The Southern Management Association (SMA) founded and owns two journals – the Journal of Management (JOM) and Journal of Management Scientific Reports (JOMSR) – that play an integral role in our field and in the sustainability of SMA. Sage Publishing has been our publishing partner with these journals for over twenty years.

Publishers are increasingly partnering with artificial intelligence (AI) providers for access to “behind the paywall” (i.e., restricted) content with which to train large language models (LLMs). In the eyes of publishers, AI represents another compensated distribution channel, and the provision of this access helps ensure that published materials are incorporated into AI topic summaries and search results.

To date, we are aware of no agreement that Sage Publishing has with any artificial intelligence providers, even as they have promised to share royalties on any licensing income according to the contracts we have in place (see https://sr.ithaka.org/our-work/generative-ai-licensing-agreement-tracker/ for known agreements). Publishers also argue that much content is already being leveraged by AI LLMs, but without publisher compensation or control. Thus, the inclusion of JOM and JOMSR content in AI LLMs would potentially provide incremental revenues to SMA above and beyond our current contract. Journal revenues comprise a significant portion of our annual budget, enabling us to offer a high-quality conference experience, maintain affordable member dues and registration costs, fund doctoral consortia, and reinvest to keep our journals competitive.

Nevertheless, academics have raised questions about the ethics of distributing journal content to AI LLMs. These concerns include the potential inaccurate interpretation of results, inadequate compensation for authors, violation of open-access publishing agreements, the absence of “opt out” author agreements, the potential inaccurate attribution of work (i.e., mistaken citations), and potential unfairness as authors lose access to their own work behind AI paywalls (see Kwon, 2024 and Society of Authors Policy Team, 2024). We are sensitive to these critiques and their ramifications to authors.

Our journals comprise a small fraction of Sage’s total portfolio, but because SMA owns its journals, we are in the unique position to restrict or enable our journal content as part of Sage’s AI LLM licensing agreements. We are also currently renegotiating our contract with Sage, and we do not want to make such a potentially important decision without giving our members a chance to be heard. Recognizing the potential significance of this decision, our board voted to solicit your feedback on this matter. By May 30, 2025, please reach out and let us know your position on this matter using the link below. We will collate all feedback, report back to membership a summary of the results, and incorporate this information into our contract negotiations. We also stand ready to discuss these issues with members as needed. Thank you in advance for making your voice heard on this matter:

https://utk.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9ZDzZmFItBeJsJ8

References

Kwon, D. 2024. Publishers are selling papers to train AIs – and making millions of dollars.
Nature, 636: 529-530. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-04018-5

Society of Authors. 2024. The SoA responds to Taylor & Francis Group’s sale of data to
develop AI. Retrieved from: https://societyofauthors.org/2024/07/22/the-soa-responds-to-taylor-francis-groups-sale-of-data-to-develop-ai/ .