Knowledge Flows Between Advertising and Other Disciplines: A Social Exchange Perspective

Knowledge flows between advertising and other academic disciplines are examined to identify the structure of scientific knowledge, the extent of social exchange and the scientific status of the field. Bibliometric analysis is used to identify who is citing our research and who we cited. Cocitation patterns for the leading advertising journals (Journal of Advertising [JA], Journal of Advertising Research [JAR], International Journal of Advertising [IJA], Journal of Interactive Advertising [JIA], and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising [JCIRA]) and the top 50 citing and cited journals with citation relationships from 2005 to 2014 were examined. Findings revealed that advertising is citing advertising scholarship the most, followed by marketing, consumer research, psychology, and communication. This suggests a “maturing field” where scholars look within the discipline's body of knowledge. In turn, advertising research is cited by advertising, marketing, business (general), communication, and psychology. The overall citing-to-cited ratio suggests that advertising is more a “receiver” than “provider” of knowledge to other disciplines; however, there is variation across the advertising journals. The positioning of advertising journals in the larger disciplinary framework shows close relationships to consumer research and interactive communication. The most common focus among the top-cited articles is digital media, with few articles focusing on traditional advertising. The implications of our findings for the field of advertising are discussed.     

International Business Research: Coauthorship Patterns and Quality

The authors investigate published international business research in four international business journals over a 10‐year period, 1995–2004: (a) patterns of coauthorship across regions, and (b) the relation between coauthorship patterns and the quality of international business (IB) articles. A cross‐region coauthorship enhances the quality of an article, suggesting that international collaboration creates synergy in IB research. The authors do not see any positive correlation between alphabetical ordering of coauthor names in multiauthored articles and article quality—a result that is contrary to some evidence in other disciplines. Finally, international management articles appear to be more frequently cited than articles in other IB research areas.     

A quantitative analysis of authors,schools and themes in virtue ethics articles in business ethics and management journals (1980–2011)

Virtue ethics is generally recognized as one of the three major schools of ethics, but is often waylaid by utilitarianism and deontology in business and management literature. EBSCO and ABI databases were used to look for articles in the Journal of Citation Reports publications between 1980 and 2011 containing the keywords ‘virtue ethics’, ‘virtue theory’, or ‘virtuousness’ in the abstract and ‘business’ or ‘management’ in the text. The search was refined to draw lists of the most prolific authors, the most cited authors, the most cited articles, and the journals with the most virtue ethics publications. This information allows one to chart how virtue ethics articles have evolved through the decades and to establish ‘schools’ or clusters of authors as well as clusters of themes. The results of this quantitative analysis of authors, ‘schools’, themes, and publications provide a foundation for the future study of virtue ethics in business and management, identifying its achievements and potentials.     

Key institutions in business and management education research

The authors investigate institutional productivity in business and management education (BME) research based on the analysis of 4,464 articles published by 7,210 authors across 17 BME journals over a 10-year period, involving approximately 1,900 schools worldwide. Departing from traditional disciplinary silos, they examine the BME research field as a whole by including all traditional business disciplinary areas and producing two top 100 rankings, one based on raw number of author publications and the other based on weighted scores reflecting journal quality and coauthorship.     

Assessing the influence of marketing research on the social science literature

Citation analysis indicates that theJournal of Marketing and theJournal of Marketing Research contribute primarily to marketing and other business areas as opposed to nonbusiness social sciences. The journals are also heavily cited by practitioner-oriented publications. A list of most cited articles is provided.The authors acknowledge the research funding from Washington State University and the National University of Singapore for this project.     

