Business History in the UK Research Assessment Exercise

Abstract:     
The publication of submissions to the UK RAE2008 offers an opportunity to assess the location and relative standing of business historians and their journals in the UK’s academic research community. Several ratings lists of journals are available that use data from submissions to the RAE2008 Business and Management panel, such as the Association of Business Schools Academic Journal Quality Guide (Kelly, Morris, Rowlinson, & Harvey, 2009). The ratings of business history journals vary widely (c.f. Mingers, Watson, & Scaparra, 2009). In this paper we will present an alternative form of analysis that will help us to visualize the data. We will chart the institutional locations of business historians, whether in business schools or history departments, and their publication practices, e.g. whether for business historians in business schools monographs were more or less likely to be counted as one of their best four outputs compared to business historians in history departments; and whether business historians in business schools published what was considered their best work in business history journals or highly rated general management journals.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 33

Keywords: business history, network relationships, institutional affiliations

JEL Classification: B10, B15, B19

Accepted Paper Series