In 2022, when I was in the process of applying to the MSLIS program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I attended the KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) PubFactory Virtual Series, which had a session about the impact of globalization on scholarly publishing presented by KGL’s Director of Consulting, Kevin Lomangino. Lomangino pointed out that the western countries used to have absolute dominance in the scholarly publishing industry, which went hand in hand with the dominance of English-speaking countries, but due to globalization, this dominance was challenged. China was gaining more power in scholarly publishing as it strived to collaborate with researchers from all over the world, especially those coming from the Middle East and Asia, and publish quality research in the world's highest impact journals. Globalization was not a new trend, but journal publishers were increasingly noticing the impact of globalization on the scholarly publishing industry, and whoever ignored the global trend would potentially miss out on revenue opportunities. Scholars in regions such as Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East were seizing the opportunities to expand their research output and global outreach, which increasingly diversified scholarly communication.
I led two Introduction to Web of Science Savvy Researcher Workshops in October. Web of Science is a large multidisciplinary platform of abstract and citation databases for journal articles, conference proceedings, data sets, and other resources. As I prepared the demonstration examples using studies from different scholarly perspectives to show the attendees how to search within the Web of Science, I found that the Web of Science had considerable indexes for Chinese research and scholars, which indicated the impact of globalization on the scholarly publishing market.
The increased global participation of the eastern nations in the scholarly publishing industry reflects Marx’s argument that material production determines intellectual life (1976). As eastern countries established their economic foundations, they prepared to pursue intellectual life by increasing their investments in global research production. Another factor contributing to increased global research production and collaboration is the division of labor and exchange as argued by Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1937). In particular, the division of labor and exchange saved scholars from other production obligations and enabled them to invest in their intellectual talents and specialize in research and scholarly communication.
Lindblom in The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What To Make of It stated that while the market system should be supplemented by other forms of social coordination, it is the cornerstone of democratic participation both in economic life and societal life. However, allocating scarce resources inevitably benefits certain groups over others, which creates frustration, tensions, and conflicts (2001). The global scholarly publishing industry is still dominated by western countries that have market systems. However, increased participation by eastern countries with markets centrally controlled by governments leads to tensions with western market systems. The scarcity of scholarly publishing opportunities has encouraged scholars from eastern countries to challenge the west’s “insurmountable” market system. For example, China’s partnerships with nations in the Middle East and Asia signify a potential opportunity for these nations to build networks of states as mentioned by Castells (2008) to deal with shared challenges in the scholarly publishing field. However, China’s growth in scholarly publications accompanies concerns about research quality and integrity, and the Chinese government responded by shifting the focus of scholarly publication from a quantity orientation to a quality orientation. While China has adopted a more commercial model of scholarly publications, the publication system is still embedded in the centralized system (Wang et al., 2021). In addition to local structural factors, there is also a need for improving academic literacy and publishing awareness in Chinese scholars. Globally, COVID-19 and international political tensions, especially between China and the United States, have undermined co-authorships between Chinese and American researchers (Hyland, 2023), despite the Chinese government being advised to prioritize cross-country collaborations to raise research productivity (Liang et al., 2022).
Globalization is transforming the scholarly publishing field, which challenges the western intellectual dominance of not only publishing but also ways of knowing. While China has increased its global power in the scholarly publishing industry, it has its own challenges to overcome. It will be interesting to see how this global transformation levels the scholarly publishing field and affects global intellectual welfare, and how these different market systems impact the economic and societal sphere.
References
Castells, M. (2008). The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616(1), 78-93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716207311877
Hyland, K. (2023). Enter the dragon: China and global academic publishing. Learned Publishing, 36(3), 394–403. https://doi-org/10.1002/leap.1545
Liang, W., Gu, J., & Nyland, C. (2022). China’s new research evaluation policy: Evidence from economics faculty of Elite Chinese universities. RESEARCH POLICY, 51(1). https://doi-org/10.1016/j.respol.2021.104407
Lindblom, C. E. (2001). The market system : what it is, how it works, and what to make of it (1st ed.). Yale University Press.
Marx, K. (1976). Preface to a contribution to the critique of political economy. Taylor and Francis.
Smith, A. (1937). The Wealth of Nations. Wordsworth Editions.
Wang, J., Halffman, W., & Zwart, H. (2021). The Chinese scientific publication system: Specific features, specific challenges. Learned Publishing, 34(2), 105–115. https://doi-org/10.1002/leap.1326
