Submit a Management Article

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What is it?

The purpose of the initiative is to assist universities in disseminating their research to a wider audience, help them demonstrate societal impact and raise the profile of this work with employers. It will also benefit practising managers by providing them with insights from credible, authoritative and leading edge knowledge from UK universities.

"A key challenge is getting good research into actual management practice: a better flow of good articles will make a major contribution" - Robin Wensley, Professor of Policy and Marketing at Warwick Business School and Director of ESRC/EPSRC AIM Research Initiative

The CMI Top Management Articles initiative consists of two stages:

1. An online knowledge transfer ‘market place’ to enable academics in UK business schools and universities to share their most accessible and relevant research for rating by 86,000 practitioners. CMI’s membership will be encouraged to rate the articles and contribute short supplementary comments.
2. A collection of the top rated research articles from of UK business schools and universities assessed for relevance and clarity of writing by practitioners.  The articles will be presented thematically or by author or title.  The British Academy of Management is providing advice on the selection of these themes.  This collection will be delivered online via CMI’s website at www.managers.org.uk and the British Library’s Management & Business Studies Portal.

Why submit your articles?

• Raise your profile
• Demonstrate the impact of your research
• Raise the profile of your university department with employers and managers
• Facilitate the transfer of knowledge to the practitioner community
• Engage with a wide range of private, public and ‘third sector’ organisations
• Engage with CMI members via the free online community.  Register for free here.

Who can submit articles?

• Academics accredited to a UK university
• MBA graduates at a UK university whose research has been validated by an academic accredited to a UK university

How do we define a UK management article?

For the purposes of this initiative a management or leadership article is defined as an article written in English or English translation by an academic accredited to a UK university or business school of no more than 2,500 words.  The content of entries should fall within the spectrum of the six broad areas of the National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership, given below:

• Managing self and personal skills
• Providing direction
• Facilitating change
• Working with people
• Using resources
• Achieving results.

Guidance over eligibility, writing style etc.

The purpose of this initiative is knowledge transfer to a practitioner audience.  Therefore the criteria for submission differ in some points from those required for the ‘typical’ four star academic journal.

• Articles may be contributed at any stage in the research process. Articles may be based upon the early stages of research or on a finished piece that has been through a peer review, but it should be made clear to the reader what they are getting.
• Action research is acceptable and in many cases can provide useful lessons for practitioners.
• The research need not be original, but the work must be underpinned by robust research.
• We are not able to accept reprints from other publications due to intellectual property constraints.
• Articles should be no longer than 2,500 words, excluding references, tables and critical apparatus.
• Articles must be submitted in PDF file format.

A few tips on style

Articles are likely to attract a favourable evaluation from a practitioner audience if they are clearly structured and written in an engaging style:

• Avoid the passive voice
• Avoid jargon
• The title must match the content
• Include case studies to illustrate key points
• Focus on the practical implications for managers
• Although some mention of methodology and ‘further reading’ references can be useful, these should be kept much shorter than an article written for a  typical academic journal.

How will the entries be judged?

Stage 1
CMI members will have the opportunity to read, rate and comment on the articles online via CMI’s portal.  Every month members who contribute a rated comment will be automatically entered into a draw for a new management book published by John Wiley and Sons Ltd, the sponsors of this initiative.

CMI members will be asked to write a short review (about 200 words) on the usefulness of each article to a practising manager.  They will be asked to take into account the following questions:

• Does this article provide insights that could be put into practice in a business or work place?
• Would this article engage and motivate a practising manager?
• Would this article support the professional development of the individual manager?
• Are the ideas developed in the article clearly expressed and well argued?
• Is the article written in a style that is accessible for an audience of practising managers?

When rating the articles from one star to five stars, the following scale will be applied:

    *         one star:        one to avoid
   **         two stars:     not very useful
  ***        three stars:    useful in part
 ****        four stars:    very useful
*****        five stars:    a recommendation

Stage 2
Articles achieving a high average rating based on at least 3 reviews will pass on to the a second evaluation stage by CMI’s Academic Advisory Council which is composed of prominent thought leaders from universities and business schools.

Articles will not be required to show originality, but the Academic Advisory Council will apply two tests:

• Is the argument clearly presented and well argued?
• Does the work meet the requirements of rigour and reasonable evidence?

If the Academic Advisory Council would like more information on the research methodology or evidence base, the author may be asked to add or expand a section before resubmission.

How it will work

• There will be a call for submissions from 1 June 2012.
• Articles will be eligible for review by CMI’s membership from 1 June 2012 to 1 April 2013.
• The results of the assessment period will be reported to CMI’s Academic Advisory Council.
• The Academic Advisory Council will apply their criteria to the articles that receive a high average score from at least three reviewers.
• The highest rated articles will be added to CMI’s collection of Top Management Articles the Best UK Management Articles that will be made available via CMI’s website and the British Library’s Management & Business Portal.

Next steps

For further information contact Piers Cain, Head of Knowledge Management, CMI
email: piers.cain@managers.org.uk