Invited Viewpoint: How well does the Information Systems discipline fare in the Financial Times’ top 50 Journal list?

Viewpoint: Information systems research strategy

“…I also do not see how the field of IS could be ‘governed by any type of governor’. It is clearly liberalistic, but of course there are (and I very much think there should be) influences from funding agencies.” [vii] One senior scholar wrote, “ Is this a reverse engineering of a strategy, or a simple summary of activities and outcomes hoping to find a pattern leading to an (implicit) strategy?” [viii] Vidgen et al (2019) discuss the importance of journal ranking lists saying, “Journal lists are a yet stronger and more potent form of strategic signalling in research. Organizations, such as the Financial Times, signal which journals matter, for example, through the FT50, and business schools in turn enrol these lists in order to communicate [research] values and priorities to their academic staff .“ [ix] A senior scholar wrote, “ Sounds more like an inductive strategy development, ie authors can still pick their directions and an entity selects best examples to communicate what is desired .” [x] One senior scholar wrote, “ If we thought our research mattered, ICIS would be the premier outlet.…”

“…[viii] Vidgen et al (2019) discuss the importance of journal ranking lists saying, “Journal lists are a yet stronger and more potent form of strategic signalling in research. Organizations, such as the Financial Times, signal which journals matter, for example, through the FT50, and business schools in turn enrol these lists in order to communicate [research] values and priorities to their academic staff .“…”

Will the increase in publication volumes “dilute” prestigious journals’ impact factors? A trend analysis of the FT50 journals

“…The Financial Times' top 50 journals list 1 (FT50) released by the Financial Times newspaper is a widely used and influential journal list among business schools worldwide (Vidgen et al 2019). The number of publications in the FT50 journals is an important indicator to measure the performance of business schools, business and management disciplines as well as researchers.…”

Publication Behavior in Different Fields of Business Administration: From Anecdotal to Empirical Evidence

“…Publications in such journals are typically one criteria for the distribution of funds in business administration faculties. More precisely, we focus on journals included in the Financial Times' top 50 journals (FT50) (Fassin 2021;Vidgen et al 2019;Zhang 2021) and highly rated journals according to the VHB Jourqual 3 (JQL3) (see, e.g., Eisend (2011) and Schrader and Henning-Thurau (2009) for discussions regarding earlier versions of this ranking). Previous research shows that in some fields of business administration it might be more difficult to publish in highly rated journals compared to other fields.…”