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Are the works that cite Beall’s List accounting
journals comparable to those that cite Scopus
journals of similar citation impact?
Forthcoming, Aslib Journal of Information Management
William H. Walters
Mary Alice & Tom O’Malley Library, Manhattan College, Riverdale, New York, USA
william.walters@manhattan.edu
Abstract
Purpose—Evaluates the apparent quality of the 10 Beall’s List accounting journals with
the highest citation rates by investigating whether the works that cite those journals
are comparable to those that cite 11 Scopus journals of similar citation impact.
Design/methodology/approach—Investigates the characteristics of the works that cited
the Beall’s List and Scopus journals, 2015–2020, comparing the two groups of citing
works by publication type (article, book, etc.), extent of self-citation, inclusion in
Beall’s List and Scopus, Open Access (OA) status, publisher type, citation impact, and
country/region of interest.
Findings—These predatory accounting journals tend to be cited in less reputable outlets;
they are especially likely to be cited in Beall’s List journals and especially unlikely to
be cited in Scopus journals. However, other evidence suggests that these journals
occupy a distinctive niche based on characteristics other than citation quality. The
Beall’s List citing works are especially likely to be OA, to be published by universities
and other nonprofits, and to focus on lower-income countries.
Originality/value—Beall’s List accounting journals may be especially useful to scholars
who rely on OA journals, who see their local universities as natural publishing
partners, and who investigate topics of concern to developing countries. An increase
in the number of non-predatory journals that cater to these authors’ needs might help
resolve the apparent problem of unmet demand for journal space.
Keywords: Citations, Google Scholar, Impact, Journal rankings, Predatory journals,
Quality
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Introduction
Researchers, practitioners, university committees, and funding agencies often rely on a
journal’s reputation as an indicator of the type and quality of the articles published in the
journal. Although the reputation of a journal does not necessarily correspond to the
quality of any particular article, the careful evaluation of each individual paper is not
always feasible (Adler and Harzing, 2009; Ferrara and Bonaccorsi, 2016; Lozano et al.,
2012; Seglen, 1994, 1997). Journal rankings and perceptions of quality therefore play an
important role in the scholarly communication system.
Journal quality is not a single, straightforward construct, however, and at least six
dimensions of quality can be identified (Walters, 2022):
1. The editors’ and publishers’ motives and intentions
2. Adherence to established norms of peer review such as anonymity, use of expert
reviewers, absence of bias in reviewer selection, adequate time for review, and a
reasonable acceptance rate
3. Adherence to norms of scholarly publishing other than peer review (e.g.,
transparency, long-term preservation of content, professionalism in presentation, and
a web interface that facilitates discovery and access)
4. Scholarly quality (e.g., the subjective assessments of expert evaluators)
5. Impact on subsequent scholarship (e.g., number of times cited, outlets in which the
journal is cited, rate at which citations accrue, multidisciplinary impact, and extent to
which the theories, perspectives, and methods introduced in the journal are
incorporated into later work)
6. Impact on teaching and practice, as shown by citations in textbooks, inclusion of
articles in course syllabi and reading lists, and influence on professional norms and
standards.
The distinctions among these six dimensions of quality are readily apparent when
we consider the most widely known lists of predatory journals—Open Access (OA)
journals that pose as peer-reviewed outlets but accept nearly all submissions in order to
maximize revenue from the article processing charges (APCs) paid by authors, their
institutions, and their funding agencies. For example, Beall’s List defines predatory
journals based on the publisher’s motives (dimension 1) but actually selects publishers
and journals for inclusion based on dimensions 2 and 3, neither of which directly
represents the scholarly quality of the papers published in the journals (Beall, 2012; Beall
et al., 2021; Cobey et al., 2018; Krawczyk and Kulczycki, 2021).
This study gauges the apparent quality of the papers published in Beall’s List
accounting journals by investigating whether the works that cite those journals are
comparable to those that cite Scopus journals of similar citation impact. The analysis is
based on the assumption that the papers cited in reputable journals are themselves
reputable—that the authors who publish in well-regarded journals are in a good position
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to judge the quality of the works they cite. In contrast, the papers cited in less reputable
outlets (such as predatory journals) are presumably less likely to be legitimate
contributions to the literature.
The paper first presents contextual information—an overview of the ways in which
the 10 Beall’s List accounting journals with the greatest number of citations per article
(2015–2020) are like or unlike the other Beall’s List accounting journals. The main
analysis then compares the characteristics of the works that cited (a) the 10 Beall’s list
accounting journals with the greatest number of citations per article and (b) 11 Scopus
journals of comparable citation impact. Specifically, it compares the two groups of citing
works with regard to publication type (journal article, book, chapter, conference paper,
thesis, or working paper), extent of self-citation, inclusion in Beall’s List, inclusion in
Scopus, Open Access status, publisher type (commercial publisher, scholarly society,
university, or other nonprofit), citation impact (CiteScore and CiteScore percentile), and
country or region of interest (by World Bank income classification and for 21 particular
countries and regions).
Previous research
Beall’s List
Beall’s List (Beall et al., 2021) is the oldest and best known list of potentially predatory
Open Access (OA) journals. It identifies more than 1300 publishers and nearly 1500
additional journals that authors are encouraged to avoid. Beall’s List was removed from
the web in January 2017, but it has since re-emerged and is now maintained by an
anonymous scholar. The original List is maintained in its final form, although a new
section contains additions and revisions made since that time. As of May 2022, the latest
updates were from December 2021.
