Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige

Armstrong, J. Scott

Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige

Interfaces, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 80-86, April 1980

11 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2005 Last revised: 31 Dec 2011

See all articles by J. Scott Armstrong

J. Scott Armstrong

University of Pennsylvania - Marketing Department

Abstract

Modest support was found for the Dr. Fox Phenomenon: Management scientists gain prestige by unintelligible writing. A positive correlation (+0.7) was found between the prestige of 10 management journals and their fog indices (reading difficulty). Furthermore, 32 faculty members were asked to rate the prestige of four passages from management journals. The content of the passages was held constant while readability was varied. Those passages that were more difficult to read were rated higher in research competence.

Keywords: Management, journals, research and academic prestige

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Armstrong, J. Scott, Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige. Interfaces, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 80-86, April 1980. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=676112