A pilot study on normalized weighted approach to citation study: A case of logistics and transportation journals

The results from citation studies of journals have often been used as a benchmark in evaluating a faculty member's productivity for tenure, salary adjustment, teaching load reduction and other areas. It is also often used in ranking academic programs of particular disciplines in universities. This paper attempts to rank the leading journals in the logistics and transportation discipline using three different approaches: total weighted score, total weighted score on citations provided by journals other than the journal in question, and standardized weighted score. A different weight is assigned to each citation depending on whether the article in question is written by single or multiple authors, there are multiple citations of the same study, or the citation is from author/s’ own work. The ranks of journals differ depending on the citation study methods used. A sample of 19 journals in the logistics and transportation field for the year, 1999 was used as a sample space. The results of the study using the most objective and rigorous criterion, standardized weighted score, indicate that the top five journals in the logistics and transportation field are in order of their ranks, the Journal of Business Logistics, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Transportation Journal, Production and Inventory Management Journal, and Journal of Supply Chain Management. Although this study reveals that the top three ranked journals remain stable regardless of the method used, there is strong evidence that the rankings of journals fluctuate widely based on volume and numbers of pages of the journals in question as depicted by the wide movements in Transportation Quarterly, Transportation Science and International Journal of Logistics. Standardized approach is a unique method to neutralize such bias in the citation study. Study limitations including study period of one year are discussed.