Michael Wood ( michael.wood@port.ac.uk )

1. Why isn’t the customer always right in academia? The peer review culture and the complication and irrelevance problems. Michael Wood (michael.wood@port.ac.uk) Paper presented at Portsmouth Business School R&KT Conference, 19 June 2012 http://woodm.myweb.port.ac.uk/presentations.htm

2. The core products of universities are degree courses and academic research published in journals. Unlike most other products and services, the quality of both courses and academic articles are reviewed mainly by peers, and only to a limited extent by customers. (Student feedback on academic courses is obviously collected, but this generally refers to the delivery not the content – which is considered a matter for the experts, or peers, only.) This may, and often does, lead to two types of problem from the perspective of customers. Firstly, academic knowledge may become unnecessarily complicated – peers, being expert in their subject, are unlikely to see this as a problem which should be addressed. Secondly, there is a danger that academic knowledge becomes increasingly irrelevant from the perspective of the end user. Obviously, if customers become dissatisfied with the offerings of academia, they may seek equivalent services from other providers, so there is a strong argument that universities should try to tackle these problems.

3. Academics are often thought to tackle irrelevant problems in complicated ways • Irrelevance often not noticed because of the complication • Complication may be justified by the erroneous assumption of relevance I think there is a lot of truth in this, and the problem is often peer review

4. I think most of what I want to say is obviously right, but you may disagree Please heckle as appropriate …

5. A product or service can be reviewed by ... • Producer (but other stakeholders likely to want a check!) • Users or customers (via market or otherwise) • Peers • Others

6. A restaurant may be reviewed by … • Users (customers) • Individuals • Experts (newspaper columnists, Michelin inspectors) on behalf of customers • Other stakeholders: e.g. • Animals (which might be eaten) • The environment … Peer review by other chefs only taken seriously in so far as this is assumed to mirror customer review

7. Academic courses are reviewed by: • Peers • Subject experts • Other teachers • Users or customers • Students • Businesses (applied courses only) • Other stakeholders … ? Course content typically reviewed mainly by subject experts, but businesses may have some input.

8. Academic research – journal articles – are reviewed by: • Peers … only!

9. Academic culture seems to assume that: • Experts (peers) know best • User / customer / other stakeholder review on periphery only (e.g. delivery of courses), but not content) But ….

10. Academic knowledge is a means to an end, and peer review might: • Assume inappropriate ends from the users’ perspective – the irrelevance problem • Ignore other stakeholders • Make the message too complicated for the user, either in presentation or content or both – the complication problem For example …

11. Who would be interested in these articles? For example … See 4* Management journals: e.g. Management Science British Journal of Management Compare these for usefulness and user-friendliness with two papers by A Einstein Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig? ZurElektrodynamikbewegterKörper

12. And what about the usefulness and user-friendliness of the message? For example …. … in many cases I suspect real simplification may be possible – see http://woodm.myweb.port.ac.uk/nothard.pdfandhttp://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=171312&sectioncode=26and …

13. Part of Table 2 in Glebbeek and Bax (2004)

14. Could easily be more user friendly: Results and curvilinear predictions for Region 1 and mean absenteeism and age (Model 4)

15. Journals do pay lip service to usefulness and user-friendliness But users are not consulted for their views. Why not …?

16. Academia could produce more useful output. But: • Vested interests of peers in preserving mystique of expertise • Within a paradigm it may be difficult to see possibilities outside • Little culture of simplicity • E.g. editor’s complaint that my paper was too simple: it did not provide “complex solutions to common problems”

17. So … • Infuse some customer / user / wider stakeholder review into the peer review culture • Not arguing that needs of business should be paramount – always multiple stakeholders • Encourage reviews from multiple perspectives (e.g. see suggestion at http://woodm.myweb.port.ac.uk/PrJournalProbsAlts.pptand http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=411308

18. The core products of universities are degree courses and academic research published in journals. Unlike most other products and services, the quality of both courses and academic articles are reviewed mainly by peers, and only to a limited extent by customers. (Student feedback on academic courses is obviously collected, but this generally refers to the delivery not the content – which is considered a matter for the experts, or peers, only.) This may, and often does, lead to two types of problem from the perspective of customers. Firstly, academic knowledge may become unnecessarily complicated – peers, being expert in their subject, are unlikely to see this as a problem which should be addressed. Secondly, there is a danger that academic knowledge becomes increasingly irrelevant from the perspective of the end user. Obviously, if customers become dissatisfied with the offerings of academia, they may seek equivalent services from other providers, so there is a strong argument that universities should try to tackle these problems.