Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige

J. Scott Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania

Article comments

Postprint version. Published in Interfaces, Volume 10 , Issue 2, April 1980, pages 80-86.
Publisher URL: http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/interfaces.html

Abstract

Modest support was found for the "Dr. Fox Phenomenon": Management scientists gain prestige by unintelligible writing. A positive correlation (+0.7) was found between the prestige of 10 management journals and their "fog indices" (reading difficulty). Furthermore, 32 faculty members were asked to rate the prestige of four passages from management journals. The content of the passages was held constant while readability was varied. Those passages that were more difficult to read were rated higher in research competence.