We are pleased to announce that Xijie Zhang, from the Chair of Economic Policy, has just published her first single-author paper titled "Is open access disrupting the journal business? A perspective from comparing full adopters, partial adopters, and non-adopters" in the Journal of Informetrics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157724000865
In this paper, Xijie Zhang adopts a disruptive innovation framework to explore the impact of open access (OA) on the traditional subscription-based journal market. The study assesses the market power of gold journals (full OA adopters) in comparison to hybrid journals and closed-access journals (partial adopters and non-adopters). Additionally, it examines the differences in market power between hybrid journals and non-adopters.
Utilizing the Lerner index to measure market power through price elasticity of demand, the research employs difference tests and multiple regression analyses. The findings reveal that OA full adopters significantly disrupt the market power of non-adopting incumbents. However, by integrating OA options into their business models, partial adopters can mitigate this disruption and extend their influence from the traditional subscription market into the emerging OA landscape.