Academics at play: Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor

It is increasingly common for academic work to be described as a ‘publication game’. For some, the idea of academic game-playing serves as a convenient metaphor for explaining concrete phenomenon such as professional advancement or instrumental careerism in the context of national research assessments such as the recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK. However, we suggest that academic game-playing should not solely be understood in metaphorical terms. Rather, we propose that many of the attributes of play – as articulated by play theorists – can be usefully applied to understand and problematize academic research under the contemporary ‘regime of excellence’. Drawing on extensive interviews with critical management scholars, we argue that academia is characterized by a ‘lusory attitude’ towards research; this means that scholars relate to their work as players relate to a game. Ultimately, we seek to show how the separation between ‘mere’ game-playing and ‘real’ research is not possible to maintain in practice. In doing so, we also problematize the ‘separation thesis’ in play theory, which holds that play, by its very nature, is strictly separated from ‘reality’.