As noted earlier, Beall’s List does not actually account for publishers’ intentions,
predatory or otherwise, since intentions are difficult to ascertain (Beall, 2012; Cobey et al.,
2018; Krawczyk and Kulczycki, 2021). Likewise, the evaluation process does not consider
the quality or impact of the articles published in each journal. Instead, the compilers of
Beall’s List have relied on a set of subjective criteria that represent departures from the
established norms of scholarly communication. For instance, the 54 warning signs
identified by Beall (2012, 2015a) include unusually rapid peer review, failure to identify
editors and board members, boastful language, misleading claims about index coverage
or citation impact, lack of transparency in editorial operations, absence of a
correction/retraction policy, poor copyediting, assignment of copyright to the publisher
rather than the author despite the journal’s OA status, and the use of spam e-mail to
solicit authors or board members.
There are multiple sources of legitimacy in scholarly publishing, and the journals
identified as predatory by one standard may be regarded as legitimate by other
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standards (Siler, 2020). Conversely, some legitimate journals display idiosyncrasies that
might lead potential authors to question their integrity (Eriksson and Helgesson, 2018;
Grudniewicz et al., 2019). For instance, Olivarez et al. (2018) found that 18 of the 81
library and information science journals indexed in Web of Science could be regarded as
predatory based on two or more of Beall’s criteria; eight could be regarded as predatory
based on three or more criteria. Likewise, Shamseer et al. (2017) reported that the
journals on Beall’s List are most distinct from conventional journals in ways unrelated to
the content of the articles themselves—in the quality of their web sites, the intended
audience of those sites (authors rather than readers), their lack of transparency regarding
the review process, and their relatively low article processing fees.
Beall’s List has been criticized on other grounds as well. The problems most often
mentioned include imprecise evaluation criteria, inconsistent application of those criteria,
lack of transparency, bias against publishers in developing countries, infrequent updates,
lack of an appeals policy, and the absence of systematic mechanisms for the re-evaluation
of publishers and journals as conditions change (Berger and Cirasella, 2015; Chen, 2019;
Davis, 2013; Dony et al., 2020; Esposito, 2013). The last of these criticisms is especially
serious, since a publisher currently on Beall’s List may appear there due to the
characteristics of its web site more than a decade ago (Walters, 2022).
Citation impact of predatory journals
Three of the six dimensions of journal quality mentioned in the Introduction are
essentially procedural. Three others—scholarly quality (as assessed by expert reviewers),
impact on subsequent scholarship, and impact on teaching and practice—are more
fundamental because they are outcome-based; they concern the final product rather than
the methods by which the product was created. However, none of the 15 lists of
predatory or non-predatory journals identified by Koerber et al. (2020) and Strinzel et al.
(2019) evaluate journals based on their scholarly quality or impact. Assessments of
quality are especially problematic, since (1) they are potentially unreliable due to the
influence of reviewers’ individual backgrounds and perspectives; (2) the evaluation
process requires considerable effort; and (3) because scholarly quality is ultimately a
characteristic of individual articles rather than journals, the calculation or estimation of
journal-level statistics requires the relatively time-consuming evaluation of individual
articles.
Fortunately, the processes by which authors identify, evaluate, and cite relevant
papers may be regarded as an indirect means of assessing their quality. While Beall
(2015b), Moussa (2021a, 2021c), and others have stated that predatory journals bypass the
conventional peer review process and allow “un-vetted” research to enter the scholarly
record, the absence of serious peer review actually removes just one component of the
vetting process. Research papers are evaluated not just before they are published, but
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also afterward, when authors decide whether to cite them. In most cases, evaluating
citation impact—that is, evaluating the cumulative effect of authors’ decisions to cite or
not cite particular papers—is the nearest we can get to a formal, expert assessment of
scholarly merit.
Although predatory journals tend to have citation rates substantially lower than
those of non-predatory journals, particular predatory journals (and particular articles)
may be similar to mid-ranked Scopus titles in their citation impact. This finding can be
seen in multidisciplinary analyses (Bagues et al., 2019; Björk et al., 2020; Moed et al., 2022)
and in studies of fields such as marketing (Moussa, 2021b) and the biomedical sciences
(Nwagwu and Ojemeni, 2015). Overall, these studies support the conclusion that while
most predatory journals have little scientific impact, some do include articles that could
have been placed in much better journals if the authors hadn’t “opted for the fast track
and easier option of a predatory journal” (Björk et al., 2020, pp. 1, 8).
Within the field of accounting, a journal’s adherence to procedural norms
(dimensions 2 and 3) is not necessarily a good predictor of the extent to which the articles
in the journal are used in subsequent scholarly work (dimension 5). At least six of the
journals on Beall’s List are cited at rates that would place them at or above the 25th
percentile among all Scopus accounting journals. Likewise, high-impact articles—cited
up to several hundred times—have appeared even in some of the Beall’s List accounting
journals with the lowest citation rates (Walters, 2022). From one perspective, we might
argue that a higher citation rate for a Beall’s List journal reflects favorably on the journal
by demonstrating that it contributes to the literature despite the factors working against
it—biases against OA journals, biases against authors and publishers in the developing
countries where many such journals originate, poor index coverage, and authors’
understandable reluctance to cite journals that have been publicly labeled as predatory
(Albu et al., 2015; Asai, 2021; Berger and Cirasella, 2015; Frandsen, 2017; Nwagwu and
Ojemeni, 2015; Shen and Björk, 2015; Xia et al., 2015; Yan and Li, 2018). From this first
perspective, a relatively high citation count for an article in a Beall’s List journal reveals
that subsequent authors have identified it as a genuine contribution to the literature
despite the many biases that make them inclined not to cite it.
There is another perspective, however. Several authors have argued that citations to
the papers in Beall’s List journals are downright harmful—that these citations reveal the
extent to which the scholarly literature has been contaminated by low-quality research,
flawed methods, and potentially false results (Anderson, 2019; Akça and Akbulut, 2021;
Frandsen, 2017; Moussa, 2021b, 2021c; Nelson and Huffman, 2015). From this second
perspective, the more highly cited Beall’s List journals are a danger because they have
been successful at claiming legitimacy for papers that may be inaccurate, biased, or
otherwise misleading.
