Exploring the influence of scientific journal ranking on publication performance in the Hungarian social sciences: the case of law and economics

Abstract

Using a case study of the Economic and Law Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, we find that domestic rankings greatly distort researchers’ publication preferences. This finding is contrary to the importance of international journal rankings, such as the SCOPUS Scimago journal ranking or the Web of Science Impact Factor. We found inconsistencies between international and domestic standards and differences between the eight committees of the academic department. Based on an exploratory empirical analysis of 4213 journals spanning eight different scientific committees of social science areas (business, law, demography, sociology, regional studies, world economics, military science and political science), we prove that a key reason for Hungary’s decreasing rank in international visibility is the inconsistently strong bias for domestic journals. We show that inconsistency of ranking fairness determines the behavior of researchers; this motivational effect is especially important in small countries in which local relevance often offsets the importance of mainstream international discourses. This problem is attenuated with the digital transformation of science; online repositories, indexing systems and online visibility have become key enablers of evidence-based assessments of publication performance.