How do we measure the use of scientific journals? A note on research methodologies

Scientific journals represent a significant and growing part of the libraries and many researchers have attempted to measure their use by various methodological approaches till date. In this paper, the author reviews the methodologies employed by researchers working on scientific journals usage. It aims to present an overall picture of the research methods used in the area, in a way that will be of value to anyone seeking to study scientific journals. The author reviews four main research methodologies which are being used for profiling scientific journals usage including questionnaire, interview, citation analysis and transaction log analysis.     

Are non-monetary rewards effective in attracting peer reviewers? A natural experiment

Editors of scientific journals meet increasing challenges to find peer reviewers. Rewarding reviewers has been proposed as a solution to incentives peer review, and journals have already started to offer different kinds of rewards, particularly non-monetary ones. However, research so far has mainly explored the efficacy of monetary rewards, while research on non-monetary rewards is barely absent. The goal of this article is to fill this gap by exploring whether and under what conditions a rather common non-monetary reward employed by journals, i.e., to recognize reviewers work by publishing their names on a yearly issue, is effective in increasing the willingness of scientists to become peer reviewers. We test the efficacy of three different reward settings identified in the literature: (1) engagement contingent, (2) task-completion contingent, and (3) performance contingent, through a natural experiment involving 1865 scientists in faculties of business and economics of Romanian universities. We explore whether reward efficacy varies across scientists depending on their gender, academic rank, research productivity, and type of institution to which they are affiliated. The results show that the performance contingency strongly reduces the number of respondents willing to become reviewers (??60?% compared to a no-reward setting), particularly males and research productive scientists. Scientists affiliated with private universities are strongly discouraged by the reward. In sum, the results suggest that non-monetary rewards are not necessarily effective, as in some cases they may actually discourage the most intrinsically motivated and competent reviewers.     

How do latecomers catch up with forerunners? Analysis of patents and patent citations in the field of flat panel display technologies

This paper sets out to explore the patterns of technological change and knowledge spillover in the field of flat panel display (FPD) technology, along with the catching-up behavior of latecomers, through the analysis of US patents and patent citations between 1976 and 2005. Our results show that: (i) the catching-up by FPD technology latecomers began at the transition stage (1987-1996) when the dominant design became established in areas with high ‘revealed technology advantage’ (RTA); (ii) there is no apparent localization of knowledge spillover amongst FPD technology latecomers; instead, higher citation frequencies of forerunners’ patents were found in latecomers’ FPD patents during the transition (1987–1996) and post-dominant design (1997–2005) stages and; and (iii) a few extraordinary peaks were found in the citation frequency of forerunners’ patents at long citation lags in latecomers’ FPD patents, particularly during the transition stage (1987–1996), indicative of the knowledge threshold which latecomers need to cross in order to catch up with forerunners.     

How different are the indicatrixes of the leaves of various woody plant species?

Some researchers assume that the light reflection from leaves is Lambertian, but I verify that some leaves exist showing no Lambertian reflection. One can measure the indicatrixes of leaves of various woody plant species by the use of a goniophotometer. Minnaert constants can be calculated from these indicatrixes for quantitative evaluation. I discuss why light scattering from leaves does not always obey Lambertian law.     

How do top management team characteristics affect digital orientation? Exploring the internal driving forces of firm digitalization

The top management team (TMT) plays a key role in the process of the firm digital transformation. However, few studies have focused on the impact of TMT characteristics on the digital orientation of firms. In this paper, we simultaneously explore the impact of the dispersion, aggregation, and background characteristics of TMT on the digital orientation of firms. Based on the upper echelons theory and strategic orientation theory, we propose that the diversity and average education level of TMT positively impact firms' digital orientation. The average age and tenure of TMT have a negative impact on the digital orientation of firms. The overseas and financial backgrounds of TMT members have a positive impact on the digital orientation of firms. Our hypothesis was tested using large-scale longitudinal data and computer-aided text analysis methods from Chinese listed companies. This paper provides useful supplements to early research on digital driving factors and digital orientation in emerging economies, and also provides more universal suggestions for digital practices in firms.     

What might get published in management and applied psychology? Experimentally manipulating implicit expectations of reviewers regarding hedges

Scientometrics - Researchers’ careers depend on publishing papers. There are explicit expectations (e.g., paper structure) that affect editors’ and reviewers’ perceptions of...     

Co-worker network: How closely are researchers who published in the top five economics journals related?

Scientometrics - This paper aims to analyze the academic backgrounds of 3587 researchers who published in the top five economics journals in the last 10 years. We find that the researchers...     

Does the Financial Times FT50 journal list select the best management and economics journals?

Scientometrics - The ranking of academic journals and the considerable impact of journal lists have been increasingly criticized, especially in management research. To assess the effectiveness of...     

Errors in measuring the directivity of a field by the method of a reference field in the range of 25–400 MHZ

Conclusions The cited data on error components in measuring the field-strength lead to the conclusions that the reference field (provided that the distances are measured with an error of ±2%) can be determined with an error of 6%, at frequencies up to 150 MHz, and of ±7% in the range from 150 to 400 MHz. The error in determining the resulting field-strength is smaller for small angles of elevation, since the beam reflected from the ground has a substantial effect on the value of the field.     

Scopes of accounting journals and published papers: what do they signalize?