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Quality of the articles in predatory journals
Of course the implications of high or low citation rates depend on the actual scholarly
quality of the papers published in the predatory journals. Just two studies have directly
addressed this issue. The most careful analysis compared 25 articles published in Beall’s
List psychology journals with 25 published in Scopus journals of intermediate citation
impact (McCutcheon et al., 2016). Each article was blinded, then reviewed by the
research team on the basis of five criteria. Although the team found more than four times
as many statistical and grammatical errors in the Beall’s List articles, the score
differentials for the other three criteria (literature review, research methods, and overall
contribution to science) were not nearly as pronounced. Overall, McCutcheon et al. were
struck by the wide variations in quality among the Beall’s List articles. Some were of
uniformly low quality while others received high marks in every area. A second study
reviewed 358 articles in Beall’s List nursing journals, reporting that 48% of the papers
were poor rather than average (48%) or excellent (4%) and that many had numerous errors
in writing or presentation. Nonetheless, only 5% reported findings “potentially harmful
to patients or others” (Oermann et al., 2018, p. 8). That analysis may have been biased,
however, since all the assessors knew in advance that the papers had been published in
predatory journals.
Direct investigations of the scholarly quality of the papers in Beall’s List journals are
likely to provide the best evidence of their favorable or unfavorable impact on the
literature. A less direct but still informative approach is to evaluate whether the works
that cite Beall’s List journals are themselves of high or low quality, published in reputable
or questionable journals, by experienced or inexperienced authors. Three recent studies
suggest that predatory journals tend to be cited by works of modest reputation or impact
but that the differential between predatory and non-predatory journals is not substantial.
Frandsen (2017) compiled information on the first authors of 1295 papers that cited 124
Beall’s List journals in a range of disciplines, reporting that the characteristics of the
citing authors closely resemble those of the cited authors. In particular, both groups tend
to be based in South and Southeast Asia, and both tend to have relatively low publication
and citation counts. Frandsen’s results are not stratified by subject area, however, so it is
possible that Beall’s List authors and citers simply publish disproportionately in fields or
subfields with low publication and citation rates.
Moussa (2021c) evaluated the citations to four predatory marketing journals that
appeared in 68 non-predatory journals listed in the 2018 Guide of the Chartered
Association of Business Schools (CABS). He found that the number of citations to
predatory journals was unrelated to the age or citation impact of the citing journal but
weakly related to the subjective journal ratings assigned by CABS. Specifically, the
journals in the top CABS category (4*) cited the predatory journals at lower rates than
those in the lowest two categories (1 and 2).
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Finally, Kulczycki et al. (2021) reviewed 3234 articles published in 65 predatory
social science journals, reporting that just 13% were cited in one or more Web of Science
journals over a seven-year period. This suggests that the Beall’s List journals tend to be
cited in less prestigious outlets—publications other than the Web of Science journals.
The citing journals are not always low-impact publications, however, since the Web of
Science journals that cited more than one article from a predatory journal were especially
likely to have high impact factors.
Methods
Cited journals
The 10 Beall’s list accounting journals selected for this investigation are those with the
highest year-adjusted number of citations per article. As described fully elsewhere
(Walters, 2022), each journal’s year-adjusted citation count indicates the number of times
the articles published from January 2015 through December 2018 were cited within the
works indexed by Google Scholar from the publication date to the search date (July
through September 2020), adjusted to approximate the number of citations that would
have accrued over the 2015–2020 period if all the articles had been published in 2015. In
turn, citations per article is simply the year-adjusted citation count divided by the number
of articles published during the 2015–2018 period.
Three of the 10 accounting journals in the Beall’s List group were also indexed in
Scopus at the time the data were compiled. The comparison group of Scopus journals
therefore includes those three journals as well as the eight other Scopus accounting
journals that most closely matched each of the Beall’s List journals in terms of citations per
article. Book series indexed in Scopus were excluded from consideration, as were
journals that published more than a third of their articles in languages other than
English.
With the overlap between the two groups, the study population (from which the
cited articles were drawn) includes 10 Beall’s List journals and 11 Scopus journals but just
18 journals altogether. As Table 1 shows, the Beall’s List journals and the Scopus journals
are identical in terms of mean citations per article and are very similar in several other
respects.
Sampling of cited works and citing works
Complete population data were compiled for every article (every cited work) published
from 2015 to 2018 in each of the 18 cited journals. However, this study is based mainly
on the characteristics of the works that cited those articles—the citing works. Two-stage
sampling was used to arrive at a list of citing works for which data were compiled. In
the first stage, 25 articles published from January 2015 through December 2018 were
selected at random from each of the 18 journals—450 articles, total.
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The second stage was based on a list of the scholarly works (journal articles, books,
book chapters, conference papers, theses, and working papers) that cited those 450
articles during the 2015–2020 period. Individual article searches in Google Scholar were
used to compile the list in August 2021. This manual method avoids the difficulties
associated with the use of automated search tools (Wilder and Walters, 2021, pp. 8–10).
Basic bibliographic information was recorded for each of the 3255 works that cited any of
the 450 articles.
For each of the 18 journals, 100 citing works were selected at random, and those are
the works for which additional information was compiled. (See Data compilation, below.)
For three of the cited journals, however, there were fewer than 100 works that cited the
25 selected articles. The sample therefore includes all 69 works that cited the 25 articles
in Accounting and Finance Research, all 94 works that cited the 25 articles in the
International Journal of Financial Research, and all 87 works that cited the 25 articles in
Risks.
