Dr. Andreas Wieland has recently published an interesting post on his Supply Chain Management Research blog about supply chain management journals and impact factors. One of the tools that can be used to evaluate the quality of a journal is checking on its “impact factor.” The impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year.1 Meaning, the higher the impact factor, the more important the journal. Luckily, for procurement and supply chain professionals there are several journals that focus on management in the areas of operations, supply chain, logistics, and procurement.
Dr. Wieland reports on the impact factors, from Journal Citation Reports, of various supply chain management (SCM) journals. His findings:
“At least two SCM-related journals have an impact factor larger than 3, indicating that they belong to the best in class in the management realm: Journal of Operations Management and Journal of Supply Chain Management.”
“…two other journals have an impact factor close to 3: Supply Chain Management: An International Journal and Journal of Business Logistics.
“Four additional journals were able to reach an impact factor between 1.5 and 2: International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management, Decision Sciences, and International Journal of Operations & Production Management.”