The Misalignment of the FT50 with the Achievement of the UN’s SDGs: A Call for Responsible Research Assessment by Business Schools

Abstract

Publication in the list of 50 journals endorsed by the Financial Times (i.e., the FT50) has become ‘institutionalized’ as a primary measure of research quality and prestige by business schools and faculty. This study investigated the extent to which this closed publication system is (mis)aligned with societal imperatives, in particular the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Research methods included both inductive and deductive analysis. Undergraduate and graduate student research assistants, enrolled in business-related programs, read all 4522 articles published by FT50 journals in 2019 and assessed their relevance to explicit and implicit concepts in the SDG framework. Additionally, potential biases that might stifle research innovation in support of the SDGs were explored. Findings included that 90% of articles were found to have no ‘explicit’ relationship to the SDGs, while only 17% were interpreted as having an implicit relationship. SDG-related articles were disproportionately from one journal-the Journal of Business Ethics (48.1%). There was also an over-representation of observed white male primary authors, who used North American (NA) data sets from NA institutions. A logistic regression model determined that the predicted probability of an SDG-related article increased with observed female primary authors, who used non-NA data sets and institutions. The next steps include comparing this methodological approach with machine learning techniques to find a more efficient and robust method for analyzing an article’s SDG content. Business Schools with sustainability as a core value are encouraged to move beyond FT50 publications for assessing research quality, including for tenure and promotion purposes, and place more focus on assessing research relevance and impact.

Societal Impacts of Higher Education Research: From ‘Publish or Perish’ to ‘Publish and Prosper’ in Business School Scholarship

“…The findings showed evidence of selectivity, confirmation, and anchoring biases influencing research agendas. In particular, the published articles were over-represented by observed white male primary authors and North American (NA) data sets and institutions [35]. The study further highlighted that the probability of an SDG-related article increased with observed female primary authors and non-NA data sets from non-NA institutions.…”

“…Yet, in the mainstay, business schools are traditionally upholders of what might be labeled a very conventional purpose of 'business as usual' focused on maximizing economic growth, profit, and shareholder wealth [33]. Given this point of view, business school research is considered impactful when it advances the aims of capitalism and capitalists, with no explicit intent or guarantee of positive societal impacts [35].…”

“…As evidence, several institutions have incorporated publications in FT50 journals in tenure and promotion (T&P) requirements, see [48][49][50][51][52][53][54]. If the selected set of business journals favors topics disconnected from evolving societal and ecological imperatives, then it is doubtful faculty will focus their research on seemingly 'unpublishable' research striving for impact [35]. Worse, publishing outside these norms can have deleterious consequences for career acquisition, maintenance, and advancement [35].…”

“…Examples of this stifling abound. Exposing injurious gender bias and an alarming lack of treatments involving the SDGs, a recent study [35] investigated the research contained in the list of 50 journals endorsed by the Financial Times (i.e., the FT50 [38]). Despite the lack of transparency on the methods used to select journals on the list and its static nature, the FT50 list has become institutionalized as a primary measure of research quality and prestige by business schools and faculty.…”

Time-Looping in Scholarly Publishing: An Investigation of the FT50 Journals

“…This paper revisits the issue of time-looping in scholarly publishing, by examining a set of journals included in the well-known list of top 50 business and economics journals identified by The Financial Times (commonly known as the FT50 list) (Moussa, 2021;Rodenburg et al, 2022;Zhang, 2021). The questions (RQs) that this analysis sought to answer were:…”