Data compilation
Publisher information for each of the citing works was compiled in September 2021 from
the journals’ web sites, and each publisher was categorized by OA status (OA or not) and
publisher type (commercial publisher, scholarly society, university, or other
nonprofit/government). Journals published jointly by nonprofit organizations and
commercial publishers were included in the commercial publisher category.
Of the citing works, 1112 are journal articles. Those articles appeared in 769
different journals, which were each checked in October 2021 to see if they appeared in
Beall’s List and/or Scopus. CiteScore information was compiled for the Scopus journals.
Each citing work (e.g., each article or chapter) was also evaluated individually to
determine whether it was associated with a particular country or region. In all but a few
cases, a country or region was identified/assigned if the title of the work included a place
name, if the title of the work was in a language other than English, or if the work was a
thesis submitted to a college or university. However, no country or region was assigned
if the place name referred to an approach or perspective rather than a location (e.g.,
Austrian economics). World Bank (2022) income categories were used to classify each
country. If a work involved two countries in different regions, one with a higher income
than the other, the designation for the lower-income country was used.
Case weights and significance tests
This study makes use of simple descriptive statistics—counts, percentages, means,
standard deviations, and medians. However, because the sampling method used here
results in an equal number of citing works from nearly every journal, the unweighted
sample data are not representative of the population. Within the population, the number
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of citing works is proportional to the citation impact of each cited journal. For instance, a
journal with twice as many citations as another should be represented by twice the
number of citing works.
To ensure that the reported results are representative of the population rather than
the sample, I statistically weighted each citing work by the cited journal's overall citation
impact—its total year-adjusted citation count. Except as mentioned in the table notes,
these case weights were used whenever the works that cited the 10 Beall’s list accounting
journals were compared with the works that cited the 11 Scopus journals. For these same
comparisons, significance tests were undertaken using two-sample t tests for means or
chi-square tests for proportions, as appropriate (MedCalc, 2022a, 2022b).
Contextual results
These results compare the top 10 Beall’s List accounting journals—those with the most
citations per article—with 10 other Beall’s List accounting journals selected at random
from those that published in all four years of the study period. The journals are shown in
Table 2.
Distinctive characteristics of the top 10 Beall’s List journals
As Table 2 reveals, the top 10 Beall’s List journals are different from the others in at least
four respects. On average, they have higher citation rates, they publish more articles per
year, they have earlier founding dates, and they are more likely to be indexed in Scopus.
These differences are apparent despite the high internal variation within each group. For
instance, the 10 higher-impact journals received from 6.7 to 11.1 citations per article,
published from 26 to 454 articles over the four-year period, and were founded as early as
2001 or as recently as 2015.
Further analysis revealed one additional distinction between the 10 higher-impact
journals and the others. All but three of the top 10 journals are based in the United States
or Canada; the exceptions are the Journal of Accounting and Taxation (Nigeria), the
International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences
(Pakistan), and Investment Management and Financial Innovations (Ukraine). In contrast,
the publishers of the other 10 journals are based in eight different nations: the United
States and India (2 journals each), Australia, Austria, Belgium, Jordan, Nigeria, and the
United Kingdom.
Editorial boards of the Beall’s List journals
Although the two groups are not significantly different in the average size of their
editorial boards (Table 2), further investigation revealed an unexpected finding: five of
the top 10 journals (and three of the lower-ranked Beall’s List journals) list no editor-in-
chief or list an editor-in-chief who is a publishing company executive rather than an
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individual with a full-time teaching or research appointment. Perhaps surprisingly,
however, the absence of independent editorial positions has not limited the scholarly
impact of those journals, which are no different from the other top 10 journals in their
citation impact (p < 0.05, two-tailed). Every top 10 Beall’s List journal does provide
information on its editorial board members, who seem no different from the board
members of conventional journals in their academic positions and institutional
affiliations. Ruiter-Lopez et al. (2019) have reported a similar finding—that the boards of
many Beall’s List journals appear to be well qualified in terms of their academic
affiliations.
Of the 20 journals shown in Table 2, all but three have editorial boards with broad
geographic representation and no single dominant country or region. The exceptions are
the top-10 International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management
Sciences (Romania) and two lower-ranked journals, the Journal of Accounting and Financial
Management (Nigeria) and the Journal of Advance Research in Business Management and
Accounting (India).
Other characteristics of the Beall’s List journals
For these 20 journals, the mean article processing charges are generally reasonable (Table
2). This is consistent with earlier reports that the journals on Beall’s List tend to charge
relatively low APCs (Shamseer et al., 2017; Xia, 2015). Eight of the journals charge APCs
of $200 or less, and two charge no APCs at all. Of course this raises the question of how
those two “predatory” journals generate revenue without charging either author fees or
subscription fees.
Although the top 10 journals are more likely than the other Beall’s List journals to be
indexed in Scopus, none of the journals shown in Table 2 are indexed extensively. Just
three of the top 10 journals are indexed in Scopus, and just two are included in the
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). None of the other 10 journals are included in
either database. Just one of the 20 journals, Investment Management and Financial
Innovations, is indexed by ABI/INFORM, and none are indexed by either EconLit or Social
Sciences Citation Index.
Main results
These results compare the works that cited the top 10 Beall’s List accounting journals
with the works that cited 11 Scopus accounting journals of equivalent citation impact.
The cited journals are shown in Table 1. All the inter-group differences mentioned in this
section are significant at the two-tailed 0.05 level.
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Types of citing works
Perhaps not surprisingly for a field such as accounting, the cited works are cited mainly
in journals. This holds true for both the Beall’s List group and the Scopus comparison
group. As Table 3 shows, more than 60% of the citations appear in journals, 23% in
theses or dissertations, 7% in conference papers, and fewer than 5% each in working
papers, book chapters, and books. The Beall’s List journals and the Scopus journals are
cited by the same types of publications, and the one significant difference between the
two groups can be attributed to just a few journals. Three Beall’s List journals—the
Global Journal of Management and Business Research D, the Journal of Accounting and
Auditing, and the Journal of Finance and Accounting—are cited especially often in journals
(74–76% of the time) while three Scopus journals—EC Tax Review, the Journal of Business
Valuation and Economic Loss Analysis, and the Journal of Payments Strategy and Systems—are
cited less often in journals (44–48%) and relatively often in books (4–10%).
