Beyond the “ceremonialism” of internationalization strategies

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas (Journal of Business Management), a pioneer player in the field of administration in Brazil. RAE and other journals such as the Brazilian Journal of Public Administration (RAP) and RAUSP - Revista de Administração (RAUSP Management Journal) are landmarks of the beginning of the scientific production in administration in the country. After 60 years, RAE has endured and witnessed the creation of more than 300 academic journals in the field (Rosa & Romani-Dias, 2019b). The history of this precious publication is characterized by its capacity to innovate and how it has shaped the paths of knowledge in administration, building its reputation as one of the most important business management journals in Brazil.

In an article published in the special issue of RAE’s 60^th anniversary, Lilian Alfaia Monteiro and I demonstrated that academic journals are crucial actors in the production and development of scientific knowledge, together with researchers, academic programs, regulating agencies, and funders (such as CAPES and CNPq) (Peci & Monteiro, 2021). As the main means of disseminating and communicating scientific contributions, journals play a key role in the competitive dynamics of science, as they are ranked and help to “rank” researchers and programs, stimulating an inherent competition logic. In Brazil, this role is stimulated by competition promoted by regulators and funders such as CAPES and CNPq, who impose the ranking logic to programs, researchers, and academic journals.

The ranking is based on several metrics that differentiate journals, among which, “internationalization” currently stands out. As demonstrated by Rosa and Romani-Dias (2019a, 2019b), Brazilian journals understand and materialize internationalization in different ways. Almost 60% of journals from the highest Qualis (A2) strata adopt bilingual or English-language publications; from stratum B1, 73.33% of journals also choose this type of publication; and from B5, 100% of journals publish exclusively in Portuguese. However, the authors note that most national journals do not reach a significant presence in the main national (SciELO) and international (Scopus, Web of Science, among others) indexers and present low impact metrics compared to international peers, indicating a certain risk to adopt internationalization strategies in a “ceremonial” way.

RAP’s internationalization strategy encompasses several of these dimensions. The option for a bilingual publication raised the number of international submissions to 366 from 2015 to 2020, while national submissions continued to increase: we surpassed 700 submissions in 2020. RAP is well ranked in the Scopus (H 17 index, which increases annually), and has already entered the Emerging Sources Citation Index of the Web of Science.

I would like to highlight RAP’s prominent position in the H Scholar, together with journals with a long history, such as RAE. The h5 index is a bibliometric index created by Google, made available on Google Scholar, and refers to the h index of articles published in the last five years. The h5 index reflects the highest number h of a publication, where h articles published in 5 years have been cited at least h times each. RAP ranks in 18^th place in Portuguese, with an h5 index of 23 and a median of 35, ranked first in the area of administration. In comparative terms, RAP is close to international journals published in English.

Much is still necessary, so “internationalization” is no longer just a “ceremonial” strategy and represents the Brazilian science contribution in the global context. This requires collective action from several Brazilian journals and collaboration strategies, going beyond the short-term competition and procedural regulation that currently dominates the field. Examples from other areas of knowledge in Brazil, such as public health, as well as good international practices outside the Anglo-Saxon axis can guide debates and new strategies.

This issue of RAP presents eleven articles with analyses on relevant topics of public administration. The first article brings the contribution of professors Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal and Paulo Figueiredo on the challenges of technological innovation in Brazil. The subsequent studies offer crucial analyses of public-private partnerships, media discourses on privatization, and post-disaster recovery in an emerging country. Other important works focus on the main regulatory capture strategies and their respective forms of measurement, identifying the cultures of public waste, offering historical readings of public policy, and analyzing the rise of emergency basic income as a viable public policy in the Brazilian scenario. Finally, the last three articles assess the relationship between the electoral cycle and the practice of earnings management in Brazilian municipalities, discuss the fiscal crisis in the states, focusing on Rio de Janeiro, the tax recovery regime, and analyze the relationship between revenues of funding and the performance and electoral success of candidacies for members of city councils, confirming a strong association between money, voting, and electoral success.

I wish you all a pleasant read!

Alketa Peci

REFERÊNCIAS

• Peci, A., & Monteiro, L. A. (2021). Revistas acadêmicas como agentes do campo científico de administração. RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas, 61(3), 1-15. Recuperado de http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-759020210306
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-759020210306
• Rosa, R., & Romani-Dias, M. (2019a). A Presença e o Impacto de Periódicos Brasileiros da Área de Administração, Contabilidade e Turismo em Bases Científicas. Revista Eletrônica de Ciência Administrativa, 18(3), 327-348. Recuperado de https://doi.org/10.21529/RECADM.2019014
  » https://doi.org/10.21529/RECADM.2019014
• Rosa, R., & Romani-Dias, M. (2019b). Indexação de Periódicos e a Política de Avaliação Científica: uma análise do campo de administração, contabilidade e turismo no Brasil. Journal of Profess. Bus. Review, 4(2), 1-17. Recuperado de http://dx.doi.org/10.26668/businessreview/2019.v4i2.168
  » https://doi.org/10.26668/businessreview/2019.v4i2.168

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  09 July 2021
• Date of issue
  May-Jun 2021