Digitalization and academic research: knowing of and using digital services and software to develop scientific papers

Purpose This paper explores how digitalization affects the academic research publication process by taking into account the perspective of management scholars. It provides an overview of the digital professional services dedicated to academic research, and investigates academics’ awareness of, the impact on the publication process of, and scholars’ expectations regarding digital services and software. Design/methodology/approach This explorative study adopted a qualitative approach by performing direct observations of websites regarding digital professional research services and in-depth interviews with national and international management scholars. Findings The multiple digital professional services dedicated to academic research enable authors to develop a scientific paper independently or with the support of professionals. The scholars’ awareness regarding the digital services and software was limited, because of both the plethora of options on the market and the frequent use of the same digital tools over time. In impact terms, these tools enable scholars to improve research quality and to increase productivity. However, the negative effects led scholars to express different expectations about how they can be improved and what difficulties should be overcome to favor the publication process. Practical implications The results of this study provide suggestions both for scholars who engage in academic research and digital services and software providers. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the ongoing development of digitalization in support of the research publication process from the perspective of academics.