Reader Perceptions of Authorial Voice in Top-Tier Management Journals: The Case of Doctoral Students of Management From Eastern Europe

Abstract

The pressure to publish in scholarly journals has been increasingly pervading doctoral education worldwide and has become a high-stakes activity for any novice writer who wishes to pursue an academic career. In this manuscript, we explore how doctoral students of management from Eastern Europe identify and evaluate authorial voice and compare their perceptions with those of established academics. Perceptions of authorial voice, as manifested in conclusions to six articles published in top-tier management journals, were collected from 24 students and six academics, and analyzed from their responses to a questionnaire. The study highlighted differences in what these groups considered as the rhetorical nature of a convincing authorial voice. The examination of students’ perceptions was expanded through interviews which revealed that for this group, a reader-considerate voice is essential for a text to be convincing. To enable novice academics’ visibility and participation in their discipline’s global discourse community, we provide a compelling case for de-emphasizing the methodological and theoretical soundness (“rigor”) in reporting scholarly work and prioritizing the effective communication of meaningful and practical research (“relevance”). It is also argued that the provision of strategic writing instruction at graduate level will help achieve this goal.