DIFFERENCES IN CITATION PATTERNS ACROSS JOURNAL TIERS: THE CASE OF ECONOMICS

We study how citation patterns differ between journal tiers in economics by analyzing citations patterns of more than 6,000 research articles published in top five, second tier, and top field economics journals. We find that top five journals' articles receive more citations and that the life cycles of those citations are longer. However, their influence (in term of citations) is overestimated: in its first twenty years since publication, the median top five article accumulates 4.25 as many citations when compared to non-top five median articles. This ratio is strongly associated with the field of economics research and with articles' impact. (JEL A14)     

CITATIONS OR JOURNAL QUALITY: WHICH IS REWARDED MORE IN THE ACADEMIC LABOR MARKET?

Research quality can be evaluated from citations or from the prestige of journals publishing the research. We relate salary of tenured University of California (UC) economists to their lifetime publications of 5,500 articles and to the 140,000 citations to these articles. Citations hardly affect salary, especially in top‐ranked UC departments where impacts of citations are less than one‐tenth those of journals. In lower ranked departments, and when journal quality is less comprehensively measured, effects of citations on salary increase. If journal quality is just measured by counting articles in journal tiers, apparent effects of citations are overstated. (JEL A14, J44)     

Predicting citations to journal articles: The ideal number of references

The increasing number of references in scientific journal articles suggests editors may prefer articles with many references. Articles in first position in a journal issue are found to have more references. Researchers also may prefer articles with many references. Two hypotheses are proposed to explain this preference: 1) If references represent the adequacy of review of relevant literature (an explanation “internal” to science), then the number of references per page will affect citations. 2) If references directly influence readers’ judgment of quality (an explanation “external” to science), then the total number of references will affect citations. Regression analysis of articles in sociology supports hypothesis two. References may affect citations to an article; references per page do not. The ideal number of references in a sociology article is estimated at sixty-six. is pursuing research in interpersonal relations and the sociology of science. Drafts of this paper have benefited from the criticism of Geoffrey Tootell, Yehouda Shenhav, Paul Munroe, Morris Zelditch, Jr., Lowell Hargens, and Siniša Maričić.     

Intellectual Integration and Articles in Core Sociology Journals, 1960–2000

This study builds on and extends two studies by Oromaner (J Am Soc Inf Sci, 28:34–37, 1977; Int J Inf Manage, 6:29–35, 1986) in which he examined the integrating role of sociology’s three core general journals (American Journal of Sociology (AJS), American Sociological Review (ASR), Social Forces (SF)) among both core (N = 3) and specialty (N = 7) journals. In each study he traced the number of citations received by full-length articles published in the core journals (1960, 1973) during the first 10 years after publication. The present study replicates this methodology for articles published in 1990. In addition, the present study looks at the relationship between each of the core journals and each of the ten citing journals. The percent of core articles cited has increased from 67 to 84, however, the percent cited in five or more journals has remained quite stable and low (13%, 10%, 12%). Core journal articles are more likely to be cited in core journals than they are in specialty journals, and there appears to be some relationship between specific core journals and certain specialty journals. More in depth analysis is presented for the 1990 cohort.     

DO ABCs GET MORE CITATIONS THAN XYZs?

Using a sample of U.S.‐based scientific journal articles, I examine the relationship between author surname initials and paper citations, finding that the papers with first authors whose surname initials appear earlier in the alphabet get more citations, and that this effect does not exist for non‐first authors. Further analysis shows that the alphabetical order effect is stronger in those fields with longer reference lists, and that such alphabetical bias exists among citations by others and not for self‐citations. In addition, estimates also reveal that the alphabetical order effect is stronger when the length of reference lists in citing papers is longer. These findings suggest that the order in reference lists plays an important role in the alphabetical bias. (JEL D0, O3, Z1)     

