Emerald responds to dual publication

["Gillian Crawford" <GCrawford@emeraldinsight.com>]

Apologies for cross-posting.  

Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Response to the following submissions made to
Library Resources & Technical Services by
Philip M Davis, Life Sciences Librarian, Cornell University

* The Ethics of Republishing.; a case study of Emerald/MCB University
Press Journals, expected publication Spring 2005

* Article duplication in Emerald/MCB journals is more extensive than
first reported; Possible conflicts of financial and functional interests
are uncovered  (Letter to the editor of LRTS) expected publication
Summer 2005

Keith Howard, Chairman, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

My first reaction to Mr Davis's article was to doubt that this was a major
issue and to shelter behind the view that "would anyone in their right
mind believe that Emerald would knowingly support a practice that would
undermine its standing in the library community?"

If there had been but one complaint from a customer concerning
republication during the decades prior to Mr Davis taking an interest in
Emerald, we would have reacted accordingly. Mr Davis's subsequent
activities and research - notably the letter referred to above and his
presence at ALA Midwinter 2005 - quickly disabused senior colleagues at
Emerald of this notion.

It is evident that the press announcement "Dual Publication: Emerald's
Response" made in November 2004 gave insufficient satisfaction in some
quarters - though we would argue that it did go some way to demonstrating
that the magnitude of the problem had been overstated, and that it did
indeed address the fact that we had acknowledged and accepted the problem,
taken steps to address it by tagging affected papers on our database, and
unambiguously clarifying our procedures at our November 2004 Board
meeting.

In this note two issues are addressed: * Emerald's origins - and the
bearing that these had on the generation of knowledge from the field of
management (which was not for dissemination to the academic community
exclusively) * The action proposed in an attempt to ameliorate the
library/LIS community specifically.

There will be no attempt in this response to justify republication, though
it is felt that there is some purpose in a measure of explanation as to
why it occurred.  As Mr Davis has referred to caveat emptor, I will simply
add a qualified 'mea culpa'.

EMERALD'S ORIGINS

Of considerable significance from our perspective is the fact that Emerald
was rooted in: Research and writing; not publishing/

In 1969 forty-eight members of the academic staff at the University of
Bradford Management Centre, plus Dr Barrie Pettman of the University of
Hull, plus one non-academic who was associated with Dr Pettman in the
Institute of Scientific Business, became equal shareholders in a company
named:  Management Consultants Bradford Limited (MCB)

Consulting work (not publishing) undertaken by the 50 shareholders was the
purpose in forming MCB.  Bradford Management Centre, one of the top three
business schools in the UK at the time, was known, colloquially as the
'Businessman's Business School'.  This particular fact had a major impact
on the nature of MCB's and, subsequently Emerald's, publishing strategy to
this day - the association between theory and practice.

"Management Decision", owned by the major British publishing company IPC
Ltd, was adopted by the Institute of Scientific Business as its house
journal.  Management Decision was very quickly sold to several
shareholders of MCB who established a separate company MCB (Management
Decision) Ltd.

This was followed by the launch and acquisition of a number of other
titles in different functional areas of management, with the result that
towards the end of the 1970s groups of MCB Ltd shareholders owned MCB
(Physical Distribution Management) Ltd, MCB (European Journal of
Marketing) Ltd, MCB (European Training) Ltd, MCB (Social Economics) Ltd
etc etc.  In addition to journals primarily targeted at the academic
community, the individual companies sought to satisfy demands (arising,
particularly, from the corporate sector) for publications and resources in
fields such as training and development.  Subject matter specialists thus
acquired their own journals which were, generally, edited by one of the
shareholders of the single journal companies.  Editors drew upon their
subject matter networks for the generation of copy.

I was surprised, incidentally, that Mr Davis, as a librarian, viewed
'management' in his article, as an area of 'similar subject scope'.  If so
there must be an awful lot of duplication of ideas (if not word for word
text) in the thousand plus journals published in the management field!

To be absolutely clear - MCB journal companies were commercial in their
formation.  Investment, losses, profits were down to the owners.  At one
time during the early 1980s we had to enter into guarantees secured
against our own properties to ensure that MCB remained in business. This
was entirely consistent with the view, which we had of ourselves, as
entrepreneurial business school academics.

As far as the journals were concerned the aim was to despatch issues on
time.  Overlapping ownership of the range of journal companies probably
led to what was felt to be appropriate republication to satisfy the needs
of distinctly different communities, eg an article from the European
Journal of Marketing could well have been included also in Physical
Distribution Management.

>From about 1980 the separate journal companies were merged into a single
company, MCB Publications Ltd, subsequently MCB University Press Ltd,
subsequently Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

One matter which has intrigued Mr Davis is Barmarick Publications.  Dr
Pettman's interest in publishing journals preceded the formation of MCB
Limited.  At the time of merging the MCB journal companies at the end of
the 1970s the decision was taken not to include the Barmarick titles.
MCB/Emerald has, nevertheless, continued to take responsibility (at a
charge) for providing subscription management services for Barmarick
publications.

