Does the institutional diversity of editorial boards increase journal quality? The case economics field

Abstract

In academic communication, editors exert a significant influence on a journal’s mission and content. We examined how the composition of editorial board members, in particular diversity in terms of institution, is related to journal quality. Our sample comprised 6916 editors who were affiliated with 246 economics journals. Using Stirling Index of Diversity, we provided a single numeric index (DI) to measure the diversity of institutions which is composed of variety, balance, and disparity. Then we related it to journal quality, as reflected in three widely used indices in economics: the five-year impact factor, the association of business schools’ (ABS) journal quality guide, and the eigenfactors. The results show that academic journals in the field of economics are heavily dominated by US institutions, but in terms of geographic distribution, there are more institutions in Europe than in North America. Surprisingly, we found that the diversity of editorial board members in terms of institution is negatively related to ABS ranking, but unrelated to the five-year impact factor and the eigenfactors. While when we removed the US journals from the sample, there was a significant positive impact between institutional diversity and the five-year impact factor. Our study extends the scarce knowledge on the composition of editorial teams and their relevance to journal quality by study the correlation between the institutional diversity index and three different journal quality indices. The implication of this study is that more effort is needed to increase the diversity in the composition of editorial teams in order to ensure transparency and promote equity.