Abstract
PurposePredatory publishing is a growing and global issue infecting all scientific domains. Predatory publishers create counterfeit, not (properly) peer-reviewed journals to exploit the open access (OA) model in which the author pays. The plethora of predatory marketing journals along with the sophisticated deceptive practices of their publishers may create total confusion. One of the many highly likely risks of that bewilderment is when peer-reviewed, prestigious marketing journals cite these pseudo-marketing journals. This phenomenon is called citation contamination. This study aims to investigate the extent of citation contamination in the peer-reviewed marketing literature.Design/methodology/approachUsing Google Scholar as a citation gathering tool, this study investigates references to four predatory marketing journals in 68 peer-reviewed marketing journals listed in the 2018 version of the Academic Journal Guide by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABSs).FindingsResults indicate that 59 of the 68 CABS-ranked peer-reviewed marketing journals were, up to late January 2021, contaminated by at least one of the four sampled predatory journals. Together, these four pseudo-journals received (at least) 605 citations. Findings from nonparametric statistical procedures show that citation contamination occurred irrespective of the age of a journal or its 2019 Journal Impact Factor (JIF). They also point out that citation contamination happened independently from the fact that a journal is recognized by Clarivate Analytics or not.Research limitations/implicationsThis study investigated citations to only four predatory marketing journals in only 68 CABS-listed peer-reviewed marketing journals.Practical implicationsThese findings should sound an alarm to the entire marketing community (including academics and practitioners). To counteract citation contamination, recommendations are provided for researchers, practitioners, journal editors and academic and professional associations.Originality/valueThis study is the first to offer a systematic assessment of references to predatory journals in the peer-reviewed marketing literature.
Highlights
1.1 Peer-reviewed vs predatory journals in marketingPeer-reviewed journals are of paramount importance both to marketing theory and practice
Four predatory marketing journals were selected for analysis because they comply with the following selection criteria: (1) First, the predatory journal must be a mainstream marketing journal
One compelling fact that corroborates the soundness of this explanation lies in the findings: There is a positive correlation between the number of issues per volume for a journal and its level of citation contamination
Summary
1.1 Peer-reviewed vs predatory journals in marketing. Peer-reviewed journals are of paramount importance both to marketing theory and practice. 213) indicate, they are the “primary medium to communicate scholarly knowledge in marketing”. In their article on marketing academics’ perception of the peer-review process, Bailey et al 263) wrote, “peer review is central to the creation and dissemination of new knowledge in the marketing discipline and is the. Published in South Asian Journal of Marketing. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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