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Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of academic libraries’ operations. Consortia have come to assert considerable bargaining power over publishers and have provided libraries with considerable economic advantage. They interact with publishers both as consumers of publishers’ products, with much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, and, increasingly, as rival publishers themselves. Are consortia changing the relationship between academic libraries and publishers? Is the role of academic library consortia placing academic libraries in a position that should and will attract the attention of competition policy regulators? Competition policy prohibits buying and selling cartels that can negatively impact the free market on which the Canadian economic system, like other Western economies, depends. Competition policy as part of economic policy is, however, only relevant where we are concerned with aspects of the market economy. Traditionally, public goods for the greater social and cultural benefit of society are not considered part of the market economic system. If the activities of academic library consortia are part of that public good perspective, competition policy may not be a relevant concern. Using evidence gained from in-depth interviews from a national sample of university librarians and from interviews with the relevant federal government policy makers, this research establishes whether library consortia are viewed as participating in the market economy of Canada or not. Are consortia viewed by librarians and government as serving a public good role of providing information for a greater social and cultural benefit or are they seen from a market-economic perspective of changing power relations with publishers? Findings show government has little in-depth understanding of academic library consortia activity, but would most likely consider such activity predominantly from a market economic perspective. University librarians view consortia from a public good perspective but also as having an important future role in library operations and in changing the existing scholarly publishing paradigm. One-third of librarian respondents felt that future consortia could compete with publishers by becoming publishers and through initiatives such as open source institutional repositories. Librarians also felt that consortia have had a positive effect on librarians’ professional roles through the facilitation of knowledge building and collaboration opportunities outside of the home institution.

There are a number of published studies that have ranked journals publishing research in information systems and related areas such as electronic commerce. Despite electronic government (eGov) research reaching a decade‐old milestone, none of the existing research has attempted to explore and determine the quality of journals publishing research related to this multidisciplinary area. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to present the findings from a pilot survey exploring the scholarly perceptions of academic journals publishing eGov research.

A questionnaire‐based pilot survey was employed as the method for conducting this research. The survey was conducted by employing an e‐mail questionnaire which was designed as a Word file. In total, 31 usable responses were received and these provided the data presented in this paper.

The findings in the form of scholarly perceptions of journals publishing eGov research from this pilot survey explored the quality of journals. This pilot survey also explored respondents’ views on the following: whether the journals dedicated to eGov should be included in various journal rankings; and whether there is a need to have separate rankings for journals that publish eGov.

The generalization of findings is limited due to the small sample size as it was a pilot study. Hence, the findings should be treated as indicative rather than confirmatory of the quality of journals publishing eGov research. A larger survey needs to be conducted, in order to validate and generalize the findings reported in this submission.

The findings would be helpful for eGov researchers in terms of determining potential outlets with appropriate quality for future publications, and for universities/institutions engaged in supporting research in this area by recognizing and promoting publication in high‐quality outlets. The findings may also aid the decision making of those involved in maintaining journal rankings in reference to disciplines, in order to include dedicated eGov journals in such rankings.

There has been no research conducted and published (as far as the author is aware) that explores and determines the quality of journals publishing eGov research, which this paper attempts to achieve. Therefore, the findings presented in this paper are timely, original, and relevant to the eGov scholarly community. Since this is the very first step towards determining journal quality for publishing eGov research, the most important contribution of this paper would be to stimulate constructive debate amongst researchers of eGov (and its reference disciplines) on this topic, which (the author hopes) will then lead to the creation of rigorous consensus‐based ranking of journals publishing eGov research.

The key purpose of this study is to gain an insight into the quality of the scholarly publishing and refereeing system used by Emerald’s Library and Information Science (LIS) journals from the perspectives of the Arab authors who are publishing in this wide-ranging database. It also tries to provide helpful guidance for authors to fit their authorship for publication.

Of the total 3,846 papers published in Emerald’s LIS journals in the past five years (the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2015), there were only 81 papers (research/technical/conceptual papers and case studies only) authored by Arabs, representing 2.11 per cent of the whole productivity in the discipline of the LIS in Emerald in this period. Corresponding authors (mostly first authors) (n = 73) were contacted to answer the questionnaire of the study. Five of those 73 authors could not be reached because of the lack of validity of their e-mails. Out of the remaining authors (n = 68), 47 returned their valid questionnaires, representing 69.1 per cent of the total number of the Arab authors.

