The Quest for Citations: Drivers of Article Impact

Why do some articles become building blocks for future scholars, while many others remain unnoticed? We aim to answer this question by contrasting, synthesizing and simultaneously testing three scientometric perspectives – universalism, social constructivism and presentation – on the influence of article and author characteristics on article citations. To do so, we study all articles published in a sample of five major journals in marketing from 1990 to 2002 that are central to the discipline. We count the number of citations each of these articles has received and regress this count on an extensive set of characteristics of the article (i.e. article quality, article domain, title length, the use of attention grabbers and expositional clarity), and the author (i.e. author visibility and author personal promotion). We find that the number of citations an article in the marketing discipline receives, depends upon “what one says†(quality and domain), on “who says it†(author visibility and personal promotion) and not so much on “how one says it†(title length, the use of attention grabbers, and expositional clarity). Our insights contribute to the marketing literature and are relevant to scientific stakeholders, such as the management of scientific journals and individual academic scholars, as they strive to maximize citations. They are also relevant to marketing practitioners. They inform practitioners on characteristics of the academic journals in marketing and their relevance to decisions they face. On the other hand, they also raise challenges towards making our journals accessible and relevant to marketing practitioners: (1) authors visible to academics are not necessarily visible to practitioners; (2) the readability of an article may hurt academic credibility and impact, while it may be instrumental in influencing practitioners; (3) it remains questionable whether articles that academics assess to be of high quality are also managerially relevant.Impact;Citation Analysis;Referencing;Scientometrics;Cite

Factors Affecting the Scientific Impact of Literature Reviews: A Scientometric Study

Standalone literature reviews are fundamental in every scientific discipline. Their value is reflected by a profound scientific impact in terms of citations. Although previous empirical research has shown that this impact has a large variance, it is largely unknown which specific factors influence the impact of literature reviews. Against this background, the purpose of our study is to shed light on the driving factors that make a difference in the scientific impact of literature reviews. Our analysis of an exhaustive set of 214 IS literature reviews reveals that factors on the author level (e.g., expertise, collaboration, and conceptual feedback) and on the article level (e.g., methodological rigor) are significant and robust predictors of scientific impact over and above journal level factors. These insights enhance our understanding of what distinguishes highly cited literature reviews. In so doing, our study informs future guidelines on literature reviews and provides insights for prospective authors

A scientometric analysis of studies on risk management in construction projects

Risk management is one of the topical areas in construction project management research. However, no attempt has been made in the past decades to explore the emerging themes in this area. This paper reviews the research trends in risk management in construction. The bibliometric data of 1635 publications between 1979 and 2022 were extracted from Scopus using a set of keywords. The study used VOSviewer and Gephi to conduct a scientometric analysis on the extracted publications. The review outcome indicates a significant increase in publications on risk management in construction, with about 205 publications recorded between 2021 and 2022 alone. Based on this analysis, it is projected that the next decade will see significant research on risk management, especially as the construction industry moves towards Industry 5.0 with many uncertainties. Further, the most productive countries of risk management studies in construction include China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hong Kong. Emerging key research areas are discussed using network diagrams and clusters. These areas include the processes in risk management, risk analytical models and techniques, sources of risk and uncertainties, effective knowledge-based systems for improved risk management, risk contingency in construction contracts, risk-integrated project planning and scheduling, and stakeholder management. The findings of this study inform researchers on the current progress of risk management studies in construction and highlight possible research directions that can be considered

