The Relationship between International Editorial Board Composition and Citation Measures in Political Science, Business, and Genetics Journals

Abstract

Three measures of international composition on journal editorial boards—the number of countries represented on the board, the number of international members, and the proportion of international board members—were correlated with impact factor and total citation data in the 1999 Journal Citation Reports for 153 business, political science, and genetics journals. With a few exceptions the relationship between international editorial board composition and citation measures was non-linear, leading to the conclusion that international membership on the editorial board can not generally be used as a marker of better journal quality. Yet further investigation is warranted due to positive correlations between some editorial board and citation measures for non-U.S. business and political science journals.