Best Journals versus Best Fit Journals: A Strategic Orientation to Research Quality

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating and delivering value to the customers, and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders. If for a moment, we assume that the developers of the RQF scheme are customers of the university sector, can marketing develop something of value for them in their pursuit of research quality? Decision makers in DEST need the input of the disciplines areas which they seek to measure to determine a research assessment framework that provides the DEST with a benchmarking system. This creates a market opportunity to present a framework of value to the DEST, and of benefit for the universities. The paper proposes a new framework for assessing research output based on the research goals of the selected university, internal research strengths of a department, and the ongoing support for development and enhancement of disciplinary thought within the marketing academy. Presented here is a system of 'best fit' between institutional research output and ideal publication mediums, rather than a universal rank of "best" journals.