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The purpose of this paper is to present a narrative review of studies on the citing behavior of scientists, covering mainly research published in the last 15 years. Based on the results of these studies, the paper seeks to answer the question of the extent to which scientists are motivated to cite a publication not only to acknowledge intellectual and cognitive influences of scientific peers, but also for other, possibly non‐scientific, reasons.

The review covers research published from the early 1960s up to mid‐2005 (approximately 30 studies on citing behavior‐reporting results in about 40 publications).

The general tendency of the results of the empirical studies makes it clear that citing behavior is not motivated solely by the wish to acknowledge intellectual and cognitive influences of colleague scientists, since the individual studies reveal also other, in part non‐scientific, factors that play a part in the decision to cite. However, the results of the studies must also be deemed scarcely reliable: the studies vary widely in design, and their results can hardly be replicated. Many of the studies have methodological weaknesses. Furthermore, there is evidence that the different motivations of citers are “not so different or ‘randomly given’ to such an extent that the phenomenon of citation would lose its role as a reliable measure of impact”.

Given the increasing importance of evaluative bibliometrics in the world of scholarship, the question “What do citation counts measure?” is a particularly relevant and topical issue.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the citation behavior of Pondicherry University faculty with a focus on their recent publication experience, indexed in Scopus. The paper endeavors to gain an insight into their pattern of citation of scientific papers and attempts to understand the underlying motive in doing so especially in an era where information resources have transitioned from print to digital.

The study adopted a judgmental sample consisting of 100 selected faculty members whose recent papers were indexed by Scopus database. A pre-defined questionnaire consisting of demographic profile and 23 items on citation trust and authority statements of citing sources was self-administered to them.

The findings of the study indicate that the citation behavior of faculty in Pondicherry University is complex and multi-faceted. Although majority of the faculty depicted an inclination toward normative citation behavior (concerned with the intellectual content of the work), there are others who displayed social constructivist (concerned with the social aspects of the work) citation behavior as well. However, in spite of the differences observed in the citation behavior of the faculty, it was observed that they remained traditional while making trust decisions even in the digital era. Finally, findings suggest no statistical significant difference when it comes to variables, such as gender and discipline in the citation behavior of the faculty.

Given the ever-increasing importance of citation in judging the quality of research journals, in ranking institutions and in determining the efficacy of faculty in India, author-based approach of understanding citer motivation definitely carry research value.

The use of bibliographic citation is a crucial aspect in the creation and dissemination of information. Numerous studies have been done ranging from simple citation counts to more complex bibliographic coupling studies, and from citation classifications to citation motivation studies. This review focusses on the citation studies that have explored the complexities and the underlying norms of the citation process. The major emphasis is placed upon the studies which have dealt with citation functions, citation quality, citation concepts and citation motivation. The international perspectives of citation practice are also discussed.

This study explored the influence of Dervin’s sensemaking methodology (SMM).

Citation context analysis was used to identify the most influential SMM concepts in 948 articles citing 34 SMM-related studies by Dervin that were published between 1983 and 2017. Moreover, the bibliometric method and content analysis were incorporated to examine the disciplines and research topics influenced by the SMM-related studies and the role of cited content in SMM-related studies.

The influence of SMM is concentrated in information behavior research in the field of library and information science (LIS). The 1992 book chapter From the mind’s eye of the user was most frequently cited, followed by the first SMM study from 1983; 14 of the 18 content categories were relevant to SMM. “Sensemaking,” at the core of SMM, was the most influential cited concept, primarily cited from the 1983 SMM-related study. Although the SMM was developed as a research method, it has not been primarily applied to design research methods in other studies.

This study explored the interdisciplinary influence of Dervin’s SMM from several aspects and demonstrated the complex information dynamics between SMM-related works and citing articles.

In scholarly publications, citations play an essential epistemic role in creating and disseminating knowledge. Conversely, the use of problematic citations impedes the growth of knowledge, contaminates the knowledge base and disserves science. This study investigates the presence of problematic citations in the works of business ethics scholars.

The authors investigated two types of problematic citations: inaccurate citations and plagiarized citations. For this, 1,200 randomly selected citations from three leading business ethics journals were assessed based on: (1) referenced journal errors, (2) article title errors and (3) author name errors. Other papers that replicated the same title errors were identified.

Of the citations in the examined business ethics journals, 21.42% have at least one error. Of particular concern are the citation errors in article titles, where 3.75% of examined citations have minor errors and another 3.75% display major errors – 7.5% in total. Two-thirds of minor and major title errors were repeatedly replicated in previous and ensuing publications, which confirms the presence of citation plagiarism. An average article published in a business ethics journal contains at least three plagiarized citations. Even though business ethics fares well compared to other disciplines, a situation where every fifth citation is problematic is unacceptable.

Business ethics scholars are not immune to the use of problematic citations, and it is unlikely that attempting to improve researchers' awareness of the unethicality of this behavior will bring a desirable outcome.

Identifying that problematic citations exist in the business ethics literature is novel because it is expected that these researchers would not condone this practice.

Literature practices represent the process leading up to the citation of a source, and consist of the selection, reading and citing of sources. The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors that might influence researchers during this process and discover possible consequences of researchers’ citation behaviours.

In this exploratory study, various factors which could influence literature practices were explored via a questionnaire amongst 112 researchers. Participants were first authors of articles published in 2016 in one of five different journals within the disciplines of experimental psychology, educational sciences and social psychology. Academic positions of the participants ranged from PhD student to full professor.

