Factors influencing scholarly publication productivity: a systematic review

Abstract

Purpose The importance of scientific publications has enhanced the research activities at all aggregate levels. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth review of studies examined the factors that influence the publication productivity among researchers, institutions and countries. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a systematic literature review approach that is based on relevant literature retrieved from two authentic and well-known databases named Web of Science and SCOPUS. Kitchenham protocol of systematic review was applied, and relevant studies were searched by selected keywords search. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to select high quality studies. A rigorous study selection procedure was designed. Findings Findings reveal that several factors play a significant role in the publication productivity growth. All of the identified factors were grouped into three categories. Most of the factors belong to personal category while two top dominant factors, funding and collaboration fall into situational category. Other most influential factors, time, academic rank and academic qualification are personal. Findings highlight that publication output at individual level is strongly influenced by personal factors while few environmental and situational factors also affect the number of publications. Publication productivity of institutes and countries is affected by environmental and situational factors. Originality/value This paper contributes by providing a detailed review to explore the influencing factors of scholarly publication of researchers, institutions and countries. This study will be supportive for researchers and policymakers for making strategies to stimulate the research publication practices at researchers, institutions and national level.

Research Activity Practices and Affecting Factors among Medical Science Educators in their Early Academic Career

“…Unlike our ndings, previous studies showed that the highest quali cation and current job classi cation level predicted research engagement (25,29). A review conducted by Wahid et al (42) revealed that quali cation was the primary determinant factor affecting research publication productivity. The disagreement between these ndings could be attributed to variations in the study participants.…”

Research productivity of management faculty: job demands-resources approach

“…While prior research has studied correlates of research productivity across a variety of fields such as higher education (Dundar and Lewis, 1998), information science (Abramo et al ., 2017), management (Valle and Schultz, 2011) and in general (Wahid et al , 2021), our paper extends this work by showing that correlates of research productivity are not equally relevant across the different types of institutions. Specifically, by building on the JD-R model and considering different levels of teaching demands, we show that correlates of research productivity vary by the type of school, categorized by teaching load, a key job demand.…”

Understanding the success motivators in scholarly publishing: A case of high ranked Malaysian scientists

“…Thus, the prolific researchers warrant our attention as they have been "drivers" of research activity and impact. Recent studies have systematically analysed factors associated with successful researchers and their academic engagement and publication productivity (Heng, Hamid, and Khan 2020;Perkmann et al 2021;Wahid, Warraich and Tahira 2021) and the public's views of scientists' motivation for their research work (Johnson and Dieckmann 2020), however studies that focus on why some researchers publish prolifically, especially in top journals in their fields and their motivation for success has not been yet explored within the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) research, despite the importance of this topic. For these reasons, it is timely to address key characteristics and their motivation associated with being highly prolific in scholarly publishing.…”