Ask about journal quality in business, economics, or management research and two systems come up constantly: the ABDC Journal Quality List and Scopus-derived SJR quartiles. They're often mentioned interchangeably, but they're built on fundamentally different methodologies, and a journal that looks strong on one can look merely average on the other — which is confusing until you understand what each one is actually measuring.

Different Inputs, Different Judgments

The ABDC list is a human-curated, panel-reviewed ranking. Field experts, editorial input, and periodic community consultation all feed into where a journal lands on its A*/A/B/C scale, alongside citation and impact data as one input among several. It's fundamentally a qualitative, field-expert judgment about a journal's standing, refreshed periodically rather than continuously.

SJR, by contrast, is a purely algorithmic, citation-based calculation. It counts and weights citations across the Scopus database using a fixed mathematical method, recalculated every year from scratch based purely on the citation data available. There's no expert panel involved — the rating is simply what the numbers produce.

Why They Sometimes Disagree

Because ABDC incorporates expert judgment about a journal's standing and reputation within a field — including things like editorial rigor and a journal's role in shaping a subfield — it can rate a journal highly even if its raw citation counts, and therefore its SJR quartile, are comparatively modest. This happens especially with journals that are influential within a specific niche but don't generate the citation volume of broader, higher-traffic outlets. The reverse can also happen: a journal with a strong SJR quartile from citation volume alone might not carry the same weight in an ABDC panel's qualitative judgment.

Neither disagreement means one system is "wrong." They're answering slightly different questions — ABDC asks "how do experts in this field regard this journal," while SJR asks "how much citation-weighted influence does this journal actually generate."

Using Both Together in Practice

When choosing where to submit a paper, checking both gives a fuller picture than either alone. An ABDC A or A* rating alongside a Q1 SJR quartile is about as strong a quality signal as you'll find — expert judgment and citation performance agreeing. A journal rated highly on ABDC but sitting at Q2 or Q3 on SJR is still a legitimate, well-regarded outlet; the gap may simply reflect a narrower or more specialized audience with a smaller citing pool. A journal with a strong SJR quartile but a lower or absent ABDC rating is worth a closer look at scope and reputation before assuming it's a comparable outlet to a similarly-ranked ABDC journal.

Look Up Both at Once

Rather than checking two separate sources, Know Your Faculty's [Journal Rankings tool](/journal-rankings) shows a journal's ABDC rating and its SJR quartile, Scopus H-index, and papers published per year together on one page — free, searchable, with no sign-up, covering all 2,649 journals in the ABDC Journal Quality List 2025.