The Open Access Movement: A Primer for Higher Education in disseminating Management
Research Data
Arnold Mwanzu1, Rodney Malesi2
1.
Chandaria School of Business, USIU, Nairobi, Kenya
2.
Chandaria School of Business, USIU, Nairobi, Kenya
Correspondence: Arnold Mwanzu, Chandaria School of Business, USIU, Nairobi, Kenya. P.O Box
14634-0800 Nairobi. Tel: +2543606233 E-mail: amwanzu@usiu.ac.ke
Abstract
Open Access holds vast benefits for researchers, institutions, nations and society as a whole. It brings
increased visibility, usage and impact for research. There is growing evidence to show that countries also
benefit because Open Access increases the impact of the research in which they invest public money. The
sphere of management research is growing tremendously, hence an increase in the knowledge pool. As
for universities in Africa, there is still a need of communicating management research and making it
accessible to all interested stakeholders. This paper will endeavor to showcase the benefits of open access
movement in communicating management practices, while providing solutions to universities on how to
engage in this movement.
Key Words; Open access, Management Research, Higher Education, Universities
Introduction
For many management researchers, it is vital that their findings which subsequently become new
knowledge give an impact on the managerial practice; however, much of this research does not reach the
practitioner audience because of either lack of accessibility or limited access. The open access movement
urges researchers to deposit copies of their published articles in an open access repository while also
encouraging them to publish their research articles in open access journals that do not require commercial
subscription. The primary objective of this sensitization is to popularize the research output and make
available free to users both within and outside the institutions. For instance scholars or faculty of Kenyan
private universities may research on relevant topics such as curriculum re-design, Organizational
development trends among others and their findings rendered relevant to the entire higher education
management fraternity if and only when it is accessible for free. Open access is the ultimate
communicator of management research findings.
The campaign for open access is on course globally and there even exists numerous declarations and
statements by various groups during conferences and
conventions that further contribute to the
understanding of open access, Such as: "Access to Research Publications: Universities UK Position
Statement,"; "Australian Research Information Infrastructure Committee Open access Statement,"; Group
of eight's "Statement on open access to scholarly information,"; "IFLA Statement on Open Access to
Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation,"; "Messina Declaration,"; "Scottish Declaration of
Open Access,"; " and "Timeline of the Open Access Movement"
According to Houghton (2009), open access is defined as free availability on the internet, permitting users
to read, download, copy distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for
indexing pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal,
or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only
constraint on reproduction and distribution and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to
give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
Open access therefore does not require that copyright laws change in order for it to exist. There is rapidly
expanding stock of management research yet access to this pool of knowledge is often difficult because of
the restriction provided by copyright and the relatively expensive subscription charges of scholarly
journal, both their printed and web based versions.
1.1 Definition and the Budapest Open access Initiative
According to OSI (2005), the term ‘Open Access’ was first properly defined at a meeting in Budapest of a
variety of open access advocates (even though at the time they didn’t all use the term open access yet),
brought together by the Open Society Institute in early December 2001. Out of that meeting came the socalled Budapest Open Access Initiative and ‘open access’ was defined in that Initiative as follows:
1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide,
perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work
publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible
purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship as well as the right to make small numbers of
printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the
permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon
initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution,
scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable
open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the
biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).
1.2 Benefits of the Open Access Movement
According to Suber (2010) different stakeholders in the system of scholarly communications can and will
benefit from no restricted access to research and data:
OA serves the interests of many groups.

Authors: OA gives them a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based journal,
no matter how prestigious or popular, and demonstrably increases the visibility and impact of
their work.

Readers: OA gives them barrier-free access to the literature they need for their research,
unconstrained by the budgets of the libraries where they may have access privileges. OA
increases reader reach and retrieval power. OA also gives barrier-free access to the software they
use in their research. Free online literature is free online data for software that facilitates full-text
searching, indexing, mining, summarizing, translating, querying, linking, recommending,
alerting, "mash-ups" and other forms of processing and analysis.

Teachers and students: OA puts rich and poor on an equal footing for these key resources and
eliminates the need for payments or permissions to reproduce and distribute content.

Libraries: OA solves the pricing crisis for scholarly journals. It also solves what I've called the
permission crisis. OA also serves library interests in other, indirect ways. Librarians want to help
users find the information they need, regardless of the budget-enforced limits on the library's own
collection. Academic librarians want to help faculty increase their audience and impact, and help
the university raise its research profile.

Universities: OA increases the visibility of their faculty and research, reduces their expenses for
journals, and advances their mission to share knowledge.

