Academic Journal Categorisation: Business And Management Studies In The UK

The School of Management at the University of Surrey has funded a research project undertaken by BCNED research group to look into the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary evolution of business and management knowledge measured through the RAE 2008. For the purpose of this project we have developed a unique and comprehensive database of all registered outputs combining 11 372 business and management journal articles (Unit of Assessment 36), 3 056 economics and finance journal articles (Units of Assessment 34 and 35), and 2 728 applied business and management journal articles submitted across 13 other independent Units of Assessment.

The database includes 17 156 articles published by UK authors in 2 314 international journals for the period 2000-2008, that contribute to the global knowledge depository for business and management disciplines. All articles are linked up to 4 ranking methods, where 83% of them have and ABS rank, and 71 % are in journals where citation impact is measured. Overall 47% of journals (or 49% for the UA36 only) are monitored for citation impact, which raises the question of the value of the 53% tail of journals that are not registered with the ISI web of science

Emerging questions from the preliminary analysis are: how ranking is distributed across business and management disciplines, and what is the perceived value of applied and interdisciplinary research published in broad spectrum applied journals. In order to answer these questions, further research using cluster and network analysis is envisaged.

Academic Journal Categorisation

Innovation for a Sustainable World Science and Technology

Distribution of Ranks Across Articles Submitted for the RAE 2008.

fig 1

Distribution of Ranks Across Articles Submitted for the RAE 2008.

Source: SOM Eigen Factor Database.

Note: DB1=UoA36; BD2=UoA 34+35; DB3= key-word search of business/management publications in 13 UoA.

 


Distribution of Ranks across Journals Where Articles Have Been Submitted for the RAE 2008.

fig 2

Distribution of Ranks across Journals Where Articles Have Been Submitted for the RAE 2008.

Source: SOM Eigen Factor Database.



Comparison of 5-Year Mean Impact Across Different Segments of the Database

Revealing Significant Differences for Applied Management Research.

fig 3

Comparison of 5-Year Mean Impact Across Different Segments of the Database Revealing Significant Differences for Applied Management Research.

* Standardised five year Impact factor. The JCR reports 2009 include the five year mean impact factor using data for the years 2004-8.

Source: SOM Eigen Factor Database.


Reveals the distribution of ranking in the entire article database

Fig. 1 Reveals the distribution of ranking in the entire article database, where 90% of the submitted articles in UoA 34, 35, and 36 have ABS ranking. Regarding the data on Citation Impact, the sub-segments of the database are comparable: 69% of business and management articles, 85% of economic and finance articles, and 64% of applied business and management articles. Similar is the picture for citation impact of journals (Fig. 2.): 50% of business and management journals, 61% of economics and finance journals, and 51% of applied business and management journals. This data justifies the effort to extend the UoA36 database with the data from economics and finance, as well as applied and interdisciplinary business and management publications, submitted in other units of assessment.

This comprehensive database will enable the researchers to engage in mapping of the distribution of knowledge and capabilities across different business and management disciplines, across UK University departments, and will reveal disciplinary boundaries and interdisciplinary fields that have emerged in the UK.

For more details and a copy of the research results,please contact E.Todeva@bcned.co.uk