Die Rezeption (Thyssen-)preisgekr?nter Artikel in der ?Scientific Community“

We investigate whether journal articles winning a prestigious award of the Thyssen foundation have a higher impact in the scientific literature than a control group of non-awarded articles. In average, awarded articles harvest significantly more citations than articles in the control group. Most remarkably, the average citation rank exactly matches the rank order of awards. The top award earns most citations while the second award, the third award and the non-awarded articles exhibit citation counts in declining order. The correlation of award rank and impact does not vanish if we restrict citation counts to the year of publication and the year thereafter. In this time span the distinction of excellence is very unlikely having a genuine effect on the impact measure. Thus, we do not find support for the social constructivist hypothesis that the correlation of the jury decision and the article impact is explainable by a label of distinctiveness. On the contrary, the empirical data confirm that the jury is successful in the selection of articles which in average have a larger impact in the scientific community than non-awarded publications.     

ARTICLE POPULARITY

This paper briefly examines the causes and consequences of article popularity. Tracing subsequent citations to nearly 6,000 articles published during 1974-76 reveals that most articles are cited rarely, if ever. Over 90% are cited fewer than 20 times over the ensuing 6 years, whereas only 3/10ths of 1% are cited over 100 times. Regression analysis demonstrates that author reputation, article length, and quality of publishing journal are strong determinants of article popularity.
The relative importance of various economics journals, though not their rankings, is sensitive to inclusion of "hit" articles; the differential impact of a journal may be more closely approximated by its ability to attract a significant proportion of the "hit parade" of articles.     

Staffing-Related Deficiency Citations in Nursing Homes

There is evidence that staffing characteristics influence quality of care in nursing homes. Federal and state surveyors conduct inspections of homes to assess their compliance with regulatory standards, including requirements related to staffing. Deficiency citations are issued when these standards are not met. This article examines the relationship between operational, facility, and market characteristics and organizational performance measured as staffing-related deficiency citations. Online Survey Certification of Automated Records (OSCAR) data from 2000 through 2007 were used with multinomial logistic regression analyses to identify factors associated with deficiency citations for staffing. Chain members and facilities with poor quality of care were more likely to receive deficiency citations for staffing. Greater bed count and competition between nursing homes were associated with a decreased likelihood of deficiency citations for staffing. Staffing-related deficiencies within nursing homes vary according to various operational, facility, and market characteristics.     

The gender citation gap: Why and how it matters

The weight of evidence suggests that articles written by men and women receive citations at comparable rates. This suggests that research quality or gender-based bias in research evaluation and citing behaviors may not be the reason why academic women accumulate fewer citations than men at the career level. In this article, I outline a career perspective that highlights women's disadvantages in career progression as the root causes for the gender citation gap. I also consider how the gender citation gap may perpetuate the unequal pay between genders in science. My analysis of two different datasets, one including paper and citation information for over 130,000 highly cited scholars during the 1996–2020 period and another including citation and salary information for nearly 2,000 Canadian scholars over the 2014–2019 period, shows several important findings. First, papers written by women on average receive more citations than those written by men. Second, the gender citation gap grows larger with time as men and women progress in their careers, but the opposite pattern holds when research productivity and collaborative networks are considered. Third, higher citations lead to higher pay, and gender differences in citations explain a significant share of the gender wage gap. Findings demonstrate the critical need for more attention toward gender differences in career progression when investigating the causes and solutions for gender disparities in science.     

IDENTIFYING THE EFFECT OF OPEN ACCESS ON CITATIONS USING A PANEL OF SCIENCE JOURNALS

An open‐access journal allows free online access to its articles, obtaining revenue from fees charged to submitting authors or from institutional support. Using panel data on science journals, we are able to circumvent problems plaguing previous studies of the impact of open access on citations. In contrast to the huge effects found in these previous studies, we find a more modest effect: moving from paid to open access increases cites by 8% on average in our sample. The benefit is concentrated among top‐ranked journals. In fact, open access causes a statistically significant reduction in cites to the bottom‐ranked journals in our sample, leading us to conjecture that open access may intensify competition among articles for readers' attention, generating losers as well as winners. (JEL L17, O33)     