Characteristics of the articles that cite the Beall’s List and Scopus journals
One concern is that the Beall’s List accounting journals comprise an independent citation
network—that they are cited mainly by each other. Table 4 reveals that this is not a
problem, however. In fact, the top 10 Beall’s List journals have significantly fewer
journal and publisher self-citations than the Scopus journals.
Nonetheless, the articles in the Beall’s List journals do receive disproportionately
many of their citations from other Beall’s List journals. This finding does not itself settle
the question of whether the citations to the Beall’s List journals are legitimate, however,
since it can be used to support at least three different interpretations:
1. The higher percentage for the Beall’s List journals—23% rather than 17%—reveals the
inferior quality of the works that cite those articles.
2. The modest difference between the two groups, just 6 percentage points, is not a cause
for concern.
3. Both the Beall’s List journals and the Scopus journals are afflicted by a similar
problem; both are routinely cited in journals that are themselves suspect.
Inclusion in Scopus is sometimes regarded as an indicator of journal quality, since
the Scopus selection criteria include regularity of publication, number of articles
published, citation impact, self-citation rate, integrity and transparency of peer review,
adoption of a statement on ethics, consistency between journal content and the stated
aims of the journal, editor’s scholarly/professional standing, diversity in authorship and
board membership, readability, and quality of online presentation (Elsevier, 2022;
Holland et al., 2021). As Table 4 shows, only 24% of the citations to the Beall’s List
accounting journals appear in Scopus journals; for the Scopus comparison group, the
value is 44%. This finding is consistent with the first interpretation mentioned above—
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that the Beall’s List journals are disproportionately cited in less prestigious (non-Scopus)
publications.
However, Table 4 also reveals that the Beall’s List journals are especially likely to be
cited in Open Access journals, in journals from nonprofit publishers, and in university-
sponsored journals. It is possible that these three types of journals are underrepresented
in Scopus for reasons unrelated to their quality. That is, the journals of the smaller
nonprofit publishers, such as individual university departments, are perhaps less likely
to be identified and evaluated by Scopus. After all, the Scopus Content Selection and
Advisory Board reviews the works that have been suggested to them by librarians,
publishers, and journal editors (Elsevier, 2020, pp. 6, 8, 16). Certain journals may have
been omitted from Scopus simply because they were never evaluated for possible
inclusion.
Citation rates of the Scopus-indexed citing journals
As noted earlier, the top 10 Beall’s List accounting journals are relatively unlikely to be
cited by the journals indexed in Scopus. However, the Scopus-journal articles that do cite
Beall’s List journals have an average journal citation rate no different from that of the
Scopus-journal articles that cite other Scopus journals. This can be seen in Table 5.
Perhaps surprisingly, the one significant difference between the two groups reveals a
higher citation impact for the Beall’s List citing journals. However, this difference can be
attributed entirely to two Scopus journals that are seldom cited by journals with
CiteScores at or above the 20th percentile—EC Tax Review (22%) and the Journal of
Payments Strategy and Systems (57%).
Countries and regions associated with the works that cite the Beall’s List and
Scopus journals
Previous studies have demonstrated that predatory journals tend to attract both authors
and citers from developing countries (Frandsen, 2017; Nwagwu and Ojemeni, 2015; Shen
and Björk, 2015; Xia et al., 2015). Table 6 supports this assertion. The works that cite
Beall’s List journals are especially likely to focus on countries in the World Bank’s lower
middle income category (i.e., countries with per capita gross national incomes from $1046
to $4095) and especially unlikely to focus on countries in the high income category
($12,696 or higher).
Moreover, 80% of the works that cite the Beall's List journals, but just 66% of those
that cite the Scopus journals, deal with particular countries or regions. Just as the articles
in Beall’s List journals seem especially useful to authors who publish in nonprofit and
university-sponsored journals (Table 4), they may also be especially useful to authors
who write about conditions, issues, and perspectives specific to lower-income countries
(Table 6). In particular, many of the citing articles deal with topics of substantial local
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interest but little international interest (i.e., the impact of recent legislation on methods of
estimating the value of equipment in a locally important industry).
Table 7 shows the results for particular countries and regions. Indonesia and
Nigeria, both in the World Bank’s lower middle income group, are far more likely to be
featured in the works that cite the Beall’s List journals than in those that cite the Scopus
journals. (As noted earlier, one of the top 10 Beall’s List journals is based in Nigeria.
Another has relatively many Nigerian faculty on its editorial board.) In contrast, the
works that cite the Scopus journals are more likely to focus on Malaysia, South Africa,
and Europe. Ukraine, the United States, and Turkey are featured relatively often in both
sets of citing works.
Discussion and conclusion
Two key findings of this study support the idea that the top 10 Beall’s List accounting
journals tend to be cited in less reputable outlets than the Scopus accounting journals of
similar citation impact. First, the articles in the Beall’s List group are about 35% more
likely than those in the Scopus group to be cited in Beall’s List journals. Second, those
same articles are especially unlikely to be cited in Scopus journals.
