Para além da editoração: as relações de poder e a prática editorial em revistas científicas da área de administração

Abstract

This research aimed to understand the influence of power relations in editorial practice in scientific journals in the area of Administration. To answer this objective, we sought to understand the genesis and structure of the editorial field of scientific communication in Administration with rules, force relationships and types of capitals; investigate the relationships of publishers with the other agents and institutions that make up the field and; understand with the social structure of the field is internalized and externalized enabling the formation of durable provisions (habitus). Being inserted in the area of organizational studies, for this research we used the concepts of Bourdieu (field, capital and habitus) in a relational perspective and presented a study with management journals that were included in the list of impact factor of spell 2017. This is a qualitative and quantitative research, descriptive exploratory approach and cross-sectional and cross-sectional temporality. Data were collected through documentary research and interviews. And the documentary research was carried out in websites, articles and editorials that dealt with aspects related to the standardization of the field through agencies, indexers and scientometric indicators, in addition to data collection on the pages of the 79 (seventy-nine) journals studied and on the Spell page. The interview was conducted with 11 (eleven) editors-in-chief of the pre-selected journals, and the choice was made for convenience. Descriptive Statistics, Multiple Correspondence Analysis, and Thematic Analysis were used for data analysis. The results indicate that power relations influence editorial practice to the extent that the publisher’s interest lies in owning the specific capital of the field or maintaining the value of the capital assigned to it in the scientific field. It was possible to see that there is influence through submission to indexers and the obsession in the impact factor, lack of institutional support, lack of collaboration of agents, interest in preserving social capital and competition. Such power relations result in an exaggerated search for following database criteria, manipulating impact indexes through self-citation, in the editor acting in several stages of the editorial process, in the editor evaluating articles or adapting the evaluation process, in the privilege given to researchers in the network of relationships and researchers who have recognition of the field and in the political influence of publishers who are part of bureaucratic instances with the aim of subverting the scientific order. The field also expresses interest in relation to the editor and can corroborate the change of editorial practice, this occurs, although rare, through offers of money, request for approval of articles and the use of links to try to manipulate the Editor.