In academic communication, editors exert a significant influence on a journal’s mission and content. We examined how the composition of editorial board members, in particular diversity in terms of institution, is related to journal quality. Our sample comprised 6916 editors who were affiliated with 246 economics journals. Using Stirling Index of Diversity, we provided a single numeric index (DI) to measure the diversity of institutions which is composed of variety, balance, and disparity. Then we related it to journal quality, as reflected in three widely used indices in economics: the five-year impact factor, the association of business schools’ (ABS) journal quality guide, and the eigenfactors. The results show that academic journals in the field of economics are heavily dominated by US institutions, but in terms of geographic distribution, there are more institutions in Europe than in North America. Surprisingly, we found that the diversity of editorial board members in terms of institution is negatively related to ABS ranking, but unrelated to the five-year impact factor and the eigenfactors. While when we removed the US journals from the sample, there was a significant positive impact between institutional diversity and the five-year impact factor. Our study extends the scarce knowledge on the composition of editorial teams and their relevance to journal quality by study the correlation between the institutional diversity index and three different journal quality indices. The implication of this study is that more effort is needed to increase the diversity in the composition of editorial teams in order to ensure transparency and promote equity.

中文翻译：

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编辑委员会的机构多样性是否会提高期刊质量？案例经济学领域

在学术交流中，编辑对期刊的使命和内容产生重大影响。我们研究了编辑委员会成员的构成，尤其是机构多样性与期刊质量的关系。我们的样本包括 6916 名隶属于 246 种经济学期刊的编辑。使用斯特林多样性指数，我们提供了一个单一的数字指数（DI）来衡量机构的多样性，它由多样性、平衡性和差异性组成。然后我们将其与期刊质量联系起来，这反映在经济学中三个广泛使用的指标中：五年影响因子、商学院协会 (ABS) 期刊质量指南和特征因子。结果表明，经济学领域的学术期刊主要由美国机构主导，但从地域分布来看，欧洲的机构比北美多。令人惊讶的是，我们发现编辑委员会成员在机构方面的多样性与 ABS 排名呈负相关，但与五年影响因子和特征因子无关。而当我们从样本中移除美国期刊时，机构多样性与五年影响因子之间存在显着的积极影响。我们的研究通过研究机构多样性指数与三种不同期刊质量指数之间的相关性，扩展了关于编辑团队组成及其与期刊质量相关性的稀缺知识。这项研究的含义是需要付出更多努力来增加编辑团队组成的多样性，以确保透明度和促进公平。