Achieving Research Quality

Researchers are under extreme pressure to publish high-quality research.
What defines such research, though? Is it only research published as articles
in journals recognized worldwide as journals of distinction and exemplars of
excellence? If so, research must be both original and courageous (Lindgreen et
al., 2021c), as such research is published in the leading journals.
Must high-quality research (also) create value for students? If so, then
exoteric theories probably are not of interest. Instead, researchers should find
a way to demonstrate the relevance of what they discuss, so students will
appreciate the value-in-use of the research (Lindgreen et al., 2020c).
Does high-quality research perhaps entail providing solutions to grand
challenges and wicked problems that society faces? This would call for
researchers to redefine the traditional views on universities’ relationship with
the wider society (Lindgreen et al., 2021b). Would a redefinition then mean
that researchers should be obliged to collaborate more with practitioners (Di
Benedetto et al., 2019)?
Should researchers pursue all three objectives—publication in leading jour-
nals, value provided to students, and societal impact—simultaneously? Would
it even be possible to conduct research that achieves all of these objectives at
the same time, or are they partly competing? For instance, research published
in top-tier journals is regularly criticized for being too narrowly focused on
examining narrow problems with high levels of methodological rigor, thereby
neglecting societal relevance. In this editorial, we attempt to answer what
characterizes research quality before we first examine how to achieve and
subsequently evidence research of high quality.