Research Evaluation and Journal Quality Weights : Much Ado About Nothing

Abstract

Research evaluations based on quality weighted publication output are often criticized on account of the employed journal quality weights. This study shows that evaluations of entire research organizations are very robust with respect to the choice of readily available weighting schemes. We document this robustness by applying rather different weighting schemes to otherwise identical rankings. Our unit of analysis consists of German, Austrian and Swiss university departments in business administration and economics.