A revealed preference study of management journals' direct influences

Our study develops and uses a new methodology for analyzing journal citatio ns to recent publications to determine which management journals now have t he greatest influence on the field of management. It analyzes the 23637 aca demic journal references cited in the 1275 articles published in 17 key man agement journals during 1993 and 1994 focusing on citations to references p ublished up to the modal vintage of 4 years earlier. Most cited as a percen tage of all these references was Strategic Management Journal (11%), follow ed by Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organiz ational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Academy of Management Review , Administrative Sciences Quarterly, and Journal of Management-accounting i n total for 51 percent of all citations. Strategic Management Journal, whos e subfield of strategic management has become a major concern of management in general, has developed as the predominant academic journal influencing the field Of management Our measures of journal influence provide informati on which can aid management scholars, practitioners, department heads, and university libraries to decide on efficient choices of journals for researc h and for manuscript submissions, for evaluation, and for subscriptions. Ju st seven management and social science journals, led by Strategic Managemen t Journal, contain more than half of the cited articles published recently. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.