Dear Herman and Dan,
The ABS list mentioned in Herman's paper is relatively new. I think the individuals who created the first iteration of that list are still active. My understanding is that ancestor of today's ABS list was first prepared by individuals who did PhDs outside of management (e.g., sociology and economic history, etc) and who wanted to figure out where they should try to submit articles. It was basically a how-to-get-ahead guide for management school neophytes that was shared around. It was later taken over by the Council of University Management Schools, a charity founded in 1989 and now known as CABS. Today, the ABS list is used in some UK business schools to predict how a given article will be ranked by a panel of reviewers who are appointed by a government agency and who collectively determine the allocation of so-called QR funding among the UK's business schools. For example of how QR funding works, see
here
I don't think that anything has been published about the history of the FT50 list, formerly the FT45 list. However, a researcher who wanted to learn about the evolution of this list could easily talk to the
Financial Times journalists who compile it. I'm certain they could help someone who was trying to prepare an oral history of that list. In 2017, the journalist who compiled the FT50 list was named Laurent Ortmans.
------------------------------
Andrew Smith, Senior Lecturer in International Business
Director of Research (Strategy, International Business, and Entrepreneurship Group)
University of Liverpool
Liverpool
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 06-23-2020 11:41
From: Herman Aguinis
Subject: Ranking of Journals: Is Input from Management Historians Needed?
Daniel,
Good question! We offered a VERY brief narrative of the origins in our 2020 Academy of Management Perspectives article as follows: "Beginning in the late 1950s, business schools began the long, arduous transition from vocational-or practitioner-oriented trade schools to research-focused institutions (Bennis & O'Toole, 2005; Gordon & Howell, 1959; McLaren, 2019). Fueled by the demand for more professionally educated managers as well as stinging rebukes of the quality of the research and teaching of their faculty, business schools adopted the scholarly paradigm of the social sciences as their path to legitimacy (Bailey & Ford, 1996; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). And this approach entailed defining and measuring the value or quality of their research production (Bennis & O'Toole, 2005)" (p. 139).
Source: Aguinis, H., Cummings, C., Ramani, R. S., & Cummings, T. G. 2020. "An A is an A:" The new bottom line for valuing academic research. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34: 135-154. [available at http://www.hermanaguinis.com/pubs.html]
All the best,
--Herman.
------------------------------
Herman Aguinis, Ph.D.
Vice President & Program Chair, Academy of Management
Avram Tucker Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management
The George Washington University School of Business
Washington, DC
http://hermanaguinis.com/
Original Message:
Sent: 06-23-2020 03:19
From: Daniel Wadhwani
Subject: Ranking of Journals: Is Input from Management Historians Needed?
Very interesting article, Herman. Is there a clear narrative our there about the historical origins of journal lists and ranks?
------------------------------
Daniel Wadhwani
Professor
University of Southern California
Original Message:
Sent: 06-19-2020 11:26
From: Herman Aguinis
Subject: Ranking of Journals: Is Input from Management Historians Needed?
Dear Andrew and MH Colleagues,
Regarding journal rankings and lists, you may find the following article just published in Academy of Management Perspectives interesting:
Aguinis, H., Cummings, C., Ramani, R. S., & Cummings, T. G. 2020. "An A is an A:" The new bottom line for valuing academic research. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34: 135-154. This article is available at https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amp.2017.0193
I hope this helps!
All the best,
--Herman.
------------------------------
Herman Aguinis, Ph.D.
Vice President & Program Chair, Academy of Management
Avram Tucker Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Management
The George Washington University School of Business
Washington, DC
http://hermanaguinis.com/
Original Message:
Sent: 06-18-2020 09:20
From: Andrew Smith
Subject: Ranking of Journals: Is Input from Management Historians Needed?
Some members of the AoM MH community are lucky enough not to have to worry too much about journal rankings! Many management historians, however, do need to pay attention to the position in their journals in the various lists that business school deans around the world use to evaluate research outputs. The position of particular historical journals varies a bit between such lists as the CNRS list used in France, the Australian Deans List, and the ABS list. For those of us who work in UK business schools, the ABS journal quality guide is important because the rankings of journals in it informs decisions about hiring, compensation, and the like. In recent years, some Canadian business schools have started talking more about the ABS list. For instance, I know of a business school in Ottawa that uses it. When I was on sabbatical at Copenhagen Business School, assistant professors there were being told to pay attention to this list in making their research strategies.
Here's what the list looks like (I've pasted part of the spreadsheet with the historical journals, which are listed in alphabetical order)
| Field | Journal Title | AJG 2018 | AJG 2015 | ABS 2010 |
| ACCOUNT | World Tax Journal | 1 | 1 | |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Accounting Historians Journal | 2 | 2 | |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Accounting History | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Accounting History Review (formerly Accounting, Business and Financial History) | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Australian Economic History Review | 2 | 2 | |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Bankhistorisches Archiv | 1 | 1 | |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Business History | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| BUS HIST & ECON HIST | Business History Review | 4 | 4 | 3 |
The ABS last published its list in 2018 and it has announced that it has appointed the subject experts who will be responsible for update each subject section of the list. There has been a fair bit of discussion on social media about the experts and the various personalities on this list. I guess that's to be expected. Personally, I'm pretty happy with the choice of the two individuals whose input into the business and economic history list has been requested as both a serious and dedicated scholars who have decades of experience publishing empirical work.
I'm struck by the fact there are number of academics at Canadian universities on this list of experts.
------------------------------
Andrew Smith
Senior Lecturer in International Business
Director of Research, Department of Strategy, International Business, and Entrepreneurship
University of Liverpool Management School
Liverpool
------------------------------