What makes impact in family business studies? Exploring the role of special issues and thematic journals

Family business is a growing field and scholars are increasingly relying on special issues and thematic journals to increase their scientific impact. We assess whether special issues and thematic journal are associated with article impact. In addition, we consider how these effects might have changed over time by examining the moderating role of the article’s age. While we do not find an effect of publication in special issues on article impact, our preliminary findings suggest that publication in Family Business Review (FBR) has an effect, but contingent upon article age. Publication in FBR has a negative impact on scientific impact for older articles, but a positive impact for newer articles.