Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57469
Because scholarly production is such a significant element in judging faculty performance, it's critical that journal quality be fairly and transparently evaluated. Discipline Journal Listed Most Frequently Management Economics 782 Management Information Systems Finance Accounting Operations Management and Logistics Marketing Business Law Quantitative Methods International Business Entrepreneurship Real Estate Risk and Insurance Ethics 221 168 169 79 54 37 21 Journal of Marketing Research American Business Law Journal 387 Journal of Forecasting and Journal of the American Statistical Association Journal of International Business Studies Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics Journal of Risk and Insurance and Journal of Risk and Uncertainty Journal of Business Ethics ing, and the list from the Australian Business Deans Council. In addition, a number of Internet sites also provide informa- tion about journal standings (see "Where to Read More"). Rankings in Action Because scholarly production is such a significant element in judging faculty performance, it's critical that journal quality be fairly and transparently evaluated. Everyone must understand the school's quality assessment system, from the professor being evaluated to the deans, provosts, and faculty promotion and tenure committees reviewing the professor's performance. Whether schools generate an internal rankings list or rely on external sources, they need a definitive way to determine journal quality—and justify their decisions to others. The published streams of articles ranking journals by discipline can be extremely helpful in this regard, though it's important to remember that any ranking system can be flawed. For any school attempting to judge journal quality, the best approach is to consult multiple sources, triangulate the data, and draw thoughtful conclusions, while providing the maximum visi- bility in the process. When everyone understands how schol- arly contributions are measured, everyone can strive to hit the highest mark. ■ z Bruce R. Lewis is associate professor and Cooper Fellow in Information Systems at the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Where to Read More Dozens of articles have been published assessing journal quality through methods such as opinion surveys, citation scores, the author affiliation index, library holdings, and Internet downloads. A com- prehensive listing of these studies, as well as links to journal rankings' Web sites, can be found online at www.aacsb.edu/research. BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 45 430 701 479 Journal of Finance Accounting Review Operations Research 550 Academy of Management Journal and Academy of Management Review American Economic Review MIS Quarterly 1,496