Management Journal Impact Factors 2006
9 July 2007 at 10:29 am Nicolai Foss 4 comments
| Nicolai Foss |
The new journal impact factors for 2006 are now available from the ISI Web of Knowledge (here). Consider the journal list within “management” or “business” (the former includes information system journals, the latter includes marketing journals).
Here are some quick observations (excluding marketing and information systems):
- AMR and AMJ are still nos. 1 and 2. The difference between their respective impact factors is, at 4.515 and 3.353, is pronounced.
- However, a new development is that Organization Science has made it to no. 3. It is fair to say that Organization Science is one of the true success stories among management journals!
- Strategic Management Journal is no. 4. A lot of people whine about SMJ, particularly its allegedly very lengthy review processes and random decisions. If true, one would expect these characteristics to negatively influence SMJ impact factors. That SMJ continues to make it to the top may therefore be a falsification of all the whining and SMJ bashing (perhaps you can tell that I recently joined the editorial board of SMJ ;-)).
- Administrative Science Quarterly, once generally regarded as the top management journal, is now down to no. 5. A consequence of focusing too much on sectarian sociology and behavioralist stuff? ;-)
- Journal of Management Studies continues to climb the reputational hierarchy and is now no. 8. This corresponds to my personal casual empiricism that the reputation of the JMS among particularly US management academics has been very strongly increasing over the last couple of years.
- Journal of International Business Studies is now up at no. 6, its highest ever (as far as I know). This is perhaps the biggest surprise of this year’s list, and clearly extremely good news for the international business community which has had to deal with a reputation of doing less than rigorous research.
The overall picture when comparing the 2005 and 2006 lists is one of quite some turmoil (the 2005 list is discussed in this post). In actuality, this is not so surprising: The impact scores are based on pretty low absolute numbers, and one particularly popular article may be sufficient to make a journal jump considerably up within the hierarchy. So, don’t take the above too seriously. . . .
Entry filed under: - Foss -, Institutions, Myths and Realities.
Organizations and Markets 
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new citation impact rankings « orgtheory.net | 9 July 2007 at 12:44 pm
[…] announced earlier on O&M, the ISI Web of Knowledge released their 2006 journal impact factors. As always, the […]
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Chihmao Hsieh | 9 July 2007 at 2:22 pm
Does anybody here know approx. how long it takes to push a manuscript through the SMJ review process? I’m very hopeful that I can send out a couple manuscripts in the next couple days and get a first-round decision back by the January AOM deadline… (???)
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Nicolai Foss | 9 July 2007 at 2:36 pm
Chihmao, My latest round (in January) took two months. When I review for SMJ, I get a reminder from the managing editor after the ms has been with me for a month. I am pretty certain you will get a response before Jan if you submit now.
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A. Tiwana | 10 July 2007 at 2:05 pm
SMJ used to be a hit or miss in terms of review cycles but it has greatly greatly improved in the last couple of years. It has turned all electronic and now has a very competent new managing editor (L. Gast). Although I’ve seen a five year cycle (three rounds), that is increasingly an exception than the norm. My most recent experience has been similar to Professor Foss (about 2 months for the most recent cycle). Coming from an ancillary, non-strategy field in the business school, I will bet my money that SMJ has one of the most delightful and theoretically constructive review processes. It truly feels like peer reviews should: Like having a good conversation with your reviewers.
In terms of theoretically interesting stuff, SMJ is hard to beat (case in point: the real development of KBV, the capabilities perspective, modular systems theory, and some of RBV are all happening in SMJ). The impact is far broader than strategy–almost all other disciplines in the business school draw on SMJ papers (a trend strongly supported in a casual meandering through the SSCI citations database). IMHO, ASQ is the only journal that beats it in terms of impact across all disciplines.