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ABSTRACT
In this paper we report on the results of a survey of 230 members of the Small Business Institute® and the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship on journal rankings. The top four entrepreneurship journals were Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Small Business Strategy, and the Journal of Small Business Management. Suggestions for improving the status of specialized entrepreneurship journals are provided.
Keywords: journal rankings, Small Business Institute®, U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship
INTRODUCTION
Why do entrepreneurship faculty members engage in scholarly activity and publishing? Why should we be interested in journal rankings of entrepreneurship journals? This paper addresses these questions while presenting information about the perceptions of journal rankings by entrepreneurship faculty members.
At the core of scholarly research and activities (e.g., Chen, Gupta, & Hoshower, 2006) is the recognition that an assessment of such efforts should include an evaluation of the contribution to the field of study by that scholarly activity. The need to recognize the contribution revolves around personnel decisions in the areas of hiring, promotion, tenure, and salary increases (Chrisman, Chua, Kellermans, Matherne, & Debicki, 2008; Park & Gordon, 1996) as well as instructional currency (Singh, Haddad, & Chow, 2007). In support of these needs, academics may access numerous conceptual definitions of scholarship (e.g., Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 1992; Katz, 2003), and may peruse studies that have addressed numerous methodologies in attempts to measure the contributions that institutions and individuals make to the specific disciplines (e.g., Johnson & Podsakoff, 1994; Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1992; Shane, 1997). The variability in conceptual definitions of what constitutes scholarship and the numerous methodologies of assessing scholarly effort notwithstanding, journal publications continue to be the most frequently cited component of scholarly output, and as a result, interest in the area of journal rankings continues unabated (Katz, 2003).
Since entrepreneurship is an emerging or developing field (Busenitz et al., 2003; Wiseman & Skilton, 1999), one particular emphasis in the study of field specific journal rankings has been the attempt to identify journals that make up an acceptable forum for the exchange of entrepreneurial thought. In a series of early studies (MacMillan 1989; 1991; 1993), experts in entrepreneurship ranked related scholarly journals on the basis of...