Scholarly Management Publication and Open Access Funding Mandates: a Review of Publisher Policies

Abstract

The open access movement has been growing steadily over the past 20 years. Recently, many national funding agencies in North America have required recipients of grant funding to make their articles open access. On the surface this produces a potential conflict for management researchers; management faculty members are expected to publish in prestigious journals, but the discipline views open access journals as being of lower quality (Hahn & Wyatt, 2014, p.98). As such, the question arises: is it possible for management researchers to comply with open access policies while still publishing in highly-ranked journals? This article will compare publishing policies from top management journals to funding agencies’ open access requirements in order to determine which journals meet these conditions. Journals will be drawn from several established journal lists such as the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) 24, the Financial Times Research Rankings, and Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science Journal Citation Reports. Results show that 80% of journals in the sample set are compatible with open access funding mandates. Of the journals which are compatible, 48% require an article processing charge (APC) and 52% permit self-archiving in an acceptable time-frame. In addition to discussing open access publishing opportunities in management, this article will highlight opportunities for management librarians to develop their services and act as resources for faculty navigating this framework.