A “citation classics” analysis of articles in contemporary small enterprise research

This research study has two distinct steps: (1) a quantitative analysis to identify the citation classics in contemporary small enterprise research (CSER) and (2) a more qualitative discussion of the contributions of these classical articles. The motivation of the study is to reveal the evolution of thought in the relatively new field of entrepreneurship research.CSER is defined as all main articles published during 1986–1992 in the Journal of Small Business Management, International Small Business Journal, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, and the Asia Pacific International Management Forum. The resultant analysis encompasses 725 articles and approximately 16,720 of their citations.The quantitative analysis revealed that the source journals have been responsible for the publication of 35% of the most cited articles during the 18-year period of analysis, with each subperiod increasing the percentage of citations from these source journals. The qualitative analysis of the citation classics articles indicated that more than 50% of CSER articles are well grounded in observational and contemplative theory building with a view to developing convergent theories that provide an overall understanding of the entrepreneurial process. This is similar to the pattern of citations in other emerging fields.This citation classics analysis reveals a number of points. First, the main topic areas of inquiry in the citations classics were: personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, financing and venture capital, and entrepreneurial climate and its relation to society, and strategy and growth. Of these, the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs was a consistent topic over the entire CSER period. However, the general diversity of topic areas provides some empirical support for the “garbage can model” synthesized from earlier studies of emerging fields in which diversity in topic areas has been characterized as a loose collection of ideas rather than a coherent structure with a shared intellectual paradigm. A similar characterization can be made of the entrepreneurial research during the CSER period.Second, the most evident methodology was observational and contemplative theory building, although empirically based survey techniques were gaining favor in the latter two periods. Third, the dominant objective of most research was to improve the understanding of small enterprise theory. This dominance of the theory building literature has also been observed in other citation studies of emerging fields. Fourth, it appears that many of the most cited articles have drawn upon the literature of related and nonrelated disciplines. Many of these articles have been exploratory in nature and have attempted to rationalize concepts and variables used in small enterprise research. Finally, CSER citation classics have been impacted only by Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Small Business Management, and Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice among the source journals.     

Entrepreneurship and Family Firm Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of An Emerging Field

This work carries out a comprehensive and systematic review of academic research on entrepreneurship in family firms applying bibliometric indicators. We review the literature published on these topics on the database ISI Web of Knowledge's Social Sciences Citation Index. The results provided show that it is a relatively recent field of study, highly interconnected with high co‐citation between authors, which verifies compliance with Lotka's Law, and where the most productive authors and journals do not necessarily coincide with those most cited. Finally, the co‐word analysis has identified research topics classified into widely developed issues and specialized peripheral issues.     

The Profile of Research on Exporter–Importer Relationships: A Chronological Analysis

This article presents a chronological analysis of bibliographic and thematic aspects of exporter–importer business relationships research based on a systematic review of 211 articles published between the years 1975 and 2017 in business journals. The study findings indicate that, in terms of bibliographic aspects, this literature is characterized by (a) an increasing collaboration among different institutions and countries, despite a heavy concentration of authors from Europe and North America; (b) a predominance of a small number of scholars producing a substantial part of the literature; and (c) dominance of empirical articles with relatively moderate average impact. In terms of thematic aspects, behavioral dimensions and relationship characteristics constitute the nucleus of the literature, with research efforts focusing on their environmental and internal drivers and performance outcomes. These study findings carry significant implications for major stakeholders of the exporter–importer relationships research, including authors, editors, and conference organizers.     

Financial literacy: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis

Given the paucity of comprehensive summaries in the extant literature, this systematic review, coupled with bibliometric analysis, endeavours to take a meticulous approach intended at presenting quantitative and qualitative knowledge on the ever‐emerging subject of financial literacy. The study comprises a review of 502 articles ‐ published in peer‐reviewed journals from 2000 to 2019. Citation network, page‐rank analysis, co‐citation analysis, content analysis and publication trends have been employed to identify influential work, delineate the intellectual structure of the field and identify gaps. The most prominent journals, authors, countries, articles and themes have been identified using bibliometric analysis, followed by a comprehensive analysis of the content of 107 papers in the identified clusters. The three major themes enumerated are—levels of financial literacy amongst distinct cohorts, the influence that financial literacy exerts on financial planning and behaviour, and the impact of financial education. Additionally, content analysis of 175 papers has been conducted for the last four years’ articles that were not covered in the co‐citation analysis. Emerging themes identified include financial capability, financial inclusion, gender gap, tax & insurance literacy, and digital financial education. A conceptual framework has been modelled portraying the complete picture, following which potential areas of research have been suggested. This study will help policy‐makers, regulators and academic researchers know the nuts and bolts of financial literacy, and identify the relevant areas that need investigation.     

