ALSBTALK:
Below is my reply to Mary-Kathryn. Because I suspect her Dean might
read the private email version, I deleted, but will not reinsert, my reply
to her P.S. To wit: Do not confuse a request made with statement made
with sufficient authority that the statement equates with an order. This
is not to say it is wise to taunt a person falsely claiming authority in
one context when that person holds authority in another context.
Mary-Kathryn:
[1] It is a joy to receive your affirmation.
[2] Your welcome, I hope it reduces confusion and increases
effective and efficient strategic action.
[3] I was only vaguely able to recall authoring an ALSBTALK posting
with the phrase "cart before the horse". So I checked the ALSBTALK
archives. I assume you mean this posting.
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0506&L=ALSBTALK&P=R100&D=0&H=0&I=-3&O=T&T=0
Yes, you may share that within your college.
[4] Your school is an accredited AACSB school.
http://www.aacsb.edu/members/Omd3/Profile_page.asp?id=31324
AACSB uses a definition of "intellectual contribution" that is so broad it
forces each accredited member to pick and use a narrower definition. AACSB
expects the school to be consistent in its Mission and related documents.
If a school has chosen to hire lawyers to teach business law, then
either [4A] the school must expressly chose and expressly inform
those lawyers to -not- publish in the traditional law research outlets;
or [4B] the school has implicitly chosen, by hiring lawyers to teach
business law, to have those lawyers publish in the traditional law research
outlets. Tradition is implicit, deviation from tradition must be explicit
if the school is to be well managed.
The vast majority of law research outlets are law school based law
reviews. Nearly 100% of the law school based law reviews use editorial
boards that are exclusively made up of law students. These editorial board
duties are part of the doctorate education of law students who anticipate
an academic career. Also, by law school tradition, the review process of
articles does not use a double blind referee: it is single blind. The
author does not know who serves as referee; but the referee knows who is
the author. There are some law research outlets that are not affiliated
with law schools. I am Editor of one such journal; the ALSB journal is
another. Those few law research outlets that are not affiliated with law
schools most often, but not always, use the double blind referee process.
My journal does and the ALSB journal does. As proud as I am of my journal,
I could not in good conscience assert its quality exceed that of the law
reviews at Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, etc., etc., etc., all of which are
edited by students and all of which use single blind referee process.
The student edited single blind referee process law reviews are more
academic than most of the professional edited double blind referee process
law journals. The ALSB Business Law Journal is the lone exception. My
journal has a clear practitioner slant.
It has been my experience that most proponents of double blind
referee process assert that preference in the context of law reviews having
no idea how that preference will sculpt the publishable research. Most
proponents desire a more academic slant, but assert that preference in a
context that generates a more practitioner slant.
AACSB has crafted its accreditation requirements mindful of the great
diversity of forms of intellectual output. That is why it merely uses the
rubrics of "PRJ" and "OIC". See, on PDF page 50 of 79, in "TABLE II:
SUMMARY OF FACULTY QUALIFICATION, INTELLECTUAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
(RE: Standards 2, 9, & 10)" of the January 1, 2005 version of the AACSB
"Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business
Accreditation".
http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/AACSBstand1_1_05.pdf
Note especially footnote 5 of that Table II.
"5 The number of intellectual contributions should be listed in these
columns. The peer reviewed journal columns marked “PRJ” should enumerate
all of those intellectual contributions that have appeared in journal
article form reviewed by academic and practitioner colleagues. The other
intellectual contributions columns marked “OIC” should enumerate all other
intellectual contributions regardless of the form of the contributions,
including (but not limited to) research monographs, scholarly books,
chapters in scholarly books, textbooks, proceedings from scholarly
meetings, papers presented at academic or professional meetings, publicly
available research working papers, papers presented at faculty research
seminars, publications in trade journals, in-house journals, book reviews,
written cases with instructional materials, instructional software, and
other publicly available materials describing the design and implementation
of new curricula or courses. Intellectual contributions must be publicly
available, i.e., proprietary and confidential research and consulting
reports do not qualify as intellectual contributions."
The key word in this context is the word "colleagues". Given the
tenor of the items used as examples of OIC versus the tenor of the items
given as examples of PRJ, it would take a very odd construction of the word
"colleagues" to render a law school hosted law review OIC. It is feasible,
but it is very odd.
One thing is for sure, while AACSB requires schools to track PRJ, and
while AACSB requires more PRJ from Ph.D. granting accredited schools than
from accredited schools only granting the BSBA, no where does AACSB define
"peer reviewed". The ancient accreditation Standards of AACSB (i.e., those
pre-dating the Mission driven, continuous improvement focused Standards)
did make attempts to define and to require double blind academic referee
journals with a majority of the editorial board from academe; however,
those ancient Standards were expressly rejected in favor of the expansive
and inclusive Standards used today. Each school, based on its Mission,
defines PRJ, and thus by default OIC.
(As an aside, let me note that what ever definition of PRJ and of OIC
the school picks is a definition that applies to all faculty: i.e., same
definition used for full assignment faculty as part time assignment;
participating same as supporting; tenured same as tenure track;
academically qualified as professionally qualified. The choices on
intellectual contributions are the most important choices in the Mission.)
An AACSB school -could- expressly choose to categorize all law
reviews hosted by all law schools as OIC. However, to do so implicitly
would be to violate Standard 10: "The faculty has, and maintains,
intellectual qualifications and current expertise to accomplish the mission
and to assure that this occurs, the school has a clearly defined process to
evaluate individual faculty member’s contributions to the school’s
mission." To -implicitly- reject the tradition of a whole field (e.g.,
law) would not be "clearly defined". This is a choice that must be done
explicitly by the faculty. This choice has significant consequences on the
intellectual contributions of the school.
The Mission of your school, especially its second to last bullet
(i.e., "Recruiting high quality faculty and staff and providing them with
sufficient resources to support excellence in teaching, primarily applied
and pedagogical research, and service."
http://www.aacsb.edu/members/Omd3/mission_page.asp?inst=818) could support
such a choice. However, such a choice would be expected for all faculty,
again, given your Mission. That is, faculty in management also would be
denied rewards (e.g., tenure) if their publications primarily strayed into
discipline based scholarship, that is, were published in outlets of tenor
similar to law school hosted law reviews.
The portfolio of intellectual contributions generated by the school's
faculty must serve the school's Mission. However, any single faculty
member's academic freedom allows for that faculty member to generate any
research. That is the tension all Deans manage. That is the tension AACSB
wants the assembled faculty to address in crafting the school's Mission.
Lastly, let me note that AACSB's requirement is that the school craft
and implement a Mission. The school's Mission must be consonant with the
hosting institution's Mission. To the extent UWG recognizes a faculty
member's academic freedom in generating research, AACSB requires the school
to also recognize that academic freedom. The school is not at liberty to
infringe a UWG faculty member's academic freedom when the school crafts and
when the school implements its AACSB mandated Mission. The Dean's
response to a business law professor publishing in the Harvard Law Review
ought to be the same as the Dean's response to a management professor
publishing in the Journal of Management.
Michael
Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
Finance, Banking, & Law Department Editor, Journal of Legal
Economics
College of Business Administration (402) 554 - 2014 voice fax (402)
554 - 3825
Roskens Hall 502 www.AAEFE.org
University of Nebraska at Omaha www.JournalOfLegalEconomics.com
Omaha NE 68182
[log in to unmask]
(402) 554 - 2823 voice fax (402) 554 - 2680
http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm
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