Journals and publishers: OA makes their articles more visible, discoverable, retrievable, and
useful. If a journal is OA, then it can use this superior visibility to attract submissions and
advertising, not to mention readers and citations. If a subscription-based journal provides OA to
some of its content (e.g. selected articles in each issue, all back issues after a certain period, etc.),
then it can use its increased visibility to attract all the same benefits plus subscriptions. If a
journal permits OA through postprint archiving, then it has an edge in attracting authors over
journals that do not permit postprint archiving. Of course subscription-based journals and their
publishers have countervailing interests as well and often resist or oppose OA. But it
oversimplifies the situation to think that all their interests pull against OA.

Funding agencies: OA increases the return on their investment in research, making the results of
the funded research more widely available, more discoverable, more retrievable, and more useful.
When funding agencies disburse public funds, OA helps in a second way as well, by providing
fundamental fairness to taxpayers or public access to the results of publicly-funded research.

Governments: As funders of research, governments benefit from OA in all the ways that funding
agencies do (see previous entry). OA also promotes democracy by sharing non-classified
government information as widely as possible.
Citizens: OA gives them access to peer-reviewed research, most of which is unavailable in public
libraries, and gives them access to the research for which they have already paid through their
taxes. But even those with no interest in reading this literature for themselves will benefit
indirectly because researchers will benefit directly. OA accelerates not only research but the
translation of research into new medicines, useful technologies, solved problems, and informed
decisions that benefit everyone
Rationale for open access to Research &Development in Micro and Small businesses
Access to primary and secondary data and in this case management research data is necessary for micro
and small enterprises to thrive in business development. There are two routes to open access i.e. gold and
green open access. Gold open access is the publication model which requires authors to submit articles to
publishers who further make the articles freely available on journals. However, the cost of publication is
covered by a one-off fee paid by the author. Public Library of Science (PLOS) is one of the major open
access databases that give avenues for authors to popularize their research output. The green open access
on the other hand is whereby an author deposits their article either before or after publication into an open
access repository which further makes copies available upon publication or after an embargo period.
The rationale behind the open access movement is that faster and wider access to journals speeds up the
research and discovery process, thereby increasing returns to investment in R&D and potentially reduces
the time and cost involved for a given outcome while also improves the efficiency of R&D.
The vital question is whether there are new opportunities and new models for scholarly publishing that
would better serve researchers and better communicate and disseminate research findings. There are
limitations on access and efficiency under the subscription publishing model, however there is a positive
impact of enhanced access to research outputs which is brought about by open access. It basically
introduces ‘accessibility’ and ‘efficiency’ parameters into calculating returns to Research and
Development (R&D) initiatives of Small and Medium enterprises. There may be substantial benefits to be
gained from more open access to management research findings.
Institutions of higher education ought to be encouraged to add to the body of knowledge by availing
research findings or policy briefs on open access platforms like repositories and open access journals.
Micro and small business can easily be supported by Universities if researchers embrace the open access
movement. This is because they venture into R&D and require information from research findings to
actualize their potential.
Open access movement and knowledge management
In less than a decade, open access has become a movement, linked to the broader open knowledge
philosophy that emphasizes maximizing the potential use and reuse of information and knowledge by
making it freely and openly available via the World Wide Web. This led to open access to scholarly
content in response to the ever increasing cost of information to the end user part of the ‘open knowledge’
philosophy.
As a fast emerging movement open access makes scholarly work easily accessible outside universities,
and eases dependence on commercial publishers. This includes access to research reports, journal articles,
government reports, conference papers and theses. The open access movement also builds on scientific
tradition of open communication and publication to disseminate the results of research as widely as
possible (Rossini, 2007). This promotes the interest of groups like: authors, teachers and students,
journals and publishers, readers, universities, funding agencies, libraries, citizens and governments.
Driven by the rapid increase of electronic publishing and the aim to overcome shortcomings of the
subscription-based system, open access (OA) has become a serious alternative to traditional publishing of
scientific knowledge. This openness to knowledge will provide the motivation for the accelerated growth
of knowledge societies which are dependent on the capacity to provide and sustain knowledge citizens
and knowledge workers (Swan, 2010).
In addition, the transformation to knowledge societies hinges on the free flow of information which is
essential to bridging the knowledge gaps between privileged and under privileged universities. This
unhindered access to information and knowledge will not only enhance open access but also promote
social inclusion and economic empowerment in universities thus, collusion of open access and knowledge
management (Swan, 2007).
Irrespective of the philosophical underpinnings of open access, the ultimate goal is to share information
and knowledge for a better society for the growth and development of society. Swan (2007), states that,
while most researchers strongly agree with the ideas of open access movements, a broad adaptation of
those new principles is far from being realized due to the fact that scientists are still lacking incentives to
change their publication behavior towards Open Access and commercial publishers find it economically
friendly to retain the traditional subscription-based model.
