2026/03/10 by Ricardo A. Ayala, Beatriz Revuelta, Raynier Hernández · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #scientometrics and bibliometrics research #Academic Freedom and Politics #Academic integrity and plagiarism
paper · doi:10.1177/17470161261420418
openalex publication_date 2026/03/10 · openalex created_date 2026/03/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The purpose of this article is to examine how authorship norms and practices vary across academic disciplines – conceptualised here as “fields” – and how these differences influence research evaluation and the distribution of academic prestige. Drawing on the concepts of cultural capital and symbolic capital , the article argues that authorship order is not merely a reflection of individual contributions but is deeply intertwined with power dynamics and institutional practices within distinct disciplinary ‘fields.’ This theoretically informed discussion highlights substantial variation in authorship patterns across fields, reflecting different forms of value at stake. While some fields favour single authorship or alphabetical listings, others use first-last author emphasis models, making uniform interpretations of author order potentially misleading for evaluation systems. The paper further critiques the growing reliance on performance metrics such as publication counts and citation rates, arguing that, although interconnected with authorship practices, they fail to capture the complexities of collective knowledge production and may indeed incentivise problematic authorship behaviours. It contends that uniform policies risk distorting recognition, particularly in cross-disciplinary settings where field-specific norms differ sharply. In response, the article evaluates contribution-reporting systems as a pathway towards greater transparency and more equitable distribution of symbolic recognition across fields. These issues point to a broader ethical challenge. The conclusion advances the notion of a distributive ethics of academic capital , arguing that equitable authorship practices must account for the unequal structures of symbolic and cultural capital across disciplinary fields.