IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v105y2024i2p327-341.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does sticking close to home make for better research? In‐state authorship and citation rates in public administration journals

Author

Listed:
  • Dalten Fox
  • Luke Fowler

Abstract

Objective Although other social science disciplines have considered researcher positionality, whether a researcher belongs to the communities they study (insider) or does not (outsider), public administration scholars have yet to examine this aspect of scholarly production nor its impacts on perceptions of research quality. Methods We use a data set of 554 articles from eight top public administration journals that focus on a single or a few states in the United States as the research setting. Using in‐state authorship as a proxy for insider research, we test whether insider status significantly affects citation rates for these articles. Results Findings indicate that citation rates are higher for in‐state authors, but the journal impact factor serves as a critical moderating factor. Articles written by in‐state authors in Public Administration Review or Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory (the field's top two journals) are cited around 30 percent more than out‐of‐state authors, and we estimate that the articles across journals likely to be cited most are written by in‐state authors. Conclusion Although there is room for strong insider and outsider research in social sciences, generally, and public administration, specifically, scholars should remain mindful of positionality from both the production and consumption sides of the research process.

Suggested Citation

  • Dalten Fox & Luke Fowler, 2024. "Does sticking close to home make for better research? In‐state authorship and citation rates in public administration journals," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 105(2), pages 327-341, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:105:y:2024:i:2:p:327-341
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13335
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.13335?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dion, Michelle L. & Sumner, Jane Lawrence & Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin, 2018. "Gendered Citation Patterns across Political Science and Social Science Methodology Fields," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 312-327, July.
    2. Merritt, Deborah Jones, 2000. "Scholarly Influence in a Diverse Legal Academy: Race, Sex, and Citation Counts," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 345-368, January.
    3. Guzel Yusupova, 2019. "Exploring Sensitive Topics in an Authoritarian Context: An Insider Perspective," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1459-1478, June.
    4. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Di Costa, Flavia, 2020. "Knowledge spillovers: Does the geographic proximity effect decay over time? A discipline-level analysis, accounting for cognitive proximity, with and without self-citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yoon, Jisung & Park, Jinseo & Yun, Jinhyuk & Jung, Woo-Sung, 2023. "Quantifying knowledge synchronization with the network-driven approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    2. Huyen Thanh T. Nguyen & Minh-Hoang Nguyen & Tam-Tri Le & Manh-Toan Ho & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2021. "Open Access Publishing Probabilities Based on Gender and Authorship Structures in Vietnam," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, October.
    3. Diane Alexander & Olga Gorelkina & Erin Hengel & Richard Tol, 2023. "Gender and the time cost of peer review," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-044/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Yining Wang & Qiang Wu & Liangyu Li, 2024. "Examining the influence of women scientists on scientific impact and novelty: insights from top business journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(6), pages 3517-3542, June.
    5. Mike Thelwall, 2020. "Female citation impact superiority 1996–2018 in six out of seven English‐speaking nations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(8), pages 979-990, August.
    6. Zhou, Sifan & Chai, Sen & Freeman, Richard B., 2024. "Gender homophily: In-group citation preferences and the gender disadvantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    7. Abdelghani Maddi & Lesya Baudoin, 2022. "The quality of the web of science data: a longitudinal study on the completeness of authors-addresses links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6279-6292, November.
    8. Bělín, Matěj, 2020. "Time-invariant regressors under fixed effects: Simple identification via a proxy variable," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    9. Torsten Skov, 2020. "Unconscious Gender Bias in Academia: Scarcity of Empirical Evidence," Societies, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, March.
    10. Allison C. Morgan & Nicholas LaBerge & Daniel B. Larremore & Mirta Galesic & Jennie E. Brand & Aaron Clauset, 2022. "Socioeconomic roots of academic faculty," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(12), pages 1625-1633, December.
    11. Tahmooresnejad, Leila & Turkina, Ekaterina, 2022. "Female inventors over time: Factors affecting female Inventors’ innovation performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    12. Shahzad, Murtuza & Alhoori, Hamed & Freedman, Reva & Rahman, Shaikh Abdul, 2022. "Quantifying the online long-term interest in research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    13. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas Augusto van der Velde & Magdalena Smyk, 2024. "Gender-neutral hiring of junior scholars," GRAPE Working Papers 94, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    14. Lei Hou & Jiashan Luo & Xue Pan, 2022. "Research Topic Specialization of Universities in Information Science and Library Science and Its Impact on Inter-University Collaboration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-14, July.
    15. Guido Fare Olivares Gavino & Marco Antonio Nolasco-Mamani & Uriel Rigoberto Quispe-Quezada & Ronal Raul Florez Díaz & María del Rocio Haro Echegaray & Paulo Cesar Chiri Saravia & Segundo A. V. Llano, 2023. "Improving The Scientific Research Methodology's Component Parts for Language Teaching," World Journal of English Language, Sciedu Press, vol. 13(6), pages 303-303, July.
    16. Marjolijn N. Wijnen & Jorg J. M. Massen & Mariska E. Kret, 2021. "Gender bias in the allocation of student grants," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 5477-5488, July.
    17. Nakajima, Kazuki & Liu, Ruodan & Shudo, Kazuyuki & Masuda, Naoki, 2023. "Quantifying gender imbalance in East Asian academia: Research career and citation practice," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    18. Tóth, Tamás & Demeter, Márton & Csuhai, Sándor & Major, Zsolt Balázs, 2024. "When career-boosting is on the line: Equity and inequality in grant evaluation, productivity, and the educational backgrounds of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions individual fellows in social sciences an," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).
    19. H. O.’Leary & T. Gantzert & A. Mann & E. Z. Mann & N. Bollineni & M. Nelson, 2024. "Citation as representation: gendered academic citation politics persist in environmental studies publications," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 14(3), pages 525-537, September.
    20. Paul A. Djupe & Kim Quaile Hill & Amy Erica Smith & Anand E. Sokhey, 2020. "Putting personality in context: determinants of research productivity and impact in political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2279-2300, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:105:y:2024:i:2:p:327-341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.