Frequencies and percentages showed that researchers seemed to be influenced in their literature practices by various factors, such as editors suggesting articles and motivation to cite. Additionally, a high percentage of researchers reported taking shortcuts when citing articles (e.g. using secondary citations and reading selectively). Logistic regression did not reveal a clear relationship between academic work experience and research practices.

Seeing that researchers seem to be influenced by a variety of factors in their literature practices, the scientific community might benefit from better citation practices and guidelines in order to provide more structure to the process of literature practices.

This paper provides first insights into researchers’ literature practices. Possible reasons for problems with citation accuracy and replicating research findings are highlighted. Opportunities for further research on the topic of citation behaviours are presented.

The aim of this paper is to determine the extent to which readers perceive correctly the reasons why authors cite items in scholarly texts.

The authors of ten library and information science articles provided the reasons for citing material in their articles and these reasons were compared with those suggested independently by readers of the articles.

Readers are able to perceive correctly author reasons for citation only to a very limited extent.

Limitations are a small sample of ten articles and 45 reader assessments of those articles, and the use of a single classification of reasons for citation.

The findings call into question techniques such as citation context analysis that are based on the assumption that readers understand the reasons why authors cite material.

This is the first attempt to compare author and reader reasons for citation and hence to validate the use of citation context analysis.

To provide an empirical analysis of what influences police use of field citations (tickets) against citizens in nontraffic and traffic encounters.

The research was conducted using systematic social observations of police‐citizen encounters in Cincinnati, Ohio, from April 1997 to 1998. Multiple logistic regression models were used to examine the effects of legal and extralegal factors on the dependant variable (receipt of a citation) versus an officer doing nothing or arresting a citizen in nontraffic and traffic encounters.

Officers appear to be more likely to issue citations, as opposed to doing nothing formal or making an arrest, in traffic encounters. The extant literature's focus on citation issuance being more relevant to police behavior in traffic encounters as opposed to other routine encounters may be appropriate. When the decision rests between issuing a citation or making a full‐custody arrest in traffic encounters, white officers are more likely to arrest than their black counterparts, and black suspects were significantly more likely than Caucasians to be arrested than cited. Race of the officer or the suspect exhibited no significant effect in any of the other models estimated.

The study utilized data collected on police‐citizen interactions from one police agency in one jurisdiction, and the data do not come from a study designed primarily to examine citation outcomes or traffic encounters.

This study would be useful to researchers examining police use of citations, officer behavior in traffic and nontraffic encounters, quantifying law in police‐citizen encounters, and race‐based policing.

This study provides a comprehensive review of the literature, and an empirical analysis, regarding officer decision making as it pertains to the issuing of tickets relative to other police actions (i.e. arrest) in traffic and nontraffic situations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of geographic location of research-intensive firms in the ability to generate new research and products, which consequently affects firm value.

The authors conduct the empirical study following a three-step process. First, if pharmaceutical firms are more likely to cite the patents of other firms and other innovators that are nearby, as opposed to firms and other innovators that are far away, then location (i.e. close proximity) is likely important when it comes to the ability to learn and to use the knowledge being generated by other innovators. The authors employ a “geographic information systems” (GIS) and geo-code each pair of citing and cited patents. In addition, the authors utilize spatial statistics such as Moran’s I to analyze the spatial clustering pattern of patent citations and knowledge flows. Next, the authors measure the pharmaceutical companies’ ability to generate useful patents as a function of the amount of innovation and industrial activity that is occurring close to them. Finally, the authors test whether a firm’s location relates to its firm value. Specifically, the authors model firm value as a function of its patents quality, but the authors also allow the firm’s patents quality to be a function of its location and locational attributes. In this way, the authors establish a link between location and firm value. Using a simultaneous system of equations, the authors find that location explains patent quality, which, in turn, explains firm value. In other words, there is a positive relationship between firm value, innovation and location.

In empirical tests using pharmaceutical firms and their patents, the authors first find that firms more often cite patents of other firms that are geographically closer to them than those firms that are farther away. The authors then find that a patent’s quality is a function of the firm’s near proximity to other knowledge-intensive institutions and activities. Finally, the authors find that because patent quality is a function of a firm’s geographic location, location consequently affects firm value.

For knowledge-intensive firms, geographic location matters. More specifically, the authors contend that research-intensive firms are better able to use and to expand on existing knowledge when they are closer to other research-intensive enterprises. The implication is that firm value maximization involves a location factor.

The practical implication for investors is that investors should invest in those firms that are situated in a location that is rich in geographic innovation resources because those firms are more likely to generate more and higher quality patents or innovations.

The study is the first to establish the linkage among spatial knowledge diffusion, geographic drivers of innovation, and market valuation of the firm. The study is unique in that the authors not only present evidence on spatial knowledge flows by geo-coding the exact longitude and latitude location coordinates of citing and cited patens, but more importantly, the authors also identify geographic drivers of innovation, and examine their impacts on citation-weighted patent counts and knowledge stock. Finally, using a series of simultaneous equations, the authors show how geographic innovation resources positively affect citation-weighted patent stock and knowledge stock and consequently affect market value of the firm. Thus, the novel approach contributes not only to the literature that measures geographic localization of knowledge flow using patent citations, but also to the literature that examines the impact of geographic sources of innovations on patent outputs and patent quality and, thus on firm value for research-intensive firms.

The reciprocal relationship between bibliographic references and citations in the context of the scholarly communication system is examined. Semiotic analysis of referencing behaviours and citation counting reveals the complexity of prevailing sign systems and associated symbolic practices.