This study revealed that the Arab male authors dominated (78.7 per cent) the publishing in Emerald’s LIS journals in the past five years. Two-thirds of the Arab authors are aged between 36 to 45 years (mostly males with doctoral degrees), followed by those authors (17 per cent) who are aged between 46 to 50 years (mostly males with doctoral degrees) and by those authors (12.8 per cent) aged between 31 to 35 years (all are males and half of them hold a doctorate). The study also found that there was a direct proportionality between the Arab authors’ research experience with the history of publishing in Emerald’s LIS journals because the more research experience they have, the greater the number of their research history of publishing in Emerald. Assistant Professors (44.7 per cent) were found to be the group most frequently publishing in Emeralds’ LIS journals with research experience ranging between 11 and 20 years (mainly with a publishing history of five years), followed by lectures with research experience ranging between 1 and 20 years (mostly with a publishing history of five years) and then associate professors with research experience ranging between 11 and 20 years (mostly with a publishing history of ten years). The findings also found that most Arab authors (80.9 per cent) publishing in Emerald’s LIS journals preferred the sole or single authorship. The co-authorship or co-authored works were not much preferred by many of them. A large number (87.2 per cent) of the Arab authors, who are mainly described as experts and advanced authors in using the Emerald refereeing system, see this system, at least, as good. Regarding the reasons/factors to submit articles to Emerald’s LIS journals, this study revealed that the availability of papers in electronic formats, the journal’s impact factor, the association with the research area, the academic coverage of the journal, abstracting and indexing services, the availability in hard copy, the speed of reviewing, the size of readership, the ease of acceptance and the standing of the editorial board were the most significant reasons and factors to submit articles papers for publication in Emerald. The Arab authors in this study have shown considerable positive attitude and perceptions towards the publishing in Emerald’s LIS journals because all of them, at least, agree that publishing in Emerald can increase the speed of finding information and reduce the use of papers. A very large number of them also showed that such publishing may also help create a wider spread, build confidence, be convenient, secure credibility and be objective. Compared to their positive attitude and perceptions towards the publishing in Emerald’s LIS journals, Arab authors had little negative feelings about the publishing in these journals. A few of them (8.5 per cent) have shown a considerable concern about the time it takes in reviewing their articles because they reported that such publishing requires a long time for the peer review process, and it also needs long communications with the editorial staff; this may affect negatively on the time of the research topic. Not being their first language, a few Arab authors (8.5 per cent) have also shown a considerable concern about the use of English being the publishing language in Emerald, as it requires certain skills needed not only to publish their articles but also to deal with the Emerald system and communicate with editorial staff. Overall, this small percentage did not affect the rest of the authors who described their concerns about this obstacle as modest to some extent. Although there is a lot of enthusiasm for publication in Emerald showed by the Arab authors, there have been also some concerns expressed by them towards that goal. A modest number of the Arab authors suggested that the lack of language skills needed for publishing in Emerald, followed by the lack of patience needed to wait for issuing papers, the technical problems related to the system and its interface and the lack of technical skills needed for publishing, as well as the time needed to be online, were significant to them when looking to publish in Emerald.

The paper investigates the quality of the scholarly publishing and refereeing system used in Emerald’s LIS journals from the perspectives of Arab authors who are publishing in this wide-ranging database. Such topic, to date, has limited previous research, as well as the limited size of the representation of the Arab authors in Emerald’s LIS journals in the past five years, which is due logically to the lack of their research and scientific contributions in this database during this period. Future research could focus on varied contexts or samples, such as other different disciplines and nationalities.

The paper provides valuable insight into the perception about the Emerald’s peer review quality by a very significant client group – academic researchers representing 22 Arab countries.

This study is to be the first one of its kind conducted by one of the Arab authors who has published in Emerald’s LIS journals. Being one of the few studies about the scholarly communication/productivity/collaboration of Arab authors in these journals, this study considers a pioneer one among many studies conducted in scholarly communication, especially with Arab authors.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and examine streams in the literature related to academic publishing, with a focus on works in marketing. The content of the works within each theme are then explored to identify what issues have been examined and their implications.