At the same time, other findings suggest that the Beall’s List citing works may be
simply distinctive rather than lower in quality; they are especially likely to appear in
Open Access journals, to be published by nonprofit agencies (universities, in particular),
and to focus on lower-income countries. These findings raise the possibility that the
topics and approaches covered in Beall’s List journals are especially useful to scholars
without access to the full range of subscription journals, to those who see their local
universities as natural publishing partners, and to those who investigate topics of special
concern to developing regions. It is even possible that the relatively low number of
Beall’s List citing journals indexed in Scopus may be linked to factors other than
scholarly quality—that OA journals, small nonprofit publishers, and journals of special
interest to researchers in lower-income countries may be systematically
underrepresented in Scopus. This explanation is conjectural, but it is also consistent with
the methods used to identify and evaluate potential additions to the database (Elsevier,
2020, pp. 6, 8, 16). Finally, the Beall’s List citing works are especially unlikely to engage
in either journal self-citation or publisher self-citation. This is contrary to the notion that
they represent an independent citation network apart from the main body of accounting
literature.
A legitimate niche?
Direct assessments of scholarly quality suggest that the articles in Beall’s List journals are
prone to errors in writing, presentation, and statistical analysis. Most have no
fundamental flaws, however, and at least some contributions are comparable to the
14
articles that typically appear in mid-level journals (McCutcheon et al., 2016; Oermann et
al., 2018, p. 8). Previous analyses of the works that cite predatory journals show that they
often cater to the needs of authors and readers in developing countries. They are
generally written by less experienced authors and appear in less prestigious outlets,
although particular papers in Beall’s List journals have been cited by well known
scholars in top-ranked publications (Frandsen, 2017; Kulczycki et al., 2021; Moussa,
2021c).
The findings reported here support these earlier conclusions. They also suggest a
possible explanation—that Beall’s List journals tend to be cited in lower-ranking
publications because of their emphasis on developing countries. Authors in developing
countries are especially likely to publish in OA journals, to focus on research topics of
local or national interest, and to conduct applied or practice-oriented research (Asai,
2021; Contreras, 2012; Tennant et al., 2016; Vuong et al., 2020). Moreover, despite strong
pressure to publish in internationally ranked journals, many accounting faculty outside
Western Europe and North America find the journals published by national universities
and professional associations especially appropriate for their work (Albu et al., 2015).
Beall’s List journals, and the works that cite them, may therefore occupy a niche that is
underserved by other accounting journals. The results of this analysis are consistent with
the idea that in lower-income countries, nonprofits such as universities and scholarly
societies sponsor OA journals that draw on (and cite) the kinds of locally relevant articles
that often appear in Beall’s List journals. These citing publications, in turn, are perhaps
less likely than others to be evaluated for inclusion in indexes such as Scopus and Web of
Science.
Although this interpretation explains the demand for OA journals that deal with the
concerns of accounting scholars in developing countries, it does not explain the success
of predatory OA journals. After all, predatory journals are likely to be attractive to
authors under just three conditions:
1. The journal’s predatory status is not known to the author.
2. Although the journal has “predatory” characteristics or has been publicly labeled as
predatory, both authors and evaluators (such as promotion committees) are willing to
concede that it might be a legitimate journal. The distinction between predatory and
legitimate journals is not always clear, and at least one or two publishers once
identified as predatory have since managed to improve their reputations considerably
(Academic Journals, 2022; MDPI, 2019).
3. From the author’s perspective, the potential rewards of publishing in a journal known
to be predatory are perceived to be high relative to (a) the effort required to place a
paper in the journal and (b) the possible stigma associated with such a publication
(Kurt, 2018; Pyne, 2017).
Fortunately, the provision of accurate and current information about journal impact and
other dimensions of quality is likely to be beneficial under all three conditions, since it (a)
15
increases scholars’ awareness of journals that do not meet generally accepted standards,
(b) allows for the recognition of improvements (or declines) in particular journals’
standards over time, (c) minimizes the rewards associated with publication in low-
quality journals, and (d) encourages the development of legitimate journals that focus on
the needs of distinctive research communities.
One useful strategy for promoting access to accurate, current information is to
improve the reliability of predatory journal lists. Another is to include a broader range of
journals in citation databases and in journal rankings or ratings—not necessarily as an
indicator of quality, but as part of an effort to more readily validate the journals’ impact
and status. Of the major citation databases, only Google Scholar includes more than a
small number of accounting journals at the lower end of the reputation hierarchy. Of the
58 accounting journals on Beall’s List, just three are included in Scopus and none are
included in Web of Science. Likewise, only three are included in the journal ratings of
the Australian Business Deans Council (2019), one in the ratings of the Chartered
Association of Business Schools (2018), and none in Harzing’s (2021) Journal Quality List.
Meeting the demand for journal space
The apparent success of some predatory accounting journals, in terms of articles
published and cited, suggests that authors’ demand for journal space is high relative to
the space currently available in non-predatory journals. For at least some authors, certain
Beall’s List journals may seem like appropriate backup journals for papers that were not
accepted elsewhere. If predatory journals are attractive to authors mainly because of the
low effort required (condition 3, above), then an increase in the number of non-predatory
journals that cater to the needs of authors in developing countries is not likely to help
resolve the problem. However, if predatory journals attract submissions mainly due to
very low rates of acceptance at non-predatory journals, then an increase in the number of
legitimate journals might be expected to improve authors’ publishing opportunities and
perhaps even drive predatory journals out of the market.
Subsequent investigations may help clarify the extent of any unmet demand for
journal space in accounting, both generally and with regard to the kinds of authors who
most often write and cite the papers in Beall’s List journals. Likewise, similar analyses
might be undertaken for other fields and professions. As mentioned in an earlier study,
the role of predatory journals within particular disciplines is likely to vary with factors
such as “the degree of competition for journal space, the level of research productivity
expected of authors, the extent of agreement about methods and standards of quality, the
emphasis on pure or applied research, and the extent to which conventional journals are
receptive to the work of authors working outside the mainstream in terms of topic,
theoretical approach, or geographical emphasis” (Walters, 2022, p. 12).
