New development: Our hate–love relationship with publication metrics

This article discusses the increasing importance of publication metrics in research. Four themes are addressed: the impact of journal metrics on issues like research funding and tenure; the unintended consequences of these metrics; whether the niche domain of public sector accounting journals is threatened by these metrics; and how researchers can best deal with the mania surrounding journal metrics. This article is part of an ongoing and larger research project about the identity shift of public sector accounting researchers due to an increasing importance of publication metrics.This article aims to contribute to awareness of the downsides of the use of publication metrics based on so-called ‘top’ journals. Various actors in the research domain will benefit from its findings, ranging from authors and supervisors to university managers and journal editors.