The paper is a literature review, drawing on 30 years of research on academic publishing in marketing. The review is designed to cover the underlying issues examined, but is not designed to be comprehensive in terms of all the works exploring each stream of research.

There are five main streams in the literature focusing on: rankings; theory and knowledge development; how to publish;, criticisms of publishing; and other issues. Within each stream, a number of sub‐areas are explored. The works tend to be fragmented and there is generally limited in‐depth qualitative research within streams exploring the underlying assumptions on which publishing is based.

The focus of the research is on the streams of works, rather than the findings within each stream and future research could explore each of these streams and sub‐streams in more detail. Generally, the works appear to becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of their analysis, which is only possible with the new technologies available. New metrics proposed in the literature that can be used to better understand publishing and additional qualitative research exploring some of the basic assumptions could also be explored.

The research suggests that some streams with regard to academic publishing may have reached saturation and future publishing in these areas will need to be innovative in its approach and analysis, if these works are to be published.

This paper is the first attempt to develop streams within the literature on academic publishing in marketing and thus draws together a diverse cross‐section of works. It provides suggestions for directions for future research in the various streams.

Global leadership research published in the form of journal articles, scholarly book chapters, and theses and dissertations from 2015 to 2020 are tabulated to ascertain patterns in the field regarding the quantity of publication in the field, type of research being conducted, authorship patterns, type of theory that is utilized, and linkages of research to related phenomena. We compare our findings to previous research and discuss implications for the future evolution of the global leadership field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the pressures to publish facing European public relations (PR) and communication management scholars across career stages.

The Delphi method was used with PR and communication management scholars at associate professor level or higher across Europe. An online survey was then shared with the wider academic community to gather insights from scholars at different career stages.

The suitability and status of the journal and the language of the outputs are considered. Academics are caught between the rock of publishing inside the field to support its development and the hard place of being required to publish in high-ranking journals for funding and promotion. Scholars are evaluated regularly, with journal articles being the main unit of assessment. Academics, regardless of career stage, feel under pressure to publish.

The wider survey enabled publishing insights to be gathered from academics across the career spectrum, but it was completed by a small sample. Nevertheless, similar concerns emerged from both methods of data gathering, suggesting a clear agenda for discussion and further research.

PR and communications management is an academic discipline without an accepted list of high-impact journals. This study provides an annotated journal list to aid institutional evaluations, aid scholarly journal publishing decisions and support early career researchers navigating the publishing process.

This adds to the somewhat limited discussion regarding how academics in PR and communication management decide where to publish and provides a resource that can be used by scholars, institutions and funders.

This study aims to find out the average journal packing density (JPD) of Library and Information Science (LIS) research journals published across the world. The concept, JPD, means the average number of research articles published by a research journal in one volume. Accordingly, the undergoing study evaluates the average number of research articles published in each volume of each research journal published in the field of LIS at the global level. Some other key aspects evaluated include the number of LIS research journal publishing countries, average JPD of LIS research journals at the continental level, etc.

This study is purely based on secondary data retrieved from SCImago, which is SCOPUS data. Keeping in view the objectives of this study, the data about research articles published in all LIS research journals during the period 2015 through 2019 were retrieved to undertake the study.

From the data analysis, it emerged that 256 research journals duly indexed by SCOPUS are published in the field of LIS across 36 countries. In all 48,596 research articles were published from 2015 to 2019 in these research journals at an average of 44.71 research articles per journal per volume. More than 75% of LIS research journals are published from Germany, Spain, Netherlands, the USA and the UK. Research journals published from the USA have higher JPD of 53.09 research articles per journal per volume, which is 18.74% higher than the average global JPD of LIS research journals. 50% of LIS research journal publishing countries are from Europe and the majority 52.55% LIS research articles were published in European LIS research journals. The average JPD of LIS research journals published from North America is 51.73 research articles per journal per volume, which is the highest across continents.

Standardization of JPD of research journals irrespective of the subject discipline they are published in is important for many reasons and the foremost being, such standardization helps in keeping at bay the predatory research journals, which normally float such packing density norms, with the sole aim to earn money in the shape of manuscript handling charges, thereby publishing a far greater number of research article in each issue of a journal than the average research articles published by a research journal.

Very few studies have been conducted around the concept JPD, especially by the authors of this particular study. This study has however been particularized to the LIS subject discipline, while the findings add to existing lot of study already undertaken, hence outcome can be generalized.