The State of Nonprofit Finance Research across Disciplines

The single largest determinant of nonprofit organization success is financial sustainability. Yet the study of nonprofit finance spans multiple disciplines, creating barriers for new researchers to the field. To address this challenge, this study addresses three primary questions across disciplines: How much nonprofit finance research has been conducted, what is the content of this research, and what is the impact of this research? This systematic literature search revealed 619 nonprofit finance research articles in twenty‐seven journals published in the disciplines of nonprofit management, public administration, accounting, and economics and finance between 1970 and 2014. The vast majority (415 of the 619 identified articles) were published in nonprofit management journals (either Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly or Nonprofit Management & Leadership ). Across disciplines, there is an emphasis on determinants of giving, but we note some variation; for example, there is more emphasis on government funding in journals outside of nonprofit management. The impact of this research is significant, with more than 32,630 citations, or an average of 52.71 times per article. The resulting bibliography may be helpful to researchers seeking to discern the status of extant nonprofit finance research across multiple disciplines.     

Journal impact factor or intellectual influence? A content analysis of citation use in Communication Monographs and Human Communication Research (2007–2009)

Journal impact factors typically rely on the number of citations to a journal as well as the number of citable items published in the journal during specific time parameters. If journal impact factors accurately differentiate journals along a quality continuum, journals with higher impact factors should be referenced more often than journals with lower impact factors as sources of influence on scholars’ conceptual and methodological approaches to inquiry. To investigate this claim, a sample consisting of all twelve issues of Human Communication Research (HCR) and Communication Monographs (CM) published from 2007 through 2009 were content analyzed and every citation to either journal in the articles appearing in HCR and CM was coded. Results indicated that, despite higher impact factors for HCR, there were not more citations to HCR than CM as sources of conceptual or methodological influence appearing in articles appearing in HCR or CM.     

QUANTIFYING THE LIFE CYCLE OF SCHOLARLY ARTICLES ACROSS FIELDS OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Does the life cycle of economic papers differ across fields of economic research? By constructing and analyzing a large dataset that combines information on 9,672 articles published in the top five economic journals from 1970 to 2000 with detailed yearly citation data obtained from Google Scholar, we find that published articles do have a life cycle that differs across fields of economic research (which we divide into the categories of applied, applied theory, econometric methods, and theory). Applied and applied theory papers are the clear winners in terms of citation counts. For the first years after their publication, they receive higher numbers of citations per year than papers in other fields of research do. They also reach a higher peak number of citations per year and apparently sustain those peak levels for longer, in addition to being cited over longer periods of time (i.e., they have a longer lifespan). Citation patterns are much less favorable for theoretical papers, which are the object of fewer citations per annum in the first years following publication, have lower peak numbers and a shorter lifespan. Econometric method papers are a special case; the pattern for most of these papers is similar to the pattern for theory papers, but the most successful papers (as measured by the number of citations) on econometric methods are also the most successful papers in the entire discipline of economics. (JEL A14)     

A Bibliometric Analysis of Public Relations Research

From time to time, scholars in an academic or professional discipline need to assess the quality and stature of their field. Studies of citation patterns in journals—of who cites whom and of the nature of the citations—offer a method for taking stock of a discipline. This article reports the results of the first citation study of public relations. The results show that public relations has matured greatly as a discipline over the 15-year period studied. In articles published early in the period, most citations were to other fields, especially to the social sciences. In more recent articles, public relations scholars cite each other more often—showing that the discipline is coalescing around its own body of knowledge. We conclude that public relations developed a literature that is not only voluminous but also relevant during this period. The study also shows that public relations has become a scholarly discipline as well as a professional one. There was a dramatic increase in the relative number of educator-authors, and a relative decrease in the number of practitioners, contributing to the scholarly public relations literature over the 15-year period examined in this study.     