16
Further research
Authors demonstrate the importance of earlier papers whenever they choose to cite
them. Not all citations reflect favorably on the cited research, however (Walters, 2017). It
is therefore important to learn more about authors’ motives for citing, how they evaluate
the papers they cite, and how their citation behavior varies based on the reputation of the
journals in which they publish. For instance, one assumption underlying this
investigation is the idea that the works cited in the foremost journals are of generally
higher quality than those cited in less prestigious journals. Nonetheless, the results
(Table 5) show no relationship between the predatory/non-predatory status of the cited
journal and the CiteScore of the citing journal. Likewise, Kulczycki et al. (2021) have
reported that higher-impact social science journals are more likely than others to cite
predatory journals repeatedly. This raises the possibility that the top journals expect
authors to cover the literature more fully while the lower-ranked journals expect them to
cover just the most important works.
Further research might also address a methodological limitation of the current
study. This analysis relies heavily on two binary variables—"included in Beall’s List or
not” and “included in Scopus or not”—even though (a) quality is best measured on a
continuous scale and (b) most of the journals that cite these Beall’s List journals appear in
neither Beall’s List nor Scopus. The use of more sophisticated indicators might be
helpful, even in analyses that focus solely on scholarly impact rather than other
dimensions of quality.
17
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Table 1. Cited journals included in the study1
Mean Articles SD, Median Max.
citns. published, citns. citns. citns. Cite-
per 2015– per per per Score
Journal and publisher article 2018 article article article pctile.
2
Beall's List journals:
Jnl. of Acctng. & Taxation (Academic Jnls.) 11.1 49 11.8 7.7 66 28
Intl. J. of Finance & Acctng. (Scientific & Acad. Publ.) 9.1 104 13.5 5.0 81 21
Intl. J. of Acad. Rsrch. in Acctng., Finance & Mgt. Scis. (HRMARS) 8.8 383 14.5 5.1 196 21
Jnl. of Acctng. & Auditing: Rsrch. & Practice (IBIMA Publ.) 8.6 28 11.4 2.0 41 21
Global J. of Mgt. & Business Rsrch. D: Acctng. & Auditing (Global Jnls.) 7.4 53 18.3 2.8 130 18
Acctng. & Finance Rsrch. (Sciedu Press) 6.9 277 14.4 2.8 157 18
Jnl. of Finance & Acctng. (SciEP) 6.7 26 7.8 3.9 26 18
Scopus journals:
South African Jnl. of Acctng. Rsrch. (Taylor & Francis) 11.2 50 13.7 7.2 73 6
Risks (MDPI) 9.1 283 13.9 5.1 169 14
Asian Acad. of Mgt. Jnl. of Acctng. & Finance (Penerbit UKM) 8.9 65 9.4 5.5 50 18
Acad. of Acctng. & Financial Studies Jnl. (Acad. of Acctng. & Fin. Studies) 8.5 306 12.6 5.0 84 23
Jurnal Pengurusan (UKM) 7.7 185 10.7 5.1 95 28
Jnl. of Payments Strategy & Systems (Henry Stewart) 7.2 120 11.0 3.4 90 5
EC Tax Review (Kluwer) 7.0 118 6.5 5.1 36 23
Jnl. of Business Valuation & Econ. Loss Analysis (De Gruyter) 6.8 26 9.4 2.3 32 14
Journals in both Beall's List and Scopus:
Investment Mgt. & Financial Innovations (Business Perspectives) 8.5 454 12.0 5.1 144 23
Accounting (Growing Science) 7.7 69 13.7 3.7 77 31
Intl. Jnl. of Financial Rsrch. (Sciedu Press) 7.6 296 26.9 2.8 439 9
Mean value, all 10 Beall's List journals
3
8.2 174 14.4 4.1 136 21
Mean value, all 11 Scopus journals
3
8.2 179 12.7 4.6 117 18
1. The statistics presented in this table are based on the entire population of interest.
2. For journals not included in Scopus, this is the estimated CiteScore percentile from Walters (2022).
3. For this table, each journal was weighted equally.
Table 2. Characteristics of the 10 Beall’s List accounting journals with the most citations per article, and of 10 randomly selected Beall’s List
accounting journals with lower citation rates
Mean Articles APC Publr.: Publr.:
citns. published, Size for U.S. Incl. Incl. No. No. of
per 2015– Year of authors in in of bus.
Journal article 2018 founded board ($) Scopus? DOAJ? jnls. jnls.
Mean value, top 10 Beall's List accounting journals 8.2* 174* 2010* 41 450 30* 20 55 10
Jnl. of Acctng. & Taxation
1
11.1 49 2009 13 550 No No 120 5
Intl. J. of Finance & Acctng. (Scientific & Acad. Publ.) 9.1 104 2012 10 360 No No 133 9
Intl. J. of Acad. Rsrch. in Acctng., Finance & Mgt. Scis.
1
8.8 383 2011 56 75 No No 8 4
Jnl. of Acctng. & Auditing: Rsrch. & Practice
1
8.6 28 2012 17 295 No No 36 30
Investment Mgt. & Financial Innovations 8.5 454 2004 57 805 Yes Yes 12 10
Accounting (Growing Science) 7.7 69 2015 29 0 Yes Yes 9 5
Intl. Jnl. of Financial Rsrch. 7.6 296 2010 75 500 Yes No 29 8
Global J. of Mgt. & Business Rsrch. D: Acctng. & Auditing
1
7.4 53 2001 38 1125 No No 54 7
Acctng. & Finance Rsrch. 6.9 277 2012 60 400 No No 29 8
Jnl. of Finance & Acctng. (SciEP)
1
6.7 26 2013 54 390 No No 123 10
Mean value, 10 other Beall's List accounting journals 2.9 101 2014 31 305 0 0 46 7
Asian Jnl. of Finance & Acctng.