Modern Problems of Scientometric Assessment of Publication Activity

As is known, an objective assessment of scientific activity is one of the most difficult problems, in terms of the relationship within itself as well as with society. However, for many decades, the significance of scientists’ contribution to the development of the corresponding branch of science was assessed by the scientific community only by meaningful qualitative criteria, wherein the principle and mechanism of such an assessment was actually intuitive and defied quantitative description. That is why the urgent task was undertaken to create a system for evaluating scientific activity based on some objective indicators of the activity of a particular scientist; in search of such criteria, in the 1970s–1980s, the term “citation index” appeared. Although a close examination of this indicator revealed its limitations and in a number of cases even inadequacy in assessing scientific activity, it has nevertheless since the 1990s gained very wide popularity in the scientific community. This has contributed to the emergence of numerous works aimed at finding new and ideal indicators for assessing publication activity (so-called bibliometric indices). To date, several dozen such indices have been proposed, the most significant of which was the so-called Hirsch index or h-index. Nevertheless, despite the incredibly significant advances in this specific area of sociology, the above problem is still far from resolved. In this regard, the key task of this Special Issue is to familiarize its readers with the latest achievements both in the search for new, more advanced bibliometric indicators and in the improvement of existing ones

Reviewing, indicating, and counting books for modern research evaluation systems

In this chapter, we focus on the specialists who have helped to improve the conditions for book assessments in research evaluation exercises, with empirically based data and insights supporting their greater integration. Our review highlights the research carried out by four types of expert communities, referred to as the monitors, the subject classifiers, the indexers and the indicator constructionists. Many challenges lie ahead for scholars affiliated with these communities, particularly the latter three. By acknowledging their unique, yet interrelated roles, we show where the greatest potential is for both quantitative and qualitative indicator advancements in book-inclusive evaluation systems.Comment: Forthcoming in Glanzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch U., Thelwall, M. (2018). Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springer Some corrections made in subsection 'Publisher prestige or quality

Розвиток методу формування рейтингів публікаційної активності наукових та науково-педагогічних працівників

The analysis of the publication activity of domestic universities according to SciVerse Scopus scientometric database is conducted and its dependence on the effectiveness of the motivation systems in these universities is established. The necessity of rating the publication activity of scientific and scientific-pedagogical workers of higher educational institutions as effective ways of ensuring the competitiveness of universities, providing and improving the presence in international and domestic universities rankings is substantiated. The positive experience of managing the publication activity on the example of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the "Lviv Polytechnic" National University is shown. The methodology for the formation of the rating of the SSPS publication activity by the indicator is developed, which is calculated as the average number of scientific publications (monographs, articles, conference proceedings) for a certain period. It is shown that the indicators of publication activity and citation indexes are not the only and final criteria for assessing scientific results, but only an instrument for supporting decision-making by experts. Measures are developed to strengthen the publication activity.Обоснована необходимость формирования рейтингов публикационной активности научных и научно-педагогических работников высших учебных заведений как действенных инструментов обеспечения и повышения конкурентоспособности ВУЗов. Развит метод формирования рейтинга публикационной активности научных и научно-педагогических работников по показателю, который рассчитывается как средневзвешенное количество научных публикаций (монографий, статей, материалов конференций) за определенный период. Разработаны мероприятия по усилению публикационной активности.Обґрунтовано необхідність формування рейтингів публікаційної активності наукових та науково-педагогічних працівників вищих навчальних закладів як дієвих інструментів забезпечення та підвищення конкурентоспроможності ВНЗ. Розвинуто метод формування рейтингу публікаційної активності наукових та науково-педагогічних працівників за показником, який розраховується як середньозважена кількість наукових публікацій (монографій, статей, матеріалів конференцій) за визначений період. Розроблено заходи щодо посилення публікаційної активності.

Grading business journals: A comparative analysis of ABS, ABDC and JCR quartiles and proposing an algorithm based classification

There are multiple journal rankings that measure academic journals in business research. Among them, ABS (AJG), ABDC and JCR quartiles are the most widely used in business schools across the globe. Which is better in grading business journals based upon their academic performance? In this study, we used the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and evaluated 103 business journals based on six scientometric indicators. Then we proposed a grading simulation approach to simulate the original grades based on the TOPSIS scores and the results suggest that the JCR quartile is the closest to our simulation, while ABDC and ABS ranked second and third respectively. Lastly, drawing on the K-means clustering algorithm, we grouped the journals into four ordinal classes based on ABS, ABDC, JCR quartile and TOPSIS scores