“…On the whole, peer‐reviewed journals provide an immediate, even if imperfect, signal that can be converted into reputation, prestige, and the entire attendant benefits for individual researchers. Generally, as far as publication choice is concerned, scholars tend to favor “safe investments”—either by virtue of their history, or because they are regarded as such by the scholar's scientific community (Clemens et al ; Park and Qin ). This gives rise to a self‐perpetuating rigidity and inertia in the prestige of journals, and so also in researchers' publication choices, which can only be broken by some external intervention, random shock, or purpose‐designed policy that has the effect of altering perceptions and hence the decisions of individuals.…”