Ulrik Wagner
Department of Marketing & Management, University of Southern Denmark
Abstract
Sport is a cross-disciplinary research field in which, similar to other fields, the axiom publish or perish dominates. Despite differences in scientific publishing cultures, researchers of a cross-disciplinary spectrum like sport science are often subjected to a single performance measurement regime. By using Denmark as a case, this paper critically examines how scientific contributions are validated and evaluated, and subsequently how academic performance is measured and ranked in a cross-disciplinary research field. Drawing on critical realism, the claim is that the interplay between national performance indicators, multiple stakeholders and certain journals’ editorial practices within the sport sciences undermine peer reviewing as our core procedure to ensure high academic quality standards. By emphasizing the fight for research autonomy and rather than rejecting peer reviewing per se, proposals for an extended reviewing practice and quality criteria that goes beyond ranking systems are suggested.
Click here to read this peer reviewed article in
Scandinavian Sport Studies Forum, Vol. 7 2016
About the Author
ULRIK WAGNER is Associate Professor at the Department of Marketing and Management, University of Southern Denmark. His research is addressing international anti-doping efforts, sport scandals and sponsorships from a perspective of organizational sociology and critical management. He teaches courses in topics related to sport and event management, and furthermore he is engaged in organizing the annual PhD seminar prior to the conference of the European Association for Sport Management (EASM). Together with Klaus Nielsen and Rasmus Storm he is the co-editor of the book When sport meets business – Capabilities, Challenges, Critiques (SAGE) which will appear in October, 2016.
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