All in all, discussions about open access are no longer about whether it is a good idea but rather, focusing
on sustainability, maximizing Open Access's impact and best practices. This will enhance knowledge
generation through innovation which is critical for the growth of society. For this reason, the chasm
between knowledge management and open access has to be traversed to ensure that knowledge as a
commodity is there as a public good.
Management Research and Publishing; the Kenyan Perspective
According to UNESCO, Open Access (OA) movement in Africa is growing. Over 300 OA journals are
published in sub-Saharan Africa and there are over 40 OA repositories in the region and at least twice as
many are planned. African Journals Online and Bioline International support journal publishers in the
region. African Journals Online (AJOL) is an online service to provide access to African-published
research, and increase worldwide knowledge of indigenous scholarship (over 115 journals are OA).
De Rond and Miller (2005) have listed the various benefits for publishing for faculty and researchers.
These include enhanced tenure at the university, ability to be listed in prestigious learning societies;
ultimately, serves an existential purpose in enabling researchers’ to leave a mark on the intellectual
history of diverse disciplines.
Management in this regard, Harris (2008) clearly observes that study of management, like that of
economics, stands at the crossroads of the social sciences and business practice. As a result, management
thinking may appear in a wide array of academic journals. In fact, attempts to confine faculty’s journal
choices to a particular area may deter them from extending their research in its logical development of
ideas.
For example, the discipline of management includes the ethical, cultural, economic, and environmental
aspects of international trade. Management researchers study the psychological and sociological impacts
of technological developments, and management writers consider the causes of and propose solutions to
economic inequality among racial and ethnic minorities. The field’s diversity is made manifest not only
through the many different, often disconnected, topics that management scholars choose to pursue but
also through the multiple communities of which they are members.
Harris (2008), further states that this array of interests is demonstrated in the divisions and interest groups
included in the Academy of Management, which include the following: Business policy and strategy;
Careers; Conflict management; Critical management studies; Entrepreneurship; Gender and diversity in
organizations; Health care management; Human resources; International management; Management
consulting; Management education and development; Management history; Managerial and
organizational development;
Operations management; Organization and management theory;
Organizational behavior; Organizational communication and information systems; Organizational
development and change; Organizations and the natural environment; Public and non-profit management;
Research methods; Social issues in management; Spirituality and religion; Technology and innovation
management.
With the growth of management data, there is a need to share this research data among various
stakeholders. This is adequately captured by Borgman (2012), who observes that the pressure to share
data comes from many quarters: funding agencies—both public and private—policy bodies such as
national academies and research councils, journal publishers, educators, the public at large, and from
researchers themselves. These stakeholders each have their own reasons for requiring or encouraging data
sharing.
There are indeed various challenges in making African published works visible. Culturally, and in terms
of scholarship, not every author or work on Africa is visible, not all that is invisible is irrelevant, and not
all that is visible is relevant (Copans, 1993).
In the light of the above listing, it makes it necessary therefore researchers and academia in Kenya, to
circumvent the major obstacles posed by the existing elite journals, and strive to make their research
visible.
However Africa continues to advance in scholarly publishing according to Nyamnjoh (2004) who cites a
CODESRIA document that records that CODESRIA publications have also served as the springboard to
international recognition for many renowned African scholars, including some who have occupied
important functions in its management and scientific structures. This is a great indicator that African
scholarly output is of necessity.
Open Access Movement: bridging the gap
Open access is seen as constituting a way to better connect the “developing world” to the system of
science, by potentially providing access to scientific literatures published in the developed world (Chan
and Costa, 2005) More generally, OA is perceived as potentially extending the readership and reach of
scientific publications from the developing world, and thus as increasing its visibility and impact
The table below shows the distribution of the various types of open access repositories worldwide. From
this appearance, it can be deduced that there are several of the repositories located within the American
and European region. From the figure below, it can be observed that there is a sparse distribution of open
access repositories in Africa, indicating low usage or low funding for research that needs to be updated
publicly.
Figure 1: Distribution of open access repositories worldwide (source; Repositories66.org)
Fig 2: Distribution of Open access Repositories worldwide (source; OPenDOAR)
The above graph shows the distribution of open access repositories within the various continents.
There is a paltry 4% of the repositories within Africa.
The above two sources indicate that Africa still lags behind in the open access movement; much as it
would be beneficial for institutions within Africa.
Conclusions and Recommendations
As an author, reviewer, or editor one should submit papers to quality journals with open access or
reasonable pricing practices Secondly one can post their own work to an institutional or disciplinary
open-access repository. There is a need to review, understand, and modify, if necessary, any publishing or
editing contracts
Second, researchers should consult their libraries to be made aware of the benefits of publishing in OA
journals and archiving their intellectual products, at least in their respective institutional repositories.
However, in order to help academics, this study recommends that university librarians first be converted
to the OA movement themselves. Only once they become knowledgeable about the issues involved will
they be able to serve the users better.
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