The state of health public relations: A content analysis of published articles in seven communication journals from 2001 to 2021

By analyzing 162 articles published in seven peer-reviewed communication journals, this study sheds light on the research topics, theories, methods, and authorship of articles in the health public relations literature. An examination of current research in health public relations is essential to identify literature gaps and guide future research directions. The findings demonstrate that research interest in health public relations has fluctuated over the past two decades. Theoretically grounded studies represent most of the studies in this field, with the situational theory and relationship management applied most often. Regarding methodology, quantitative research is prevalent, with survey method used most often, followed by content analysis and in-depth interviews. Research topics that involve health content consistently receive significant attention, while relationship management has begun to dominate the research discourse in recent years.     

Classic 1960s articles in educational evaluation

The primary thrust of the interest in educational evaluation which persists today began with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. A study of journal citations was used to identify which of the early 1960s writings have continued to influence evaluation thought in education throughout the 1970s. Five classic articles were identified and reasons for their continued influence are suggested.     

HOW MANY MORE CITES IS A $3,000 OPEN ACCESS FEE BUYING YOU? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT

We analyze the effect of open access (OA) status of journal articles on citations. Using cross‐sectional and panel data from mathematics and economics, we perform negative binomial, Poisson, and generalized method of moments/instrumental variable methods regressions. We benefit from a natural experiment via hybrid OA pilot agreements. Citations to pre‐prints allow us to identify the intrinsic quality of articles prior to journal publication. Overall, our analysis suggests that there is no hybrid OA citation benefit. However, for the subpopulation of articles without OA pre‐ or post‐prints, we find positive hybrid OA effects for the full sample and each discipline separately. (JEL L17, O33, A11)     

Measuring the Quality of Peer-Reviewed Publications in Social Work: Impact Factors—Liberation or Liability?

Systems for measuring the quality of publications in peer-reviewed academic journals have achieved importance in the ‘audit culture’ to which academia worldwide has become increasingly subjected. In the United Kingdom this debate has focused on government proposals to give greater emphasis to bibliometrics (counts of journal articles and their citations) as a measurement of research quality, in respect of publications in the emergent Research Excellence Framework (REF) which is set to replace the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). This approach impacts on social work educators who are the main producers of papers published in peer-reviewed academic journals. It affects their publishing behaviour by pressurising them to publish their work in journals that are regarded as being prestigious, for which ‘high impact factor’ journals as determined by Thomson Reuters—a private commercial information management enterprise with headquarters in the United States—has become a proxy for quality. In this paper the authors describe and critique the Thomson Reuters system as it applies to social work and propose an alternate fair, inclusive and transparent system for assessing the quality of publications based on peer evaluation and incorporating an ethical approach consistent with the discipline's professional values.     

Measures of success in American sociology

This research examines two measures of success in American sociology: publication in major sociological journals and election to the presidency of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Variables considered include the total number of publications in major journals, total number of citations, number of books written, graduate institutions, and year of doctoral degree. The productivity of authors is found to be consistent with the pattern first suggested by Lotka. Publication in top journals is a relatively open process with a large number of different authors publishing over a 20-year period and considerable circulation of top publishing authors in adjacent decades. Top publishers and ASA presidents appear to follow different career paths. ASA presidents tend to receive their doctorates from more elite institutions, publish substantially more books, and place fewer articles in the major journals than do cohorts of top publishing authors.     

Whatever Happened to Critical Mass Theory? A Retrospective and Assessment

Between 1983 and 1993 the authors published a series of articles and a book promulgating and explicating "Critical Mass Theory," a theory of public goods provision in groups. In this article we seek to trace the growth, change, or decline of the theory, primarily through an analysis of all journal citations of the theory. We find that the majority of citations are essentially gratuitous or pick a single point from the theory, which may or may not be central to the theory. However, we identify four lines of theorizing that creatively use substantial parts of Critical Mass Theory in their own development: (1) theories relevant to issues in communication studies such as interaction media and shared databases; (2) Macy's work on adaptive learning models; (3) Heckathorn's models of sanctioning systems; and (4) theories that are centrally concerned with issues of influence in collective goods processes. A few additional, less- developed lines of work are also discussed. None of this work identifies itself as being itself "Critical Mass Theory," but many of the innovations and assertions of the theory are important bases for its development.