Authorship trends and collaboration patterns in business ethics literature

The primary aim of this study is to clarify the authorship trends, collaboration patterns, and impact factors in business ethics literature by looking at articles published between 1960 and 2015 in four leading business ethics journals: Business and Society, Business Ethics: A European Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, and the Journal of Business Ethics. This study showed the growth type of business ethics literature, authorship trends, collaboration patterns, authors' productivity evolved by subperiods and journals, and authors' dominance factor by subperiods and journals. After providing an evaluation of the results of the study, the authors discuss the study's limitations and suggestions for future research.     

Eisenhardt's impact on theory in case study research

This article summarizes the key points of Eisenhardt's (1989), “Building theories from case study research,” and its impact on research in management and marketing. The present article uses citation data from the Web of Knowledge database which shows that Eisenhardt (1989) has 2509 citations to the end of 2008, and that the articles first citing Eisenhardt (1989), most frequently citing Eisenhardt (1989), and most recently citing Eisenhardt (1989) appear in high-ranking journals. The citation impact for Eisenhardt (1989) far exceeds that of other articles appearing in the same issue of the Academy of Management Review. Eisenhardt (1989) continues to receive high numbers of citations annually. The use of citations indicates an increasing engagement with Eisenhardt's (1989) framework, and an influence across several business disciplines. In a comparison with Armstrong's (2003) measure of important findings, this present study concludes that Eisenhardt's (1989) article is important in terms of the replication, validity, usefulness, and surprise values of her findings.     

Patterns of Research Productivity in the Business Ethics Literature: Insights from Analyses of Bibliometric Distributions

In any academic discipline, published articles in respective journals represent “production units” of scientific knowledge, and bibliometric distributions reflect the patterns in such outputs across authors or “producers.” Closely following the analysis approach used for similar studies in the economics and finance literature, we present the first study to examine whether there exists an empirical regularity in the bibliometric patterns of research productivity in the business ethics literature. Our results present strong evidence that there indeed exists a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called Generalized Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity pattern: the number of authors publishing n papers is about 1/n ^c of those publishing one paper. We discuss the likely processes that underlie the productivity pattern postulated by the Generalized Lotka’s Law. We find that the value of the exponent c is equal to about 2.6 for the comprehensive bibliometric data across the two leading business ethics journals. The observed research productivity pattern in the business ethics area, a relatively young discipline, is interestingly very consistent with those found in much older, related business disciplines like economics, accounting, and finance. We discuss the general implications of our findings.     

Accounting research in China: commemorating the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up

This study reviews the influential accounting literature on China topics published both in international and Chinese journals in the recent four decades to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up in China. We first review the literature published in the first two decades, where normative research is dominant and financial accounting and managerial accounting are the main topics. Then, looking more in-depth at the most recent literature, we separately discuss the articles published from 1998 to 2007 and from 2008 to 2018, in which many topics are covered including financial accounting, managerial accounting, financial management and corporate governance, auditing and tax. Finally, conclusions and future suggestions are raised based on the issues explored over the past four decades.     

Twenty-five years (1992–2016) of the International Business Review: A bibliometric overview

The International Business Review (IBR) is a leading international academic journal in the field of International Business (IB). Such leadership is reflected in the large number of publications that grow year after year and particularly in the large number of citations received from other journals of high academic prestige. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric overview of the leading trends regarding the journal’s publications and citations since its creation in 1992 until 2016. The work identifies the authors, universities, and countries that publish the most in IBR by mainly using the Scopus database though eventually complemented with Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection. It also analyzes the most cited papers and articles of the journal. Besides, the study graphically maps the bibliographic material by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. In order to do so, the work uses co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence of author keywords. The results show the prominent European profile of the journal where contributors from European universities and countries are the most productive ones in the journal. Particularly, British and Scandinavian universities obtain the most remarkable results. However, mostly scholars from North America, but also from Oceania and East Asia are increasingly and regularly publishing in the journal. In addition, IBR is very well connected to other leading journals in the field, such as the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and the Journal of World Business (JWB), as well as with other top management journals, thus demonstrating its core position in IB research conducted worldwide.     

