The small world of innovation studies: an “editormetrics” perspective

Editors exert a significant influence on a journal’s mission and in governing the strategic direction of entire fields. They act as gatekeepers not only by ensuring the quality of contributions but also the integrity of the scholarly process. For being such an important element in the sectoral system of scientific production and communication, the editorial phenomenon constitutes an apt but still underexplored research focus. This paper identifies a core group of Innovation Studies journals from the 20-journals list found by Fagerberg et al. (Res Policy 41:1132–1153, 2012) and focuses on seven innovation-oriented top-tier journals to better understand the structure and relationships among the editors. The sample comprises 419 editors occupying 467 editorial positions and assuming 38 different duties. An interlocking editorship pattern is uncovered as 11% of the editors serve on multiple boards. We deploy social network analysis to further map and understand the editorial infrastructure of Innovation Studies thus offering new insights on how the field is organised. Industrial and Corporate Change, Research Policy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and Technovation have the highest centrality in terms of number of direct connections to other boards (degree), the shortest distance from all network journals (closeness) and bridges to the largest number of other pairs of journals (betweenness) although Industrial and Corporate Change is noticed as the primus inter pares in the sample.