Havemann, F; Heinz, M; Wagner-Dobler, R "Firm-like behavior of journals? Scaling properties of their output and impact growth dynamics" JASIST 56 (1). JAN 1 2005. p.3-12

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail: FNHavemann at compuserve.de

TITLE:          Firm-like behavior of journals? Scaling properties of
                their output and impact growth dynamics (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Havemann, F; Heinz, M; Wagner-Dobler, R
SOURCE:         JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE
                AND TECHNOLOGY 56 (1). JAN 1 2005. p.3-12 JOHN WILEY &
                SONS INC, HOBOKEN

ABSTRACT:       In the study of growth dynamics of artificial and natural
systems, the scaling properties of fluctuations can exhibit information
on the underlying processes responsible for the observed macroscopic
behavior according to H.E. Stanley and colleagues (Lee, Amaral, Canning,
Meyer, Stanley, 1998; Plerou, Amaral, Gopikrishnan, Meyer, Stanley, 1999;
Stanley et al., 1996). With such an approach, they examined the growth
dynamics of firms, of national economies, and of university research
fundings and paper output. We investigated the scaling properties of
journal output and impact according to the Journal Citation Reports (JCR;
ISI, Philadelphia, PA) and find distributions of paper output and of
citations near to lognormality. Growth rate distributions are near to
Laplace "tents," however with a better fit to Subbotin distributions. The
width of fluctuations decays with size according to a power law. The form
of growth rate distributions seems not to depend on journal size, and
conditional probability densities of the growth rates can thus be scaled
onto one graph. To some extent even quantitatively, all our results are
in agreement with the observations of Stanley and others. Further on, a
Matthew effect of journal citations is confirmed. If journals "behave"
like business firms, a better understanding of Bradford's Law as a result
of competition among publishing houses, journals, and topics suggests
itself.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: F Havemann, Humboldt Univ, Inst Lib Sci, Dorotheenstr 26,
                D-10117 Berlin, Germany

EM FNHavemann at compuserve.de

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