Small world and beyond: A rejoinder

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Dec 2002 by Erhan Erkut

Perhaps the clearest example of the differences in importance given to various cognitive outputs, by a Canadian business school, is the research incentives policy of Dery and Toulouse's own institution, Hautes Etudes Commerciales Montreal (HEC, 2000). While this policy recognizes the importance of different forms of scholarly activity, it provides incentives only for publications. A point system is used to aggregate different forms of research output, and faculty members receive financial rewards based on the number of points they collect every year. This incentive policy ranks journals into four classes. Class A contains journals that are considered to be in the top 15% of their field, Class B contains journals that are in the top 16% to 50%, and Class C contains most of the rest. Class D is reserved for journals of provincial, national, or international trade associations or government organizations that do not make it to the other three classes (for example, because they are not indexed). Under this incentive system, sole-authored articles in journal Classes A, B, C, and D generate 7, 3, 2, and 1 point respectively. Books are also classified into four categories.and produce credits of 8, 4.5, 3, or 1.5 points. For example, a book intended for practitioners or a general audience generates 1.5 points. To match the credit associated with one Class A journal publication, one would have to write five such books. Full articles in refereed conference proceedings receive 0.5 points. Cases receive points only if they are published in a refereed journal. This elaborate incentive policy reflects HEC's priorities in research and its dissemination, and it is in support of some of the choices I made in the study.

Dery and Toulouse (2002) raise many interesting points in the remainder of their commentary-too many, in fact, to respond to here. I would like to touch on a few of them however. In the section entitled "Scientific models", they point out the emergence of a new type of cognitive output, such as a new product or software program, that differs "from the previous output in that it is not found in traditional written form but in material form, both numerical and otherwise." They feel that this "science in action", as they call it, "cannot be evaluated with the same criteria used to assess yesterday's science." This is a very valid observation, and draws attention to one more dimension that perhaps should be added to their evaluation framework (Table 1). I would argue that these new activities could be, at least in part, captured by a study that counts papers and citations if the faculty member makes an effort to publish articles about the product or software. As just one example, I will offer the case of Jean-Marc Rousseau, who is one of the most prominent operations researchers in Canada. He created Giro Inc. (HASTUS) in 1979, which is a very successful spin-off company that employs 160 people. According to the company web site, it "provides computer software and related consulting services for transportation applications notably in the area of public transit scheduling and routing of pick-up and delivery operations." Dr. Rousseau has co-authored a total of 35 papers on problems that are closely associated with his company, several of which describe the software developed by the firm.