The influence of discipline consistency between papers and published journals on citations: an analysis of Chinese papers in three social science disciplines

As research becomes more interdisciplinary, it is becoming more common for papers not to be published in their own disciplinary journals. This phenomenon is further amplified by the large number of multi-disciplinary journals in China's social sciences, and prompts this study to explore the influence of discipline consistency between papers and published journals on citations. In this study, 476,327 Chinese papers in Economics, Law, and Library & Information Science published between 1998 and 2016 are collected from the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) as research samples. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis test, Chi-square test, and regression analysis are used to compare the citation count and citation rate between papers published in own disciplinary journals, other disciplinary journals, and multi-disciplinary journals. It is found that papers whose discipline is consistent with published journals have a statistically significant citation advantage, which can be explained by the principle of least effort and scholars' familiarity-based journal evaluation. According to the findings, this study also discusses some issues on the development of multi-disciplinary journals and the usage of citation indicators in academic evaluation.