Experts' judgments of management journal quality: An identity concerns model

Kim Peters, Kevin Daniels, Gerard P. Hodgkinson, S. Alexander Haslam

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
11 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Many lists that purport to gauge the quality of journals in management and organization studies (MOS) are based on the judgments of experts in the field. This article develops an identity concerns model (ICM) that suggests that such judgments are likely to be shaped by the personal and social identities of evaluators. The model was tested in a study in which 168 editorial board members rated 44 MOS journals. In line with the ICM, respondents rated journal quality more highly to the extent that a given journal reflected their personal concerns (associated with having published more articles in that journal) and the concerns of a relevant ingroup (associated with membership of the journal’s editorial board or a particular disciplinary or geographical background). However, judges’ ratings of journals in which they had published were more favorable when those journals had a low-quality reputation, and their ratings of journals that reflected their geographical and disciplinary affiliations were more favorable when those journals had a high-quality reputation. The findings are thus consistent with the view that identity concerns come to the fore in journal ratings when there is either a need to protect against personal identity threat or a meaningful opportunity to promote social identity.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1785-1812
Number of pages28
JournalJournal of Management
Volume40
Issue number7
Early online date9 Feb 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2014

Keywords

  • journal quality
  • journal lists
  • social identity
  • self-favoring bias

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