Editorial
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPIF-07-2019-101 |
| Pages | 330-332 |
| Date | 10 June 2019 |
| Published date | 10 June 2019 |
| Author | Elaine Worzala |
| Subject Matter | Real estate & property,Property valuation & finance,Property management & built environment |
Editorial
Enough is enough: it is time to band together to protect our faculty and the real
estate discipline
I have spent the last 30 years of my life defending real estate and real estate research to my
finance and economics faculty. I have often been the lone wolf in my department trying to
convince finance faculty that real estate is a legitimate area of study and that real estate
journals are as high quality as straight finance or economics journals. This fight has
occurred at every school I have been a part of and has always been unproductive and
stressful, pitting colleagues against each other.
In most cases, tenure was eventually granted if the faculty member had a reasonable
number of peer-reviewed articles and some of them were in quality, say B rated journals.
However, over the last few months, numerous US-based institutions with real estate
educational offerings have started to find it harder to get the junior faculty through the
promotion and tenure process. Even at schools that are not research focused and,
consequently, where faculty have high teaching loads precluding the time for in-depth
research. This is because the Dean’s offices have decided to start following ubiquitous lists
to rate their faculty. One list, in particular, is the Australian Business Dean Council’s (ABDC)
list (see https://abdc.edu.au/). Why a US Business School Dean should want to rely on a list
created by Australian and New Zealand researchers is not clear? Even more bizarre, the
ABDC list was created by three hospitality experts without any input from real estate
experts according to several real estate professors. I have tried to confirm this with ABDC
but they have not responded to my query. The list includes only two A level journals for real
estate but the experts were able to come up with one A* and four A rated journals that are
focused on hospitality. Is not that interesting? Apparently, this is because ABDC decided to
lump real estate in with commercial services rather than the more traditional (at least in the
USA) finance or economics disciplines.
It is no surprise that editors of the two A real estate journals on the list, Real Estate
Economics and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, have been inundated with
submissions. The editors of other real estate journals (including this publication) have
reported a smaller number of submissions as well as a significant change in the quality of
submissions and the focus of research manuscripts. Researchers have moved to more
quantitative and theoretical-based submissions as young researchers try to keep their jobs
and more established researchers their compensation. I actually heard that one of the top
researchers in our field and a senior faculty member at a prominent institution allegedly had
his pay reduced last year because he was not publishing in the “A”journals on the list.
He has decided to “game”the system and switch his research so he can get in to the Journal
of Business Ethics. This journal is on the list so if he publishes there his Summer pay will be
reinstated. As most of you know, moving from publishing in one discipline to another is not
typically easy as the research methodologies and styles of writing are often very different.
To be successful, this researcher will need to team up with a researcher that is already
publishing in that area and preferably that journal.
To me, this is ridiculous, counterproductive and a complete waste of human capital.
Not to mention, it is a lot easier said than done as the researcher lacks the deep knowledge in
that subject area.
As I have explored this topic more, I have found that researchers in the UK have even
less opportunity to publish in real estate journals and be recognised for their research if
they decide to buck the system and publish there anyway. It is my understanding that the
Journal of Property Investment &
Finance
Vol. 37 No. 4, 2019
pp. 330-332
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1463-578X
DOI 10.1108/JPIF-07-2019-101
330
JPIF
37,4
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