-growing number of PhD students all over the world, there remain significant doubts about whether entering students in business and management disciplines fully understand the process of producing a PhD thesis, defending it and developing a coherent publication strategy. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to offer some guidance on what it takes to successfully complete a doctoral research thesis.

The arguments and guidance presented in this viewpoint paper are drawn on the authors’ collective supervision and doctoral examination experiences.

The paper presents guidelines on three key issues related with the doctoral completion: choosing a research problem; demonstrating rigour and quality; developing a publication strategy.

The content presented in this paper would be valuable aide to those pursuing doctoral research.

This study aims to analyse the attempts of taught master course students' publications from actor-network theoretic (ANT) perspectives based on the authors' experiences.

In this study, self-study was chosen as the research method. Self-study is a qualitative research approach based on autobiography, available materials, narratives or memory-work for researchers to investigate their own practice from professional and personal experiences and work with critical friends. In this study, self-study was conducted based on the reflective narratives of three authors (the students, Authors 1 and 2, and the lecturer, Author 3), which aims to examine the meanings and explanations of the authors' ordinary experiences and investigate a variety of their emotional memories.

By drawing on ANT, this study explored how the authors translated the assignment tasks into publications by negotiating and interacting with various human and non-human actors – academic journals. The journal articles, however, were not solely the outcome of the academic endevours of the authors. Instead, the journals played a role in helping the authors learn about the academic rigour and gain confidence in their own capabilities. Further, the journals also reinforced the academic partnerships between the authors through collaboration on drafting and revising their manuscripts.

Firstly, this process of helping students publish their papers should focus on their learning and experience rather than merely promoting competition. Additionally, the importance of reaching an agreement on role division and collaborative work ethics needs to be emphasised.

As publications have become increasingly important for graduate students, this study sheds light on the experience of taught master's course students (TMCSs) and their lecturer in jointly publishing papers. While doctoral student publications have received significant attention, TMCSs' publications have not been extensively studied, making this research valuable and original.

The purpose of this paper is to review the issues and challenges associated with examining PhD theses in the modern, rapidly changing academic world. The PhD degree has been described as the “pinnacle of academic qualifications”, but it is under threat in terms of the quality of supervision and the outcome of examinations. By bringing the issues into the open and discussing them, more can be done to safeguard the health of the modern doctorate.

This paper reviews the mainstream academic literature on doctoral degrees from the point of view of the origin and development of the contemporary PhD. Then it offers some reflections on supervision, examination, standards of judgement, benchmarking of results and different routes to the doctorate. The pressures upon the modern university are related to issues encountered in examining doctoral theses.

In modern neo-liberal environments, the PhD degree is under pressure in terms of its quality and rigour. This paper offers a simple conceptual model of the challenges involved in ensuring the quality of PhD examinations and their outcomes. Priorities for the various stakeholders are suggested to ensure that PhD research continues to set the “gold standard” for excellence.

Recognising and confronting the problems with the modern PhD and how it is examined will help guarantee the quality of the degree. A more open debate on the pressures under which supervision and examinations are conducted will help establish rules or guidelines for conduct.

There are remarkably few evaluations of the PhD examination process, which in recent years has become increasingly problematic. The authors adopt a comprehensive approach to the issues and relate them to the societal context in which universities are developing.