Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
PLoS One. 2023 Feb 28;18(2):e0279723. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279723. eCollection 2023.
Given the growing influence of non-academic organizations in the policy sphere, it is important to investigate the evidence both produced by and relied on by these organizations. Using citation analysis, a methodology primarily used in academic literature, we investigated the evidence base supporting the grey literature published by leading global management consulting firms (GMCFs) and international organizations (IOs). With the topic of the skills needed for the future of work as a case study, we collected 234 reports published by influential GMCFs and IOs over twenty years. By extracting references from the bibliographies of these reports we: 1) analyzed referencing patterns by measuring citation counts, institutional self-referencing and utilization of scholarly sources; 2) compared reference patterns across GMCFs and IOs; and 3) described the most influential sources. Overall, both GMCFs and IOs showed increasing reliance on grey literature, demonstrated high levels of self-referencing, and had considerable variation in the number of sources referred to. Across type of publishing organization, we found that IOs had better referencing practices than GMCFs. Our findings call into question the evidence-base behind the reports published by these policy actors. We emphasize the need to rely on strong academic literature to inform policy decisions around the future of work.
鉴于非学术组织在政策领域的影响力不断增强，调查这些组织所产生和依赖的证据就显得尤为重要。我们采用引文分析这一主要应用于学术文献的方法，调查了支持领先的全球管理咨询公司（GMCF）和国际组织（IO）发布的灰色文献的证据基础。我们选择未来工作所需技能这一主题作为案例研究，收集了 234 份有影响力的 GMCF 和 IO 在过去二十年发布的报告。通过从这些报告的参考文献中提取引用，我们：1）通过测量引文数量、机构自引和学术资源利用来分析引用模式；2）比较 GMCF 和 IO 之间的参考模式；3）描述最有影响力的来源。总体而言，GMCF 和 IOs 都表现出对灰色文献的依赖程度不断增加，自我引用水平较高，引用的来源数量存在较大差异。在不同类型的出版组织中，我们发现 IOs 的引用实践比 GMCF 更好。我们的研究结果对这些政策制定者发布的报告背后的证据基础提出了质疑。我们强调需要依靠强大的学术文献来为未来工作的政策决策提供信息。
