  Citation counts and related metrics have pervasive uses and misuses in
academia and research appraisal, serving as scholarly influence and recognition
measures. Hence, comprehending the citation patterns exhibited by authors is
essential for assessing their research impact and contributions within their
respective fields. Although the h-index, introduced by Hirsch in 2005, has
emerged as a popular bibliometric indicator, it fails to account for the
intricate relationships between authors and their citation patterns. This
limitation becomes particularly relevant in cases where citations are
strategically employed to boost the perceived influence of certain individuals
or groups, a phenomenon that we term "orchestration". Orchestrated citations
can introduce biases in citation rankings and therefore necessitate the
identification of such patterns. Here, we use Scopus data to investigate
orchestration of citations across all scientific disciplines. Orchestration
could be small-scale, when the author him/herself and/or a small number of
other authors use citations strategically to boost citation metrics like
h-index; or large-scale, where extensive collaborations among many co-authors
lead to high h-index for many/all of them. We propose three orchestration
indicators: extremely low values in the ratio of citations over the square of
the h-index (indicative of small-scale orchestration); extremely small number
of authors who can explain at least 50% of an author's total citations
(indicative of either small-scale or large-scale orchestration); and extremely
large number of co-authors with more than 50 co-authored papers (indicative of
large-scale orchestration). The distributions, potential thresholds based on 1%
(and 5%) percentiles, and insights from these indicators are explored and put
into perspective across science.