Review of Korean workplace gender policy literature from 1989 to 2014

This paper systematically investigates the English literature on the study of the South Korean Government’s gender policies concerning Korean workplaces and has found that the scope and quantity of the relevant published research on this topic has greatly increased over the years. This research reviews 66 articles that were published in the literature of academic journals and non-governmental organizations from 1989 to 2014 and is meant to serve as a reference compilation of specific characteristics on the topic for interested international academics and policy-makers. Findings include a growing interest in the field of knowledge with most articles being published in roughly the last decade and on an increasingly diverse selection of topics. In addition, most articles are quantitative, though they are based on secondary data provided by the Korean Government, extant literature or the Occupational Wage Survey. Furthermore, this paper reviews the literature’s primary limitations and key words as well as outlines the future topics the academics wished to address.     

Consumer innovativeness and its correlates: A propositional inventory for future research

This article summarizes the results of a systematic review of the literature on consumer innovativeness and its correlates and provides a propositional inventory for future research. The authors identified seventy-nine relevant empirical articles from international journals through a search of multiple databases using specific search terms, a manual search of marketing and consumer behavior journals and a cross-reference search. The results show that innovativeness consists of different levels of conceptualization and operational processes. Based on these different conceptualizations, the authors offer propositions for further empirical exploration on consumer innovativeness.     

A Ranking of the Most Productive Business Ethics Scholars: A Five-Year Study

This paper presents the results of a study that counted articles and the number of pages written on business ethics and published during the five-year period 1995–1999. Individual scholars were ranked on the basis of total articles and total pages published. Institutions were also ranked based on the number of pages and articles their scholars published in selected business ethics journals. This article is the first one to rank schools and individual scholars on the basis of research productivity in business ethics.     

PROLIFERATION OF ACADEMIC JOURNALS: EFFECTS ON RESEARCH QUANTITY AND QUALITY

There have been significant structural changes in research markets in recent years reflected in the increase in the number of academic journals. This paper uses a differential game model of authors and journal editors to examine the effects of an increase in competition among academic journals. Does an increase in the number of academic journals lead to an increase in scholarly articles published? Will an increase in publishing outlets adversely affect research quality? The results show greater competition does not affect research output and in fact enhances research quality. The number of journals and the relative discount rates of authors and editors are crucial determinants of the effects of competition.     

The International Marketing Literature

ABSTRACT

This study examines the international marketing literature published during the period 1987-1993. Twenty journals, which publish international marketing articles on a variety of topics, were reviewed, yielding 1,645 articles with an international marketing perspective. Classification of the articles on the basis of subject content yielded twenty-four distinct topic categories. Topical trends and frequent contributors in the international marketing literature are identified and implications for future research are discussed.     

Alienation in corporate America: Fact or fable?

Using NORC annual survey data, the authors selected 21 questions describing respondent attitudes toward job, life in general, and financial status. Respondents were catigorized as management, white collar, blue collar, and those not affiliated with business organizations. Attitudes were compared across the four occupational groups. Little dissatisfaction was found in any but the blue collar group. Management as a group, and men as well as women managers showed high levels of satisfaction, with few significant differences found in responses by men and women. This study does not support the earlier finding of widespread alienation in business firms.Charles B. Sannders is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Connecticut. He has written numerous articles which have been published in various management journals.Hugh M. O'Neill and Oscar W. Jensen are Assistant Professors of Business Administration at the University of Connecticut and the Fairfield University, respectively. Both have written several articles, published in management journals.