A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing

A new economic model for the analysis of scholarly publishing – journal publishing in particular – is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In this model, publish...

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Main Authors: Potts, J., Hartley, John, Montgomery, Lucy, Neylon, C., Rennie, E.
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59451
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author Potts, J.
Hartley, John
Montgomery, Lucy
Neylon, C.
Rennie, E.
author_facet Potts, J.
Hartley, John
Montgomery, Lucy
Neylon, C.
Rennie, E.
author_sort Potts, J.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description A new economic model for the analysis of scholarly publishing – journal publishing in particular – is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In this model, publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion. A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense, a journal is a club. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities of a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against the negative externalities of crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal). A new economic model of a journal as a knowledge club is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-594512018-11-01T01:21:28Z A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing Potts, J. Hartley, John Montgomery, Lucy Neylon, C. Rennie, E. A new economic model for the analysis of scholarly publishing – journal publishing in particular – is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In this model, publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion. A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense, a journal is a club. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities of a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against the negative externalities of crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal). A new economic model of a journal as a knowledge club is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59451 10.1080/08109028.2017.1386949 fulltext
spellingShingle Potts, J.
Hartley, John
Montgomery, Lucy
Neylon, C.
Rennie, E.
A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title_full A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title_fullStr A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title_full_unstemmed A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title_short A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
title_sort journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/59451