Overpublication as a symptom of audit culture: A comment on Phaf (2020)

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-298
Author(s):  
Joshua W. Clegg ◽  
Bradford J. Wiggins ◽  
Joseph A. Ostenson
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Process Engineering ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
The Political ◽  
Audit Culture ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
Evolution Of Science ◽  
Generalized Metrics

Phaf suggests that, in order to address overpublication, academics should read more and publish less. Although many academics would like to take this advice, doing so is complicated by the audit culture that marketizes and metricizes everything they do. Working from the evolutionary metaphor introduced by Phaf, we argue that the evolution of science consists not simply in adapting theory to the demands of empirical investigation, but also in adapting scientific traditions and communities to the political and institutional forces that shape them. We point specifically to the generalized metrics (e.g., impact factors) that, in audit environments, arbitrate resources, in the process engineering professional precarity and overdetermining theory building. We argue that hyper-production can be understood as an adaptation to such an audit environment. We briefly discuss some suggestions for approaching the audit through relational accounting practices that disrupt and re-inscribe calculative audits, thus creating opportunities to read more and publish less.

scholarly journals Surgery and the kings of medical science

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ihsan Ekin Demir ◽  
Güralp O. Ceyhan ◽  
Helmut Friess
Keyword(s):  
Medical Science ◽  
Publication Activity ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Productivity ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Quality Research

Abstract Background Surgeons are frequently compared in terms of their publication activity to members of other disciplines who publish in journals with naturally higher impact factors. The time intensity of daily clinical duties in surgery is yet not comparable to that of these competitor disciplines. Purpose Here, we aimed to critically comment on ways for improving the academic productivity of university surgerons. Conclusions To ensure high-quality science in surgery, it is imperative that surgeons actively ask for and generate the time for high-quality research. This necessitates coordinated and combined efforts of leading university surgeons at the political level and effective presentation of the magnificent studies performed by young and talented university surgeons.

Bringing in China

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily L. Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Comparative Theory

What do comparativists have to gain by reading recent work on China? In this article, I focus specifically on the ways in which scholarship on China can contribute to the task of theory building in comparative politics. I identify two areas that could reap particularly high benefits from considering scholarship on China—comparative political development and the political behavior of development—and I discuss some of the specific contributions that China scholarship can make to building comparative theory in these areas.

The Realist–Pacifist Summit Meeting of March 1942 and the Political Reorientation of Ecumenical Protestantism in the United States

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hollinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Summit Meeting ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
First Moment

This chapter analyzes the consolidation in 1942 of the two major, religiously defined institutional forces of the entire period from World War II to the present. The Delaware Conference of March 3–5, 1942, was the first moment at which rival groups within the leadership of ecumenical Protestantism came together and agreed upon an agenda for the postwar world. The chapter addresses the following questions: Just what did the Delaware Conference agree upon and proclaim to the world? Which Protestant leaders were present at the conference and/or helped to bring it about and to endow it with the character of a summit meeting? In what respects did the new political orientation established at the conference affect the destiny of ecumenical Protestantism?

Political discourse and mobility of worlds: Arguments for methodological narrative\institutional dualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 053901842097701
Author(s):  
Simon Smith ◽  
Jiří Kabele
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Organizational Fields ◽  
Organizational Interventions ◽  
Political Office ◽  
Analytical Research ◽  
Important Position

Methodological narrative\institutional dualism was developed as an epistemological strategy to facilitate an approach to the study of political discourse that incorporates figures of disorder into the construction of order. The symmetrization of various theories of narration and argumentation and related analytical research approaches enables an examination of how discursive world-making engages syncretically narrative and argumentative repertoires of rhetoric and hermeneutics to ensure interconnected discursive and organizational interventions. Actors strive to occupy a strategically important position in discourse-worlds as the prelude to their occupation of influential power positions in organizational fields. Such a two-fold – textual and pragma-dialectical – interventionism can be uncovered by a ‘perspective interplay’ between complementary research strategies, one based on a narrative\routine duality (focused on communicability by studying the textualized sequencing of speech acts), the other on a duality of the pragmatic use of plot\argument (focused on the pragmatic implications of speech acts by studying the political claim-making accompanying strategic maneuvering). Our efforts at theory-building are illustrated by an empirical probe into a moment in a Czech election campaign (a three-day media dialogical network) in which the metaphor of dinosaurs was deployed as a powerful trope by candidates, opponents and journalists in credibility and consistency tests with respect to qualification for political office.

scholarly journals Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation

1999 ◽  
Vol 89 (5) ◽  
pp. 1135-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg ◽  
Giovanni Maggi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Structural Parameters ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Protection For Sale ◽  
Sectional Structure ◽  
Surprising Finding

The Grossman-Helpman “Protection for Sale” model, concerning the political economy of trade protection, yields clear predictions for the cross-sectional structure of import barriers. Our objective is to check whether the predictions of the Grossman-Helpman model are consistent with the data and, if the model finds support, to estimate its key structural parameters. We find that the pattern of protection in the United States in 1983 is broadly consistent with the predictions of the model. A surprising finding is that the weight of welfare in the government's objective function is many times larger than the weight of contributions. (JEL F1)

scholarly journals The impact of local commissioning on victim services in England and Wales: An empirical study

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Simmonds
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
The Political ◽  
Value For Money ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Audit Culture ◽  
Victim Services ◽  
Victim Support ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This paper follows on from earlier work in which I discussed the potential impacts of the local commissioning of victim services by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales. The introduction of this elected role and the devolution of responsibility to local PCCs was said to raise a range of issues for both victims and the voluntary sector, given that agencies within this sector are major providers of support for those affected by crime. Before 2014 the approach to the funding of victim services was not particularly of concern, save for questions being asked in the ‘audit culture’ of the early 2000s, around the extent to which the government-funded agency Victim Support could be said to be providing ‘value for money’. However, these concerns gained momentum with the incoming Coalition government of 2010, and by 2014 local commissioning by PCCs had been implemented. This meant the previous mixed economy of victim services provision via the largely centrally funded organisation ‘Victim Support’ as a ‘national victims’ service’, and an array of smaller and more financially independent victim agencies who had to bid for pots of funding much more competitively, has given way to the political appeal of a free market for all. In order then to explore the reality of this shift, a piece of empirical research was undertaken with voluntary-sector agencies in the far southwest of England. Essentially the research provides evidence that the issues raised in my earlier work have indeed come to fruition.

NEPALESE GOVERNMENTAL ACCOUNTING DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1950s AND EARLY 1960s: AN ATTEMPT TO INSTITUTIONALIZE EXPENDITURE ACCOUNTING

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawan Adhikari ◽  
Frode Mellemvik
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Development ◽  
Political Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Government

This paper aims at disseminating knowledge about the evolution of expenditure accounting in the government of Nepal. In doing so, the paper examines emerging ideas in the aftermath of the political change of 1951 in Nepal, and traces the processes of development and institutionalization of expenditure accounting during the course of two decades, the 1950s and early 1960s, with particular reference to the institutional forces at work. An interesting feature of Nepalese accounting reforms before and after the political change was the active participation of India, the United Nations, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). At the outset of the post-Rana period, Indian advisors dominated the reform process and helped Nepal introduce and incorporate a range of modern administrative measures, including a new budgeting structure called line-item budgeting. The external influence on Nepal's reforms and the ways of installing new values in the administration altered in the second half of the 1950s. The United Nations and the USAID became the major agents in the introduction and institutionalization of rules and practices, especially accounting norms and procedures.

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