Are there any issues in publishing articles in which a link to your website is used in the article?

I was talking to a friend of mine, who was saying that he publishes articles to article websites so other sites can use the article. He always includes a link to his site in the article, which helps him building up back links.

Say if Joe Blogg’s publishes an article, and with in that article he links to his website xyz.com. Then several other websites use that article which contain the link to his website, would this have any affect on his ranks?

Those links may or may not be of less value than links on other pages. If they go supplemental because of the duplication, they'll be less helpful. If there's a duplicate content penalty it's the other sites that will pay it, not your friend's.

Thanks for clearing that up for me

It also depends how the articles are syndicated. If it's through feeds, there is no problem.