As some of Barmarick's titles were located in areas which it was felt
would add to the breadth of MCB's portfolio, they were included in the
Emerald Fulltext on-line database, first launched in 1996. The decision
was taken some time ago to drop them from the Emerald Fulltext database in
2006.

Reverting to the origins of MCB, in addition to editing we had absolutely
no qualms in publishing accounts of our research findings in the journals
owned by MCB companies.  Being members of one of the leading British
Business Schools we had confidence in the quality of research we
undertook.  At the personal level I was Chairman of the largest, and most
successful, Doctoral Programme in management in Europe from 1978 to 1982.  
I co-authored with my Deputy Chairman John Sharp a highly regarded book
"The Management of a Student Research Project" (Gower Press, Aldershot,
England) first edition Howard and Sharp (1983); second edition, Sharp and
Howard (1996); third edition Sharp, Peters, Howard (2002).  Now in my
seventies it is unlikely that there will be a fourth edition to which my
name will be attached!  I also have experience of editing - The
International Journal of Operations and Production Management, from 1981
until it was handed over to an editorial team at UMIST Manchester in 1995)
and which is, so I am advised, highly regarded in North America, and is
listed by ISI.  Of the hundreds of papers published during my editorship
there is (possibly) one instance of republication, following dual
submission.

WHAT ACTION DO WE PROPOSE?

We are satisfied that having taken the necessary steps to address the
specific problems identified by Mr Davis that our processes of control
should match those of any publishing company of standing.  Our systems
will stand scrutiny.  I make that claim in the knowledge that some readers
of this note may not be prepared to accept reassurance proffered in this
way.  So:

(i) an invitation is extended to up to five directors of ARL libraries (or
their designated substitutes) to spend up to one week at Emerald in
Bradford, England, (at our expense) to review our processes

(ii) we will endow research to address issues of significance to the
librarian/LIS community, in a manner to be agreed with The American
Library Association (ALA)

(iii) in instances where customers have suffered from significant and
unambiguous republication, eg in the unusual case of journals with
different titles carrying substantially the same content (a consequence of
acquisition) we will ensure that these customers receive compensation

For further information on these please contact Gillian Crawford our Head
of Corporate Communications; gcrawford@emeraldinsight.com.

EVEN-HANDEDNESS OF MR DAVIS'S STUDY

The Editorial Department at Emerald have been giving detailed
consideration to the instances of republication cited by Mr Davis.  A
conclusion they have reached is as follows:

"We would like to share our findings from our own survey of Emerald
journal content.  We have undertaken an analysis of the database and found
that 560 original papers have been republished without proper attribution.  
This represents about 1.1% of the total database content.

Mr Davis has correctly identified republished articles in an issue of
Career Development International early in 2001, and a paper republished in
Equal Opportunities International (a journal for which Emerald does not
have editorial control) in 2003.  These aside, there have been no
instances of deliberate republication by Emerald (with the exception of
anniversary issues which are fully attributed, and a small number of book
reviews) since 2001.  This includes all journal articles that are
contained in the ASLIB journals that were acquired by Emerald in 2001. Any
example of article republication that has occurred after this date has
been due to author or administrative error (this occurred three times in
2003; we have reviewed our processes to mitigate against this happening in
the future).

The graph below shows that this is largely a historic problem.
Cumulatively, 87% of republication took place in or prior to 1999, and
more than two thirds in or prior to 1997.

(To view this graph, please go to
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/rpsv/news/press/dual2005.htm where this
response is available in html format).

It should also be pointed out that attributions were provided in some of
the cases that Mr Davis highlights. For example, Figure 2 of his article
refers to a paper that was republished in the European Journal of
Marketing.  Acknowledgement was made in the Editorial to this journal
issue.  In some other cases, attributions appeared in print issues of a
journal, and therefore are shown on the PDF versions on our online
database.

We are in the process of updating the database to ensure all attributions
are fully visible.  This includes notification of subsequent publication
as well as first publication."

Mr Davis has, for reasons which are unclear to us expressed interest in
MCB/Barmarick/Emerald ownership.  I trust that his suspicions have been
clarified by what is written above.

He appears to accept without question that the other publishers he cites
are virtually 'whiter than white' in the matter of republication.  It
would seem, therefore, that his somewhat gratuitous aim of "educating the
publishing industry" is rather unnecessary; which causes me to reflect
again on what his aims might be.

Is Mr Davis in a position to guarantee that other publishers satisfy
expected standards in the matter of republication?  If he cannot offer
such a guarantee, should he not extend his study to include a number of
these in order that he may reach a conclusion which is generalisable? Or
is potential bias acceptable in a study of this nature?

Dr Keith Howard 
Chairman, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bradford, England
January 28th, 2005
_______________________

Gillian Crawford
Head of Corporate Communications
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
60/62 Toller Lane, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD8 9BY
 
Email:  gcrawford@emeraldinsight.com
Tel:    44 1274 777700
Web:    www.emeraldinsight.com