The “publish or perish”culture has indeed overtaken the academic landscape, leading many of us—academics and researchers—to prioritize the quantity of our work over its quality. In the context of journal publication, the pressure to publish the “right” number of articles in every issue is pushing editors almost to the edge, forcing us to make difficult decisions that sometimes compromise our own integrity as academics and the integrity of the articles we publish.
As an academic who has derived much of my own knowledge from empirical articles (I spent countless hours sitting in my university libraries back in the 90s and 2000s poring over journals), I truly believe in the power of reading, and in the power, rigor, and integrity of academic journals. Back in those days, when access to knowledge was not as pervasive as it is today with the multitude of online databases and AI-powered search tools, we had to rely completely on printed journals. We would comb through thepages of printed books and articles—very patiently so—in seek of knowledge, and at the end of the long process, every piece of information about theories, constructs and research methodology felt hard-won.