The relationship between the number of authors of a publication, its citations and the impact factor of the publishing journal: Evidence from Italy

Giovanni Abramo and D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea

Journal of Informetrics, 2015, vol. 9, issue 4, 746-761

Abstract: Empirical evidence shows that co-authored publications achieve higher visibility and impact. The aim of the current work is to test for the existence of a similar correlation for Italian publications. We also verify if such correlation differs: (i) by subject category and macro-area; (ii) by document type; (iii) over the course of time. The results confirm world-level evidence, showing a consistent and significant linear growth in the citability of a publication with number of co-authors, in almost all subject categories. The effects are more remarkable in the fields of Social Sciences and Art & Humanities than in the Sciences – a finding not so obvious scrutinizing previous studies. Moreover, our results partly disavow the positive association between number of authors and prestige of the journal, as measured by its impact factor.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Research collaboration; Co-authorship; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157715200557
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:9:y:2015:i:4:p:746-761

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2015.07.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().