Our main objective is to create a framework to analyze signals sent from academic journals. The signals chosen for the framework were: journal’ scopes; and the latest published papers. We apply the framework to the field of accounting with the main focus of categorizing the journal scopes and the latest published articles into research topics by using text mining techniques. We analyze the published papers of research topics in accounting journals during the 2016–2018 period. Another objective is to compare research topics from the last published papers with research topics identified in accounting journal scopes. We found a majority of journals with a broader scope in terms of accounting research areas, but we see a concentration on specific research topics by analyzing the papers. In addition, the most signaled accounting areas in scopes are financial accounting and auditing. The framework helps us categorize 5270 research papers into accounting research topics correctly, faster than manually reading titles, abstracts, and keywords. While specific scopes may carry the risk of missing new research trends, broad scopes may require more reviewers from different research areas. Diversity can be seen as applying other methodological choices, theoretical lenses, and conceptual or empirical research approaches. We believe that academic diversity is for the benefit of accounting research.

     

Do articles in open access journals have more frequent altmetric activity than articles in subscription-based journals? An investigation of the research output of Finnish universities

Scientometrics - Scientific articles available in Open Access (OA) have been found to attract more citations and online attention to the extent that it has become common to speak about OA...     

How much do road accidents cost the national economy?

This paper presents estimates of how much road accidents cost the national economy, stated as a percentage of the gross national product (GNP). Official estimates of road accident costs from 1990 or later were compiled from easily accessible sources for twelve countries. Estimates of the gross national product were taken from OECD publications. On the average, the total costs of road accidents, including an economic valuation of lost quality of life, were estimated to about 2.5% of the gross national product. Excluding the valuation of lost quality of life, road accident costs on the average amounted to 1.3% of the gross national product. When valuation of lost quality of life is included, costs ranged from 0.5 to 5.7% of GNP. When valuation of lost quality of life is disregarded, costs ranged from 0.3 to 2.8% of GNP.     

How do you select the “greenest” technology? Development of guidance for the pharmaceutical industry

There is widespread interest in government and industry in green chemistry and green technology. For truly “green” processes to be developed, scientists must take a concurrent, integrated approach that considers chemistry and technology. While it is vital to understand those things traditionally considered in technology selection such as operational, quality, and cost differences, it is equally vital to understand the associated environmental and safety issues that are inherent to the chosen technology. This is a major challenge and there is a clear need for guidance in this area. This paper proposes the concept of a “Clean/Green Technology Guide” as an expert system that would provide scientists and engineers with comparative environmental and safety performance information on available technologies for commonly performed unit operations in the pharmaceutical industry. At this stage, the framework has been developed to demonstrate the concept, using a metric set based on the concepts of sustainable development. This framework is used to evaluate the alternatives on a case-scenario basis, and will compare traditional and emerging technologies. A life-cycle approach is also used in the evaluation of the alternatives. This approach is illustrated by comparing batch, mini-, and microreactors. Received: 3 November 2000 / Accepted: 19 December 2000     

What do university rankings by fields rank? Exploring discrepancies between the organizational structure of universities and bibliometric classifications

University rankings by fields are usually based on the research output of universities. However, research managers and rankings consumers expect to see in such fields a reflection of the structure of their own organizational institution. In this study we address such misinterpretation by developing the research profile of the organizational units of two Spanish universities: University of Granada and Pompeu Fabra University. We use two classification systems, the subject categories offered by Thomson Scientific which are commonly used on bibliometric studies, and the 37 disciplines displayed by the Spanish I-UGR Rankings which are constructed from an aggregation of the former. We also describe in detail problems encountered when working with address data from a top down approach and we show differences between universities structures derived from the interdisciplinary organizational forms of new managerialism at universities. We conclude by highlighting that rankings by fields should clearly state the methodology for the construction of such fields. We indicate that the construction of research profiles may be a good solution for universities for finding out levels of discrepancy between organizational units and subject fields.     

How do the internet technological developments shift the consumption pattern of paper products? Evidence from China

Using a monthly data between 2008 and 2019, this study investigated how the development of the Internet technologies has shaped the consumer consumption pattern of different types of paper products in China during this period. In detail, this study covers four major types of paper products in the Chinese market: newsprint, printing paper, household paper, and packaging paper. The developments of Internet technologies were decomposed into two aspects: the communication technology (CT) and the software platform technology (PT). Granger causality analysis was employed to determine whether the consumption pattern of paper products was affected by the development of the Internet. Furthermore, impulse-response analyses were utilized to measure how the consumption pattern of each paper product was shaped by the development of each aspect of Internet technologies, i.e., CT or PT. The empirical results suggested that the Internet developments are causing the consumption patterns shifts of all four paper products. Specifically, the consumptions of newsprint and printing paper were driven by both CT and PT. However, the consumptions of packaging paper and household paper were driven by the PT only. Compared to the development of CT, we found that the quick evolution of PT plays a more significant role in shifting people's consumption of paper products in China. The empirical results revealed by this study could provide valuable economics and policy implications to both academia and relevant industries.     

How much is research in the top journals of industrial/organizational psychology dominated by authors from the U.S.?

Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology, the subfield of psychology applied to the context of work, has been criticized for being dominated by U.S. authors because this dominance could prevent the generalizability of results and the enrichment of theories, paradigms, and approaches by researchers from other parts of the world. Previous estimates on the extent of the U.S. dominance are, however, likely restricted in scope, outdated, and likely biased by non-U.S. researchers who were socialized in the U.S. or received help by U.S. co-authors. As such, we measured the level of U.S. dominance by analyzing 5626 papers published from the top ten journals of the field of I/O psychology in the last eleven years and their authors. The results show that the U.S. dominance continues, although the internationalization of I/O psychology has steadily increased. An additional analysis of the gender distribution across our sample revealed that female first authorship is slightly more common among authors with no U.S. affiliation. We suggest several steps to further increase the level of internationalization.