1
5.6 141 2009 58 200 No No 55 23
European Jnl. of Acctng., Auditing & Finance Rsrch.
1
5.1 261 2013 130 165 No No 82 9
Applied Finance & Acctng. 4.4 74 2015 27 300 No No 10 3
Jnl. of Acctng. & Financial Mgt. 3.6 100 2015 7 50 No No 32 10
Intl. Jnl. of Acctng. & Econ. Studies 3.1 96 2013 10 100 No No 24 1
Intl. Jnl. of Acctng. Rsrch. (Longdom Publ.) 2.9 70 2013 15 1080 No No 190 5
Australian Acad. of Acctng. & Finance Review 2.1 70 2015 12 0 No No 2 2
ResearchJournali’s Jnl. of Acctng.
1
1.2 25 2013 13 50 No No 34 14
Jnl. of Adv. Rsrch. in Business Mgt. & Acctng. 0.8 85 2015 28 800 No No 11 1
Specialty Jnl. of Acctng. & Econ. 0.4 83 2015 9 ? No No 21 3
* Significantly different from the value for the Beall’s List accounting journals not in the top 10 (p < 0.05, two-tailed). For this table, each journal was weighted
equally and one-sample tests were used to compare known population values (for the top 10 journals) with sample values (for the other Beall’s List
journals).
1. The journal web site lists no editor-in-chief, or the editor is an executive of the publishing company.
Table 3. Types of publications that cited the top 10 Beall's List journals and the comparable Scopus
journals: percentage of citing works of each type
1
Beall's
List Scopus
Type of citing work journals journals
% Journal articles 64* 60
% Books 1 2
% Book chapters 2 3
% Conference papers 6 8
% Theses 23 23
% Working papers 4 5
Column sum (%) 100 100
n (Citing works) 961 1079
* Significantly different from the value for the Scopus journals (p < 0.05, two-tailed).
1. Each work was weighted by the cited journal's overall citation impact.
Table 4. Characteristics of the articles that cited the top 10 Beall's List journals and the comparable
Scopus journals: percentage of citing articles with each characteristic
1
Beall's
List Scopus
Characteristic of citing article journals journals
% Journal self-citations
2
3* 6
% Publisher self-citations
3
4* 9
% in Beall's List journals 23* 17
% in Scopus journals 24* 44
% in Open Access journals 85* 74
% in Commercially published journals 55* 63
% in Scholarly society journals 6 6
% in University-published journals 34* 28
% in Other nonprofit or government journals 5 3
n (Citing articles) 660 637
* Significantly different from the value for the Scopus journals (p < 0.05, two-tailed).
1. Each article was weighted by the cited journal's overall citation impact.
2. Percentage of citing articles that appeared in the same journal as the cited article.
3. Percentage of citing articles that appeared in a journal with the same publisher as the cited article.
Table 5. Journal CiteScores of the Scopus-journal articles that cited the top 10 Beall's List journals and the
comparable Scopus journals
1
Beall's
List Scopus
Statistic journals journals
Mean CiteScore 2.8 2.4
Standard deviation of CiteScore 2.5 2.2
Median CiteScore 1.8 1.7
% with CiteScores at 20th percentile or higher 93* 84
% with CiteScores at 40th percentile or higher 60 50
% with CiteScores at 50th percentile or higher 45 43
% with CiteScores at 60th percentile or higher 41 37
% with CiteScores at 80th percentile or higher 23 22
n (Citing articles) 149 300
* Significantly different from the value for the Scopus journals (p < 0.05, two-tailed).
1. Each article was weighted by the cited journal's overall citation impact. Percentile scores refer to the journal's
place within the distribution of Scopus accounting journals even if the journal is not actually included in the
accounting subject category.
Table 6. World Bank income classifications of the countries associated with the works that cited the top
10 Beall's List journals and the comparable Scopus journals: percentage of citing works associated with
each country
1
Beall's
List Scopus
Income classification
2
journals
% Low income 1 1
% Lower middle income 45* 24
% Upper middle income 15 17
% High income 14* 20
% Associated with a region but not a country 3* 6
% Not associated with a region or country 22* 33
Column sum (%) 100 100
n (Citing works) 961 1079
* Significantly different from the value for the Scopus journals (p < 0.05, two-tailed).
1. Each work was weighted by the cited journal's overall citation impact.
2. "Low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita…of $1,045 or less in 2020; lower middle-
income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $1,046 and $4,095; upper middle-income
economies are those with a GNI per capita between $4,096 and $12,695; high-income economies are those with
a GNI per capita of $12,696 or more" (World Bank, 2022).
Table 7. Countries and regions most often associated with the works that cited the top 10 Beall's List
journals and the comparable Scopus journals: percentage of citing works associated with each country or
region
1
Beall's
List Scopus
journals journals
Country or region (%) (%)
Indonesia 19* 7
Nigeria 16* 9
Malaysia 3* 5
Europe
2
1* 4
South Africa 0* 3
Ukraine 8 8
United States 4 6
Turkey 5 3
Kenya 3 2
India 3 3
China 2 3
Pakistan 3 2
Russia 1 3
Brazil 1 2
Italy 1 2
Portugal 1 2
Czech Republic 1 2
Asia
2
1 2
Middle East & North Africa
2
1 2
Jordan 1 1
Sweden 1 2
Column sum (%)
3
75 73
n (Citing works)
4
764 710
* Significantly different from the value for the Scopus journals (p < 0.05, two-tailed).
1. Each work was weighted by the cited journal's overall citation impact.
2. These works discuss the region as a whole, or multiple countries within the region.
3. Includes only the countries and regions shown here—those represented at least 10 times among the works that
cited the Beall's List journals or at least 10 times among the works that cited the Scopus journals (within this
sample).
4. Includes all citing works with country or region designations.
