Handelsblatt business economist ranking

The Handelsblatt business economist ranking by the Handelsblatt is a ranking for evaluating the research performance of business economists in German-speaking countries. It was first created in 2009 and will be published annually from now on. The publication caused a lot of discussion among business economists and was also widely discussed outside of the professional world. The Handelsblatt Business Economist Ranking is the business equivalent of the well-known Handelsblatt Economist Ranking published since 2006 .

methodology

The Handelsblatt business economist ranking is a bibliometric analysis of the research performance of business economists who conduct research in German-speaking countries. The basic assumption is that the research performance of a researcher can be measured by the weighted counting of his / her publications in recognized scientific journals. Not only in economics, the publication of his findings in journals - in addition to lectures at conferences - is the dominant way of public knowledge dissemination between researchers. For the ranking, all publications of a scientist are registered, weighted and at the end added up to a total number of points, which the order within the ranking.

The key points are the list of journals considered and the weighting system for the individual publications in the sense of a journal evaluation . For the 2009 ranking, the list of journals comprised a total of 761 specialist journals from business administration and its sub-disciplines, as well as related sciences, predominantly in English, but also in German. The aim is to include as many scientifically relevant journals as possible in which business economists from the various disciplines can publish to a significant extent. Several factors go into the weighting that a single publication receives:

First, there are big differences in reputation between magazines. It is far more difficult to get a publication in a respected, widely used journal than in a relatively unknown journal with a limited readership, which is why publications in "large" journals tend to have more scientific content. For this reason, the publications are given different weights depending on the journal in which they were published. The range extends from 0.1 (so-called C journals) to 1.0 (the 15 highest-ranking specialist journals worldwide). The weights are assigned according to the journal lists of the Erasmus Research Institute of Management , the VHB-JOURQUAL2 (ranking by the Association of University Lecturers for Business Administration ) and the Social Science Citation Index or the Science Citation Index .
Depending on the number of authors of a publication, the weight is distributed among the authors.
Comments are only half weighted compared to articles, book reviews etc. not at all.

Leaderboards

Three different ranking lists are created based on the above methodology:

Top 200 by life's work : All publications by all researchers are taken into account here.
Top 100 current research achievements : Only publications from the last five years prior to the creation of the ranking are considered here.
Top 100 under 40 : This ranking only includes researchers who had not yet reached the age of 40 on the reference date.

criticism

There are some points of criticism with regard to the correct mapping of research performance through this ranking:

It only measures the fact that an article appeared in a particular magazine, not its quality. Indicators for this would be e.g. B. the frequency with which an article is cited by other authors.
Only research performance through scientific articles is measured. The activity at scientific conferences as well as the publication of books or articles in edited volumes are not taken into account.
The majority of non-business magazines come from the field of economics . Interdisciplinary representatives of some sub-disciplines complain that their publications in journals of related sciences (e.g. psychology, law) are not considered.
It is possible for researchers to optimize their publication behavior for a given research performance with regard to such rankings. You can e.g. B. If necessary, split your research results into several publications (in order to increase the number of publications) or consult renowned co-authors (in order to increase the chances of acceptance in respected journals).
Professors, especially those with a large number of academic staff, can register as co-authors of the work of their subordinates.

Nevertheless, the Handelsblatt business economics ranking is considered the most comprehensive and meaningful ranking of its kind in the German-speaking area.

There is also fundamental criticism of the publication of such research rankings, as they intensify the focus on the quantitative research output and thus intensify the problem of “ publish or perish ”.

Results

In the 2009 ranking, the research performance of 2100 business economists from Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland has been assessed since 2005. The following are the 10 best business economists based on current research:

2009

2014

Web links

Handelsblatt business economist ranking

Individual evidence

↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/bwl-ranking/ranking-die-bwl-erfindet-sich-neu;2284051

↑ including http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3929&cob=416395 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2
↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/bwl-aktuelleforschung/ ( Memento from May 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

[1] ttp://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/bwl-ranking/ranking-die-bwl-erfindet-sich-neu;2284051