Publishing Strategy and Ssci Citation Impact

Abstract

The recent drive towards a more efficient allocation of scarce government funds for research has led to a search for yardsticks to measure both the productivity and the quality of academic research. Citation analysis based on the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) provides a simple and supposedly objective yardstick which is increasingly used in Quality assessment of scientific output It is shown that the use of citation analysis is subject to serious drawbacks, which particularly affect the quality assessment of research in applied multidisciplinary subjects such as tourism. General drawbacks of SSCI citation analysis are that it provides a less than comprehensive coverage of scientific output, with a bias in favour of journals, especially English language journals publishing mainstream theoretical work, and that it does not necessarily provide an indication of scientific quality only. As a “popularity” index citations indicate both ideas of quality and highly controversial or even obnoxious ones which have managed to draw attention from authors publishing in SSCI source Journals. Since, moreover, there are clear differences between the achievement of academic glamour and the priceived usefulness of scientific output, it is argued that citation analysis should be supplemented by a qualitative assessment by peers as well as final users of scientific knowledge. The latter implies an input in evaluations by decisionmakers in industry and relevant government departments. Taking the drawbacks into account the 1950–1984 Third World tourism research is analysed as to its citation impact. The analysis provides amongst others answers to the questions which authors and what type of journals and publishers are most successful and influential if SSCI citation scores are taken as a yardstick and what publishing strategy is most promising with a view to attaining a maximum SSCI citation impact.