Re: Covert Article Republishing Discovered in Emerald/MCB UP 1989-2003

[Phil Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu>]

While I understand Anthony's point (that the editor must have known what
was going into his/her journal), I have documented nearly 70 journals that
were involved in publishing duplicate material.  While there may be, as
Anthony puts it, "less than competent" editors, the fact that I have
documented so many from the same publisher seems to suggest that this is
not about individual competence.

Over the last few months, I sent Emerald management scores of direct
questions asking about the process of editorial control, who was involved,
and for how long.  None of those email messages were answered.  Rather
than speculate, it would be easier for Emerald to explain what happened in
the past and how they changed their structure to prevent this from
happening again.  This would be the most constructive outcome from this
report.

--Phil Davis

At 07:05 PM 11/11/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>Phil and I have discussed this when we were both in Charleston next week
>and I have rather a different take on this.
>
>I cannot see how an editor of a journal could not have been unaware that
>an article in a journal for which he or she was contractually and actually
>responsible for all the content had not passed through his or her
>editorial hands. Some editors are less than competent but in all the
>journals I have ever worked with the system is basically the same. The
>editor processes the papers. The publisher receives them and puts them
>through its processes. The editor usually makes up the content list of
>each issue (though not invariably) but it would be a very strange editor
>who did not look at the published issue. A whole issue of alien matter
>(and we have examples of this) could not possibly have been inserted into
>the journal (untouched by the editor) without the editor knowing about it.
>I use the word "editor" throughout the above to mean the "academic
>editor".
>
>Please note that I am not trying to excuse the publisher. Publishers, whom
>I spoke to in Charleston, were like me astonished by what Phil has
>uncovered. I have never heard of anything like it and nor has anyone else
>I spoke to.
>
>Anthony