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Citation gamesmanship: testing for evidence of ego bias in peer review

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  • Cassidy R. Sugimoto

    (Indiana University)

  • Blaise Cronin

    (Indiana University)

Abstract

This study tests for evidence of gaming and attention mongering—here termed ego bias—in the scholarly peer review process. We explore the extent to which authors cite the target journal and its editor and also the relationship between targeted references and editorial decisions. We examine referee reports for the presence and type of references and determine the extent to which reviewers cite their own work in their reports. Our results are based on a sample of 442 manuscripts and 927 referee reports submitted to the Journal of the American Society of Information Science and Technology. We find little evidence that editors, authors or reviewers use the peer review process as an opportunity to play citation games.

Suggested Citation

  • Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Blaise Cronin, 2013. "Citation gamesmanship: testing for evidence of ego bias in peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 851-862, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:95:y:2013:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-012-0845-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0845-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Sugimoto, Cassidy R. & Larivière, Vincent & Ni, Chaoqun & Cronin, Blaise, 2013. "Journal acceptance rates: A cross-disciplinary analysis of variability and relationships with journal measures," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 897-906.
    3. J. A. García & Rosa Rodriguez-Sánchez & J. Fdez-Valdivia, 2016. "Why the referees’ reports I receive as an editor are so much better than the reports I receive as an author?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 967-986, March.
    4. Wang, Qi & Sandström, Ulf, 2014. "Defining the Role of Cognitive Distance in the Peer Review Process: Explorative Study of a Grant Scheme in Infection Biology," INDEK Working Paper Series 2014/10, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Industrial Economics and Management.
    5. Shuo Xu & Mengjia An & Xin An, 2021. "Do scientific publications by editorial board members have shorter publication delays and then higher influence?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 6697-6713, August.
    6. Stelmakh, Ivan & Rastogi, Charvi & Liu, Ryan & Chawla, Shuchi & Shah, Nihar & Echenique, Federico, 2023. "Cite-seeing and reviewing: A study on citation bias in peer review," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt3883h8j1, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    7. Sergio Copiello, 2018. "On the money value of peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 613-620, April.
    8. Kevin J. Boudreau & Eva C. Guinan & Karim R. Lakhani & Christoph Riedl, 2016. "Looking Across and Looking Beyond the Knowledge Frontier: Intellectual Distance, Novelty, and Resource Allocation in Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2765-2783, October.

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