Coverage of Business Administration Literature in Google Scholar: Analysis and Comparison with EconBiz, Scopus and Web of Science

Abstract

Google Scholar is used for literature research as well as for evaluations of research performance. To establish Google Scholar’s functional compliance, we generate a heuristic method and apply it to business relevant journals, namely those ascertained and rated in the German business journal rank- ing VHB-JOURQUAL2 by Schrader/Hennig-Thurau (2009). It is shown that Google Scholar primarily indexes international, i.e. English-language journals with a high rating grade; national language, here German-language literature, is hardly covered systematically. Furthermore, we compare these results with the business journal content of the German database EconBiz and the international databases Web of Science and Scopus. While Google Scholar is definitely competitive with Web of Science and Scopus for English-language literature, German-language literature is systematically covered by EconBiz, only. The comparison is additionally done for special business research fields. With regard to the journal coverage of some of these research areas, it becomes evident that the national database EconBiz even dominates the databases Scopus and Web of Science. Recommended citation: Clermont, M. & Dyckhoff, H. (2012), Coverage of Business Administration Literature in Google Scholar: Analysis and Comparison with EconBiz, Scopus and Web of Science. Bibliometrie - Praxis und Forschung 1, 5. URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-bpf-165-5.