A bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Public Affairs

• Author: Sherese Y. Duncan,Vida J. Morkunas,Shane Moore
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1833
• Date: 01 February 2019

ACADEMIC PAPER

A bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Public Affairs

Vida J. Morkunas |Shane Moore |Sherese Y. Duncan

Industrial Marketing, LuleåTeskniska

Universitet, Luleå, Sweden

Correspondence

Vida J. Morkunas, Industrial Marketing, Luleå

Teskniska Universitet, Luleå, 971 87, Sweden.

Email: vida.morkunas@ltu.se

This paper presents a bibliometric study of the Journal of Public Affairs from its

inception in 2001, up to and including the final issue of 2016. The background of

the journal is presented, followed by a content analysis of the journal. With a focus

on peer‐reviewed articles, 465 articles are analyzed in terms of authorship character-

istics, manuscript characteristics, and content characteristics. The analysis and dis-

cussion examine the journal's output against its stated aims and provide a detailed

overview of the journal's contributions and its impact.

1|INTRODUCTION AND JOURNAL

BACKGROUND

When an academic journal has established itself through longevity,

taking stock of it makes a worthwhile contribution and provides

insights to the journal's editors, its editorial board and reviewers,

and to past and potential contributing authors. The Journal of Public

Affairs (JPA) was founded in 2001 and is published by John Wiley &

Sons Ltd. JPA is indexed in 19 academic databases. For our

bibliometric study, we consulted several databases including EBSCO

Business Source Complete, Scopus, and Harzing's Publish and Per-

ish, and we also sought additional details in Wiley's Full Collection

—Perpetual database. JPA is not the only publication focused on

public affairs, but with its 16‐year legacy (and counting), it is the

publication with the greatest longevity in its domain. Other journals

concerning public affairs tend to have either a geographic orienta-

tion (e.g., the Asian Journal of Public Affairs, the African Journal of

Public Affairs, and the Romanian Journal of Public Affairs) or a solely

academic perspective (Cambridge University's Journal of Public and

International Affairs).

JPA focuses on themes such as “government relations and lobby-

ing, issues management, community relations, corporate social

responsibility and political strategy and marketing”(“Guidelines for

Authors,”2018). Specifically, its aims are to provide case studies,

applied research with implications for public affairs practice, and

practitioner articles about the latest thinking, techniques, and prac-

tice of public affairs. Several of JPA's issues have been devoted

exclusively to case studies on topics of practice in public affairs, or

on regional concerns in public affairs. The journal also provides

occasional book reviews: During the 16 years under review, JPA pub-

lished an average of two book reviews every year.

JPA

provides an essential resource for those who need to stay

in tune with the ever‐evolving discipline of public affairs.

Tackling themes such as government relations and

lobbying, issues management, community relations,

corporate social responsibility and political strategy and

marketing, the journal is now firmly established as the

leading international forum for public affairs

professionals in private and public sector organizations

and academic observers in universities and business

schools. (“Guidelines for Authors,”2018)

JPA aims to provide the following:

•Industry case studies focusing on the real‐life challenges

and problems faced by major private and public sector

organizations, and the lessons learned.

•Applied research from leading business schools, research insti-

tutes and universities, with significant implications for public

affairs practice.

•State‐of‐the‐art papers written by expert practitioners and aca-

demics sharing thought‐provoking and stimulating articles on the

challenges facing the public affairs professional today.

•Practitioner articles addressing the latest thinking, techniques and

best practice.

•Book reviews providing a ‘thumbnail’of the best writing in public

affairs. (“Guidelines for Authors,”2018)

Received: 10 April 2018 Accepted: 28 April 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1833

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1833.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1833

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of17

2|JPA IMPACT FACTOR

Impact factors of individual journals vary. This is because journals use

different citation patterns, may be listed in different databases and

may or may not be dominant in their fields. All of these variables affect

the impact factors of a publication. Impact factors will also vary among

the types of journals: basic, applied, practitioner, or educational (Cross,

2005). JPA has been indexed in the Web of Science since 2015. It is

now also included in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (Clarivate

Analytics), but not yet in Clarivate Analytics' Journal Citation Report®,

and has not been allocated an impact factor. However, the impact of

JPA may be evaluated using other metrics.

SCImago (2018a, 2018b) draws from the Scopus database and

uses a “proprietary size‐independent prestige indicator to rank

journals by their average prestige per article.”The rankings by

SCImago are available as of 2009. According to SCImago, the latest

JPA ranking, in 2016, was 0.374. In previous years, the ranking was

as low as 0.124 (in 2009) and as high as 0.444 (in 2013).

