Production, centrality, and impact: correlations between different metrics in the field of tourism in Brazil

Abstract

In the last decades, bibliometric metrics have been used to assess the quantity and quality of production
in different areas of knowledge. Often, a single metric is used to rank researchers and institutions, without,
in some cases, justification for its choice. There are, in literature, studies that build rankings of authors and
institutions, using production and impact. However, there are still few surveys that discuss whether the use of
different metrics generates rankings that are more similar or different from each other. There is also little use of
centrality in the field of tourism in Brazil. We calculate and correlate a set of production, centrality, and impact
metrics, which are regularly used to build rankings, through 3,887 articles from 16 Brazilian tourism journals
(1990-2018). Depending on the metrics applied, the rankings created are more similar or divergent from each
other. The collection of data from primary sources and their review was done manually. The calculation of
correlations was made for absolute values and ranking positions. The main result is to show that rankings
based on a low number of metrics, mainly from the same group, can ignore important points in the performance
of authors, institutions, and countries. It is also shown that several correlations are not as high as expected
(e.g., between centrality and impact metrics).