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Scholarly journal publishing in transition- from restricted to open access

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  • Bo-Christer Björk

    (Hanken School of Economics)

Abstract

While the business models used in most segments of the media industry have been profoundly changed by the Internet, surprisingly little has changed in the publishing of scholarly peer reviewed journals. Electronic delivery has become the norm, but the same publishers as before are still dominating the market, selling content to subscribers. This article asks the question why Open Access (OA) to the output of mainly publicly funded research hasn’t yet become the mainstream business model. OA implies a reversal of the revenue logic from readers paying for content to authors paying for dissemination in form of universal free access. The current situation is analyzed using Porter’s five forces model. The analysis demonstrates a lack of competitive pressure in this industry, leading to so high profit levels of the leading publishers that they have not yet felt a strong need to change the way they operate. OA funded by article publishing charges (APCs) might nevertheless start rapidly becoming more common. The driving forces of change currently consist of the public research funders and administrations in Europe, which are pushing for OA by starting dedicated funds for paying the APCs of authors from the respective countries. This has in turn lead to a situation in which publishers have introduced “big deals” involving the bundling of (a) subscription to all their journals, (b) APCs for their hybrid journals and (c) in the future also APCs to their full OA journals. This appears to be a relatively risk free strategy for the leading publishers to retain both their dominance of the market and high profit levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo-Christer Björk, 2017. "Scholarly journal publishing in transition- from restricted to open access," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 27(2), pages 101-109, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:elmark:v:27:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s12525-017-0249-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s12525-017-0249-2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. William H. Walters, 2007. "Institutional journal costs in an open access environment," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(1), pages 108-120, January.
    2. Mikael Laakso, 2014. "Green open access policies of scholarly journal publishers: a study of what, when, and where self-archiving is allowed," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(2), pages 475-494, May.
    3. Vincent Larivière & Stefanie Haustein & Philippe Mongeon, 2015. "The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
    4. Bo-Christer Björk & Mikael Laakso & Patrik Welling & Patrik Paetau, 2014. "Anatomy of green open access," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(2), pages 237-250, February.
    5. Mikael Laakso & Bo-Christer Björk, 2013. "Delayed open access: An overlooked high-impact category of openly available scientific literature," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(7), pages 1323-1329, July.
    6. Bo-Christer Björk & David Solomon, 2015. "Article processing charges in OA journals: relationship between price and quality," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 373-385, May.
    7. Edlin, Aaron S. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 2004. "Exclusion or Efficient Pricing? The "Big Deal" Bundling of Academic Journals," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt9hc6n6ds, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Scholarly publishing; Business model; Open access;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General

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