Chasing ratings, losing impact: the effects of journal lists on publication patterns in business and management

Brooks, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2668-1153 and Farkas, M. (2026) Chasing ratings, losing impact: the effects of journal lists on publication patterns in business and management. Research Policy, 55 (6). 105514. ISSN 1873-7625 doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2026.105514

Abstract/Summary

The quality of research papers in business and management is frequently assessed in an automated fashion according to the rating of the journals in which they are published. Using a very large sample of research spanning all fields in business and management studies, we examine the extent to which the prevalence of country-specific journal ratings lists leads authors to focus on ratings, potentially at the expense of the academic influence and article fit of the resulting publication. We find that authors based in the UK or Australia publish disproportionately frequently in journals that have low impact factors within ratings categories measured using their country’s journal lists. We show that this result occurs despite authors from those countries not publishing a higher proportion of articles in the lowest rated journals. Instead, we argue that such outcomes could have arisen with researchers aiming to maximise their measured research performance while at the same time targeting less competitive outlets. We show that this success is on average achieved at the expense of both fit to the journal and citations, which are sacrificed by targeting lower-impact, higher-rated journals. We find no evidence, however, that Australian or UK authors are publishing away from their core field in order to publish in higher rated journals.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/129529
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.respol.2026.105514
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > Finance and Accounting
Publisher	Elsevier
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