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Proof over promise: towards a more inclusive ranking of Dutch academics in Economics & Business

Author

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  • Anne-Wil Harzing

    (ESCP Europe, 527)

  • Wilfred Mijnhardt

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

The Dutch Economics top-40, based on publications in ISI listed journals, is—to the best of our knowledge—the oldest ranking of individual academics in Economics and is well accepted in the Dutch academic community. However, this ranking is based on publication volume, rather than on the actual impact of the publications in question. This paper therefore uses two relatively new metrics, the citations per author per year (CAY) metric and the individual annual h-index (hIa) to provide two alternative, citation-based, rankings of Dutch academics in Economics & Business. As a data source, we use Google Scholar instead of ISI to provide a more comprehensive measure of impact, including citations to and from publications in non-ISI listed journals, books, working and conference papers. The resulting rankings are shown to be substantially different from the original ranking based on publications. Just like other research metrics, the CAY or hIa-index should never be used as the sole criterion to evaluate academics. However, we do argue that the hIa-index and the related CAY metric provide an important additional perspective over and above a ranking based on publications in high impact journals alone. Citation-based rankings are also shown to inject a higher level of diversity in terms of age, gender, discipline and academic affiliation and thus appear to be more inclusive of a wider range of scholarship.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne-Wil Harzing & Wilfred Mijnhardt, 2015. "Proof over promise: towards a more inclusive ranking of Dutch academics in Economics & Business," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 727-749, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:102:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1370-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1370-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Anne-Wil Harzing & Satu Alakangas & David Adams, 2014. "hIa: an individual annual h-index to accommodate disciplinary and career length differences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(3), pages 811-821, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Andersen, Jens Peter & Nielsen, Mathias Wullum, 2018. "Google Scholar and Web of Science: Examining gender differences in citation coverage across five scientific disciplines," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 950-959.
    2. Olavarrieta, Sergio, 2016. "Utilizando avaliações de especialistas para classificar 45 publicações latinoamericanas de negócios," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 56(3), May.
    3. Anne-Wil Harzing & Satu Alakangas, 2016. "Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(2), pages 787-804, February.
    4. James C. Ryan, 2016. "A validation of the individual annual h-index (hIa): application of the hIa to a qualitatively and quantitatively different sample," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(1), pages 577-590, October.
    5. Jan Schulz, 2016. "Using Monte Carlo simulations to assess the impact of author name disambiguation quality on different bibliometric analyses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1283-1298, June.
    6. Claudio A. Bonilla & José M. Merigó & Carolina Torres-Abad, 2015. "Economics in Latin America: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(2), pages 1239-1252, November.

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