Periodical usefulness: The U.S. logistics educator perspective

Journal of Business Logistics, 2003 by Gibson, Brian J, Hanna, Joe B

Logistics professionals face a challenge today - how to best allocate precious budgetary resources and reading time to a growing array of logistics-related publications. Time-challenged members of the logistics community would benefit from the knowledge of what publications are widely used and found to be of value. This article generates insight into these issues and provides guidance for individuals in search of valuable information tools.

Unlike traditional studies of this nature, which base evaluations on the academic prestige or the research impact of periodicals (e.g., Heischmidt and Gordon 1993; Howard and Nikolai 1983), this study focuses on functional usefulness. Certainly, educators will have a direct interest in their peers' ratings of the periodicals in terms of research, outreach, and teaching merits. Additionally, logistics managers can use the rating results to help identify appropriate information resources for analogous industry activities (e.g., employee training and personal professional development).

The analysis of periodical usefulness is presented in four major sections. The first two sections lay the foundation for the study, discussing the ideal structure of a periodical ranking study and how the current study was designed to attain an accurate assessment of logistics periodical usefulness from the target population. The third section reveals results of the study, including periodical ratings, group comparisons, a bias analysis, and usefulness index scores. The final section presents insights gleaned from the study, its potential uses by key constituents, and its caveats.

BACKGROUND

The evaluation of periodicals is neither a trivial topic nor one of exclusive interest to educators. Studies providing a benchmark of specialty periodicals can be used for a variety of purposes, in addition to those described above. The evaluation results can be used by practitioners to become more aware of valuable resources and information outlets (Fawcett, Vellenga, and Truitt 1995), university administrators to assess faculty research performance (Hull and Wright 1990), and periodical publishers to keep their editorial objectives and content in sync with reader needs (Zivney and Reichenstein 1994).

Survey-based studies have been widely used across business disciplines to perform evaluations of relevant periodicals. In many of these studies, experts in the particular discipline evaluated periodicals using individual Likert scale assessments of quality, prestige, impact, relevance, timeliness, and/or readability (Coe and Weinstock 1983; Heischmidt and Gordon 1993; Hull and Wright 1990; Malouin and Outreville 1987). The most recent logistics periodical study combined multiple variables to arrive at an overall quality and prestige perception rating for each periodical (Fawcett, Vellenga, and Truitt 1995). Also, a limited number of studies have factored usage, readership, or popularity into their analyses (Browne and Becker 1991; Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997; Luke and Doke 1987). It is believed that these more expansive studies provide stronger and more reliable evaluations of periodical importance (Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997).

Previous studies targeted university faculty and administrators in the relevant discipline as the survey population (Heischmidt and Gordon 1993; Howard and Nikolai 1983). These individuals are viewed as having the greatest familiarity with and expertise regarding the periodicals, and thus constitute the most appropriate population for evaluation studies. For example, the most recent studies of logistics periodicals targeted United States college and university professors in the logistics and transportation field (Fawcett, Vellenga, and Truitt 1995; Ferguson 1975).

Traditionally, periodical evaluation studies focused narrowly on the research value of peer reviewed academic journals (Benjamin and Brenner 1974; Browne and Becker 1991; Heischmidt and Gordon 1993; Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997; Malouin and Outreville 1987). More recent studies have widened the scope of evaluation studies, citing one of two main reasons. First, academic- and practitioner-focused publications both benefit educators and warrant evaluation. Also, many publications are broad based and should not be judged exclusively on their research value (Hull and Wright 1990; Hult, Neese, and Bashaw 1997; Mason and Steagall 1997).

RESEARCH DESIGN

Based on the research goals and the knowledge gleaned from the background research, an expert opinion survey was developed. Key activities included: identifying relevant periodicals, designing the survey instrument, and defining the survey population.

First, an integrated list of 47 research journals and practitioner-oriented publications was compiled from past logistics journal ranking study results (Fawcett, Vellenga, and Truitt 1995), input from 22 logistics educators, and a review of serial holdings from three university libraries. Additional information regarding these periodicals (official title, publisher name and location, and ISSN) was assembled. An alphabetized list of the periodicals and related information was created for distribution with each survey.