An Additional Rating Method for Journal Articles in the Field of Management

This article argues that simply counting citations may not be sufficient and that to gain a fuller understanding of the influence of an article on future research, the importance of the cited reference to the citing article should be examined.

Abstract

A frequently used method for determining the influence rating of a journal article is the citation count. This article argues that simply counting citations may not be sufficient. Instead, to gain a fuller understanding of the influence of an article on future research, the importance of the cited reference to the citing article should be examined. To illustrate this suggested method, a sample of articles from Academy of Management Review and Academy of Management Journal was analyzed. Results indicated that the vast majority of the citing articles simply listed the focal articles as references instead of using them as an integral component (i.e., a test of the ideas) of the study. Augmenting the traditional citation-counting approach with the proposed technique should produce a more accurate picture of the influence of an article on the field.