Open access to scientific publications is in this study looked at from the perspective of Finnish biomedical research. In the study we outline the development of open access in Finland and the different channels for open access publishing as well as the recommendations from officials. We argue that the discipline-specific patterns of communicating research should be taken into account when studying open access adoption, and when planning for initiatives and recommendations. We have in the case study on the prevalence of open access articles on the Internet, in the field of biomedical research, found that incentives to publish in open access channels could be developed and that the impact of open access in research publishing is growing and therefore future research is needed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop insight into the scholarly communications trends in hospitality and tourism management by looking at the practice of publishing Special Issues (SIs) in top-ranked hospitality and tourism management (HTM) academic journals: examining the relationship of SIs to journal impact as a measurement of quality, identifying some principal topics of SI and the trend of publishing SI as monographs.

This paper consists of an analysis of 22 top-ranked HTM journals from 1995 to 2020, in-depth case studies reviewing studies in two top-ranked HTM journals and an examination of which publishers supplement their revenue by selling their special issues as monographs. This paper includes a substantial review of literature regarding special issue publishing within business academic journals.

There was growth in the publication of HTM SI from 1995 to 2020, both in numbers and as a percentage of total issues. There is no evidence that SI are reducing impact within HTM journals; impact has grown exponentially since the mid-1990s. In one case, there was a significant increase in SI publication as well as in impact. The number of Regular Issues (RI) published increased during the same period but at a marginally lower rate. There is no evidence that SI are negatively affecting RI. The in-depth analysis of the two journals concurred with the above findings and suggested that SI studies discuss topics of the highest impact. SI increased the revenue of the publisher through monograph publishing. This practice also furthered the field by making SI available to be purchased as a monograph by nonsubscribers.

This study provides a deeper understanding of scholarly publishing in top-ranking HTM journals and provides a foundation for future research on HTM publishing practices. Its practical implications extend to practitioners who rely on HTM scholarship for dissemination of vital research that can guide or drive decision-making. This study also informs the critical question as to whether such research is compromised by publishing practices. Other practical implications include providing reassuring information to editors who publish SI that these issues do not appear to contribute to lower journal impact. For researchers who are considering submitting manuscripts to SIs, this study similarly implies that their paper should not be considered of lower value and that there is no indication that its impact will be lessened. Furthermore, the authors hope that this study encourages would-be guest editors to publish SI if they have held back because of quality/impact concerns. Finally, this paper may provide evidence to journal editors who do not regularly publish SI because of quality and impact concerns that they may reconsider this choice. Implications for HTM journal editors and guest editors include adding or increasing SI in their publishing practice will not decrease the journal’s quality, while SI publishing also could contribute to the goals of their publication and increase revenues for the publishers. Researchers who may have been reluctant to publish in SI should be more inclined to submit to them or endeavor to become guest editors to explore avenues of developing their field.

SI publication and impact within the field of hospitality and tourism scholarly communications are rarely discussed. Literature reviews on SI publication in business are also limited. Investigation into publication practices of focused/special issues can help inform researchers, publishers and editors and provide a state of the industry.

This paper investigates the fit for purpose of the flip model proposed by Max Planck Society and Plan S for the African environment. This flipped model is examined against the backdrop of African imperatives, which is much broader than just flipping a journal pricing model from subscription to open access. This paper also seeks a viable alternative model that supports the growth of African scholarship and the dissemination thereof.

This paper adopts a descriptive research methodology, which allows for an in-depth analysis of a phenomenon. By using this method, this paper describes a flip model proposed by global north entities, which do not augur well for the growth of the OA movement in Africa.

The findings demonstrate that the global north centric flipped model exacerbates the inequality in the publishing landscape by further marginalizing the research voices from the global south. Africa is in dire need of an alternative that denorthernizes the publishing landscape, promote equity and equality, and is more inclusive of the research voices from Africa. South African academic libraries have demonstrated their willingness to experiment with and roll-out library publishing services. This proof of concept has been extended into a continental platform for the publication and dissemination of African scholarship.

This paper will be of interest to those who are grappling with viable alternatives to the current flip models, which include, inter alia, university leadership. This paper will also be of interest to global north libraries who are embarking on library publishing without the social justice obligation but are committed to the OA movement.