Reverse the Curse of the Top-5

Robert S. Kaplan

Article | Accounting Horizons

Reverse the Curse of the Top-5

Abstract

The past 40 years has seen a large increase in the number of articles submitted to journals ranked in the top-5 of their discipline. This increase is the rational response, by faculty, to the overweighting of publications in these journals by university promotions and tenure committees. The ranking factors for academic journals, however, arose for a completely different purpose, to guide the journal acquisition decisions by budget-constrained university librarians. Using journal impact factors to infer the quality of faculty members’ publications incurs a high incidence of both Type 1 errors, when we conclude incorrectly that a paper published in a top-5 journal is a high-impact paper, and Type 2 errors, when we conclude that papers (and books) not published in top-5 journals have low impact. In addition, a third type of error gets introduced as faculty pursue the research they perceive is favored by editors of top-5 journals, at the potential expense of more innovative and relevant research, perceived to be unpublishable in a top-tier journal. Accounting scholarship, in particular, has underinvested in research about innovative practices or the emerging accounting issues faced by contemporary organizations (Kaplan, 2011), likely because such research is viewed as unpublishable in top-5 journals. This gap persists despite recent scholarship that has documented how important, fundamental ideas can emerge from “use-inspired” research (see Pasteur’s Quadrant (Stokes, 1997)). The paper concludes by suggesting reforms to overcome the dysfunctional fixation on publication in top-5 journals.

Keywords: Information Publishing; Journals and Magazines; Power and Influence; Research;

Format: Print

Find at Harvard

Citation:

Kaplan, Robert S. "Reverse the Curse of the Top-5." Accounting Horizons 33, no. 2 (June 2019): 17–24.

Currently, few health care providers measure and report their patient outcomes, which leads to several problems. Attempts to introduce price transparency without outcomes transparency could trigger a “race to the bottom.” Should Medicare coverage be expanded to non-elderly populations, its much lower reimbursements will create pressure on providers to lower their spending in ways that produce even worse outcomes. Even without Medicare expansion, the lack of systematic outcomes measurement has made the migration from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursements, especially bundled payments, less effective and more difficult to implement. Hidden variation in outcomes prevents providers from learning from others how to produce better outcomes for their patients. We propose that the Congress elected in November 2020 mandate the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to begin requiring outcomes measurement by all providers reimbursed under government Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2019

Intelligent Design of Inclusive Growth Strategies

Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat

Improving corporate engagement with society, as advocated in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement, should not be viewed as a zero-sum proposition where attention to new stakeholders detracts from delivering shareholder value. Corporate programs for sustainable and ethical sourcing practices, however, have fallen far short of solving the underlying causes of extreme poverty, extensive use of child labor, and threats to the environment and human health. We identify several causes to explain this disappointing shortfall in societal performance, including traditional company policies and incentives that inhibit the implementation of innovative, inclusive growth strategies. We propose the role for a new actor, a catalyst, to help companies forge new relationships with external funders, local intermediary companies, NGOs, and community leaders. The catalyst aligns the multiple stakeholders from multiple sectors into enduring, mutually beneficial relationships that produce more value than that currently produced when stakeholders connect only by transactional relationships. The catalyst attracts funding from public and private sources to invest in the new ecosystem, which can generate attractive financial returns while alleviating poverty and environmental degradation. Finally, the catalyst engages the multiple participants to collectively co-create explicit strategies and scorecards of metrics, which serve to motivate, create accountability, and enable an enduring governance model for a multi-stakeholder ecosystem.

Keywords: inclusion; sustainability; performance measures; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Strategy; Governance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations;

Citation:

Kaplan, Robert S., George Serafeim, and Eduardo Tugendhat. "Intelligent Design of Inclusive Growth Strategies." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-050, October 2019. View Details

Cite View Details SSRN Read Now

We applied a value (outcomes and cost) analysis to extracorporeal life support (ECLS), a relatively rare but very expensive ICU therapy with highly variable outcomes. To address the outcome component of the value approach, we created guidelines for ECLS delivery; to address the cost component, we applied time-driven activity-based costing to identify opportunities for more efficient care. We learned that patient and family preferences for more humane and sensitive end-of-life care, if respected, will lead to less intensive use of ICU resources. Patients will have outcomes concordant with their goals and preferences, and society incurs lower costs to help them achieve those preferences. Cost reduction can be achieved by increasing efficiencies in the delivery of care and minimizing care outside of locally developed appropriate use guidelines. Reducing ECLS demands on ICU resources allows these resources to be redeployed to patients who are more likely to benefit from them, which also helps the institution financially.

Faculty & Research

Reverse the Curse of the Top-5

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author