Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

How Journal Rankings can suppress Interdisciplinary Research – A Comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management

Contents:

Author Info

  • Ismael Rafols
  • Loet Leydesdorff
  • Alice O'Hare
  • Paul Nightingale
  • Andy Stirling

Abstract

This study provides new quantitative evidence on how journal rankings can disadvantage interdisciplinary research during research evaluations. Using publication data, it compares the degree of interdisciplinarity and the research performance of innovation studies units with business and management schools in the UK. Using various mappings and metrics, this study shows that: (i) innovation studies units are consistently more interdisciplinary than business and management schools; (ii) the top journals in the Association of Business Schools’ rankings span a less diverse set of disciplines than lower ranked journals; (iii) this pattern results in a more favourable performance assessment of the business and management schools, which are more disciplinary-focused. Lastly, it demonstrates how a citation-based analysis challenges the ranking-based assessment. In summary, the investigation illustrates how ostensibly ‘excellence-based’ journal rankings have a systematic bias in favour of mono-disciplinary research. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of these phenomena, in particular how resulting bias is likely to affect negatively the evaluation and associated financial resourcing of interdisciplinary organisations, and may encourage researchers to be more compliant with disciplinary authority.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www3.druid.dk/wp/20110005.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies in its series DRUID Working Papers with number 11-05.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:11-05

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.druid.dk/

Related research

Keywords: Interdisciplinary; Evaluation; Ranking; Innovation; Bibliometrics; REF;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Paul Nightingale & Alister Scott, 2007. "Peer review and the relevance gap: Ten suggestions for policy-makers," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(8), pages 543-553, October.
  2. Rhoten, Diana & Pfirman, Stephanie, 2007. "Women in interdisciplinary science: Exploring preferences and consequences," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 56-75, February.
  3. Andrew J. Oswald, 2007. "An Examination of the Reliability of Prestigious Scholarly Journals: Evidence and Implications for Decision-Makers," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(293), pages 21-31, 02.
  4. Heinze, Thomas & Shapira, Philip & Rogers, Juan D. & Senker, Jacqueline M., 2009. "Organizational and institutional influences on creativity in scientific research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 610-623, May.
  5. Fagerberg, Jan & Verspagen, Bart, 2009. "Innovation studies--The emerging structure of a new scientific field," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 218-233, March.
  6. Nicolas Carayol & Thuc Uyen Nguyen Thi, 2005. "Why do academic scientists engage in interdisciplinary research?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 70-79, April.
  7. Andy Stirling, 2007. "A General Framework for Analysing Diversity in Science, Technology and Society," SPRU Working Paper Series 156, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex.
  8. J Sylvan Katz, 2000. "Scale-independent indicators and research evaluation," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 23-36, February.
  9. deS. Price, Derek, 1984. "The science/technology relationship, the craft of experimental science, and policy for the improvement of high technology innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 3-20, February.
  10. Ismael Rafols & Martin Meyer, 2008. "Diversity and network coherence as indicators of interdisciplinarity: Case studies in bionanoscience," SPRU Working Paper Series 167, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex.
  11. Philip Lowe & Jeremy Phillipson, 2006. "Reflexive Interdisciplinary Research: The Making of a Research Programme on the Rural Economy and Land Use," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 165-184, 07.
  12. Martin, Ben R. & Irvine, John, 1993. "Assessing basic research : Some partial indicators of scientific progress in radio astronomy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 106-106, April.
  13. Philip Lowe & Jeremy Phillipson, 2009. "Barriers to research collaboration across disciplines: scientific paradigms and institutional practices," Environment and Planning A, Pion Ltd, London, vol. 41(5), pages 1171-1184, May.
  14. Marcella Corsi & Carlo D'Ippoliti & Federico Lucidi, 2010. "Pluralism at Risk?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(5), pages 1495-1529, November.
  15. Frederic S. Lee, 2007. "The Research Assessment Exercise, the state and the dominance of mainstream economics in British universities," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 309-325, March.
  16. Scott E. Page, 2007. "Prologue to The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies," Introductory Chapters, in: The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies Princeton University Press.
  17. Katz, J. Sylvan & Martin, Ben R., 1997. "What is research collaboration?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, March.
  18. Bhupatiraju, Samyukta & Nomaler, Önder & Triulzi, Giorgio & Verspagen, Bart, 2012. "Knowledge flows – Analyzing the core literature of innovation, entrepreneurship and science and technology studies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1205-1218.
  19. van Rijnsoever, Frank J. & Hessels, Laurens K., 2011. "Factors associated with disciplinary and interdisciplinary research collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 463-472, April.
  20. Huutoniemi, Katri & Klein, Julie Thompson & Bruun, Henrik & Hukkinen, Janne, 2010. "Analyzing interdisciplinarity: Typology and indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 79-88, February.
  21. Jan Youtie & Maurizio Iacopetta & Stuart Graham, 2008. "Assessing the nature of nanotechnology: can we uncover an emerging general purpose technology?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 315-329, June.
  22. Rinia, E. J. & van Leeuwen, Th. N. & van Vuren, H. G. & van Raan, A. F. J., 2001. "Influence of interdisciplinarity on peer-review and bibliometric evaluations in physics research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 357-361, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Tommy Clausen & Jan Fagerberg & Magnus Gulbrandsen, 2012. "Mobilizing for Change: A Study of Research Units in Emerging Scientific Fields," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20120319, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:11-05

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Keld Laursen).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.