Authors:
Fiorenzo Franceschini Department of Production Systems and Business Economics (DISPEA), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

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Maurizio Galetto Department of Production Systems and Business Economics (DISPEA), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

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Domenico Maisano Department of Production Systems and Business Economics (DISPEA), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

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Luca Mastrogiacomo Department of Production Systems and Business Economics (DISPEA), Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

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Abstract

Among the most recent bibliometric indicators for normalizing the differences among fields of science in terms of citation behaviour, Kosmulski (J Informetr 5(3):481–485, 2011) proposed the NSP (number of successful paper) index. According to the authors, NSP deserves much attention for its great simplicity and immediate meaning—equivalent to those of the h-index—while it has the disadvantage of being prone to manipulation and not very efficient in terms of statistical significance. In the first part of the paper, we introduce the success-index, aimed at reducing the NSP-index's limitations, although requiring more computing effort. Next, we present a detailed analysis of the success-index from the point of view of its operational properties and a comparison with the h-index's ones. Particularly interesting is the examination of the success-index scale of measurement, which is much richer than the h-index's. This makes success-index much more versatile for different types of analysis—e.g., (cross-field) comparisons of the scientific output of (1) individual researchers, (2) researchers with different seniority, (3) research institutions of different size, (4) scientific journals, etc.

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation
1978
Volumes
per Year
1
Issues
per Year
12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address
H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address
H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher
Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)