It is imprudent to consider a journal's impact score as the sole

indicator of a journal's quality of output. The data and methods used

to calculate impact factors are not publicly available. Researchers look

for trends spanning several years. Impact scores are also best com-

pared among journals within the same discipline. When compared

with other journals with a focus on Public Administration, JPA is listed

as 14th overall in 2016 in a list of 50 journals, in SCImago's Journal

and Country Rank (2018), using JPA's 100 highest citable documents

referenced in the previous 3 years.

3|MEASURING JOURNAL IMPACT WITHIN

AN EMERGING FIELD

The field of public affairs is in the early stages of development.

Although it is a function that is becoming more and more important

within organizations, it often suffers from a degree of incoherence

within academic circles, partially because of its cross‐disciplinary origins

(Moss, McGrath, Tonge, & Harris, 2012). Although it is said to have

come of age in some circles, an indication of its status as an emergent

field is that there is still debate on the very definition of public affairs.

Although there are organizational departments in business that are

focused on this function, there remains a lack of clarity of its definition

within academia (Harris & Moss, 2006; Moss et al., 2012).

As the field of public affairs continues to develop, the role of pub-

lications such as JPA is critical, allowing a space for knowledge

exchange and in‐depth research. The success and relevance of the

study of public affairs and JPA is indicated by its research outputs

and impact in academia and in practice. A scholarly journal should be

influential and impactful and contribute significantly to the exchange

of ideas (Baumgartner & Pieters, 2003). One way to benchmark such

relevance can be through a bibliometric study.

A bibliometric study is a postpublication quantitative analysis of

articles published by a journal. It serves to document and evaluate

the characteristics of articles and their authors (Paschen, Wilson,

Nehajowich, & Prpić, 2016). Ultimately, such a study can reveal the

wider impact of the journal and provide a basis for discussion to assess

whether the work being published by the journal aligns with the

journal's objectives. Furthermore, such a study can reveal trends in

collaboration and help to map the reach of the journal geographically

and also in terms of knowledge.

A bibliometric study has not yet been conducted on JPA. On the

10th anniversary of JPA, an extended literature review was conducted.

It concluded that the original aims of JPA had largely been realized and

continued to be met (McGrath, Moss, & Harris, 2010). However, a lit-

erature review conducted by those closely aligned with the journal

could be open to bias. Indeed the authors acknowledge this, stating

the review is a “personal and subjective contribution”(McGrath

et al., 2010). Such studies can be seen as perceptual in nature and

may unintentionally miss or undervalue certain trends or insights. An

independent bibliometric study can provide a more objective approach

and provide further insight and quantitative data to help assess the

journal's impact, and whether its aims are being met.

In particular, the use of citation analysis provides an objective

method of examining relative quality of journals. It evaluates the fre-

quency of citations made to articles, authors, or journals appearing in

other journals (Guidry, Hollier, Johnson, Tanner, & Veltsos, 2004).

Essentially, journals can be seen to be impactful if they are the recip-

ients of many citations from others (Baumgartner & Pieters, 2003):

“The underlying assumption of citation analysis is that it provides an

accurate and unbiased way of determining the influence of a journal

by measuring its use”(Guidry et al., 2004, p. 49).

A bibliometric approach can also conveniently unearth levels of

collaboration in research (Subramanyam, 1983). By examining manu-

script and authorship characteristics, trends of collaboration can be

explored.

In our analysis, we took inspiration from other bibliometric studies

such as Botha, Lilford, and Pitt (2011) of South African management

literature over a 15‐year period, in which the authors conducted a

content analysis of three leading South African management journals.

Our methodology and approach were informed by the five key dimen-

sions identified in Paschen et al.'s (2016) paper examining literature

published in the Journal of Wine Research:“authorship, author institu-

tions, manuscript characteristics, research themes, and citation

impact”—and Wiid, du Preez, and Wallström's (2012) analysis of Mar-

keting Intelligence and Planning from 1999 to 2010. Other papers such

as Grant, Stiehler, and Boon's (2013) article on the Journal of Financial

Services Marketing provided further insight into assessing a journal's

impact over time.

4|METHODOLOGY

Our study covers the period from which the journal began in 2001, until

the end of 2016. We chose this time frame because, at the time of writ-

ing, the final issue of 2017 had not yet been published and we did not

have a complete set of articles for the year 2017. Our aim was to assess

the development of the journal and determine whether JPA has

achieved its stated claims through two main streams of analysis: citation

and authorship. The 16‐year time period was divided by year of publica-

tion into four equal time periods for comparison: 2001–2004, 2005–

2008, 2009–2012, and 2013–2016. In total, we analyzed 465 articles.

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