Let's get research basics right 3

The proposed system for measuring research output might work for the sciences. For the social sciences and humanities it would be a disaster.

It would incentivise the proliferation of lower quality work on the grounds that, without peer review, six articles in journals with an impact factor of 1 would look more "productive" than one paper in a journal with an impact factor of 5. It would put yet another nail in the coffin of the book. And it raises possibly perverse consequences for hybrid fields such as business and management because it would encourage publishing in high- impact journals in, say, medicine, rather than core business and management journals that have lower impact scores.

Original knowledge production would be the victim.

Ken Starkey, Nottingham University Business School.