Impact factor is for many a proxy for journal quality and represents the influence a particular journal has on the literature. Nevertheless, when a paper is cited frequently but is published in a lesser-known journal, these biases can cause real problems for tenure and promotion committees, department heads and deans when they evaluate those up for promotion, tenure review or merit pay increases.
How should papers published in the lesser-known journals that are cited as often as paper published in the top journals be treated? Is a paper cited often less important just because it has been published in a lesser-known journal? How often does a paper need to be cited before it has an impact in the literature?
For one, the fact that a paper was published in a lesser-known journal certainly does not make this paper less important. In older times this might, however, slow down the recognition of importance of results of the paper. Nowadays, if the paper is available online, this effect should be considerably weaker.
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