International Journal of Management Reviews (2008) doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2007.00217.x TheBlackwellOxford,IJMRInternational1460-8545©XXX2007ORIGINAL Blackwell structure UK Publishing PublishingJournalARTICLES and evolution ofLtd ManagementLtd 2007 of the strategic Reviews management field structure and evolution of the strategic management field: A content analysis of 26 years of strategic management research Olivier Furrer, Howard Thomas and Anna Goussevskaia This paper analyses 26 years of strategic management research published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly and Strategic Management Journal. Through a content analysis, it studies the relationships between the subfields of strategic management. A multiple correspondence analysis provides a map of keywords and authors, and a framework to track this literature over the 26-year period. A discussion of future pathways in the strategic management literature is also provided. and past evolution of the content of the Introduction strategic management field and its different The purpose of this paper is to study the subfields, but also presents some conjectures evolution of the strategic management literature about further developments in this literature. based on an analysis of the content of the past By helping strategic management scholars to 26 years of strategic management research understand better the direction in which published in the leading journals in the field, the field is going and where the gaps are, the namely, the Academy of Management Journal paper is intended to provide a guideline for (AMJ), Academy of Management Review (AMR), scholars in positioning their future research Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) and efforts. the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ). The We therefore focus on two questions. First, paper serves not only to assess the structure what is the content and the evolution of strategic © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA International Journal of Management Reviews Volume 10 Issue 1 pp. 1–23 1 The structure and evolution of the strategic management field management research? Second, who has Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004), we did published most in the literature of strategic not focus on articles published in a single management and what was their contribution journal, but extended the scope of our study to the evolution of the field? The first question to the four leading journals in the strategic involves a classification of articles to evaluate management field. disciplinary evolution and to determine the The choice of AMJ, AMR, ASQ and SMJ, ex post facto priorities of authors, editors and as the leading representatives of the strategic reviewers. To address the first question, we management literature is straightforward. Over examined the content of the different subfields the 26-year period of study, these journals of the strategic management research field and have attained positions as the top strategic their evolution over time. The second question management journals as well as the top involves the identification of the most prolific business journals. Evidence of this comes authors in the field and the evaluation of the from many sources, such as the studies impact of their articles. To address the second published by Ian Macmillan (Macmillan 1989, question, we counted the number of articles 1991; Macmillan and Stern 1987) and published per author and the number of citations the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). these articles received. We then related the Macmillan (1991) reports the results of a most influential papers to the different subfields survey that was conducted among business of strategic management. policy scholars in order to rate key management Our paper departs from recent studies of journals with respect to their appropriateness the structure and evolution of the strategic as outlets for academic research in the business management field, such as Bowman et al. (2002), policy field. This study was performed in 1984, Herrman (2005), Hoskisson et al. (1999), 1986, 1988 and 1990. Indeed, since 1986, Phelan et al. (2002) and Ramos-Rodriguez it shows that these four journals are con- and Ruiz-Navarro (2004), on three important sistently positioned at the top of the list of aspects: data, analysis and coverage. Unlike, strategic management research journals. the studies by Bowman et al. (2002), Herrman Evidence is also available from the SSCI, (2005) and Hoskisson et al. (1999), our analysis now incorporated into the Web of Science of the structure and evolution of the strategic Internet library source. The SSCI measures the management field is based on quantitative influence of business publications based on data rather than qualitative interpretation, impact factors (defined as the frequency with which may reflect the subjective views of which articles from a journal have been cited) their authors. Both types of studies are valuable that are calculated for all journals. Between and complementary, and therefore our results 1990 and 2005, AMR, ASQ, AMJ and SMJ may be used to validate or invalidate previous have consistently been positioned in the top interpretations. Unlike, the study by Ramos- ten of the most influential business journals Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004), we did with impact scores larger than 1.8, which not used bibliometric techniques based on is supported by recent studies by Tahai and citations to analyse the structure and evolution Meyer (1999) and Podsakoff et al. (2005). of the strategic management fields because, as The perspective developed here is important these authors notice, it is impossible to for several reasons. First, established influen- distinguish the motives underlying the chosen tial journals such as AMJ, AMR, ASQ and citations. For example, a citation could be SMJ tend to shape ongoing theoretical and made either to enhance a theoretical framework empirical work by setting new horizons for or to criticize a document or approach. Instead, inquiry within their frame of reference. As a we developed a typology of keywords, which consequence, it is important to identify and we used to classify articles. Finally, unlike the understand the current evolution in research studies by Phelan et al. (2002) and Ramos- presented in these journals and the underlying 2 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007 March 2008 causes of this evolution. Second, these devel- and Edward Bowman, Harbir Singh and opments may also provide insights about the Howard Thomas’s ‘The domain of strategic future of the strategic management literature management: history and evolution’ (2002). by illuminating the nature and evolution of First, we present the historical development the current debates in the area of strategy and, of strategic management until 1980. Following more broadly, in organization science. They may Rumelt et al. (1994), we divided this develop- also indicate the presence of new challenges ment into three periods: (1) the precursors; and themes in the field. (2) birth in the 1960s; and (3) transition To achieve this aim, the paper is structured towards a research orientation in the 1970s. as follows. First, a brief overview of the The ‘prehistory’ of strategic management as development of strategic management is an academic field lies in studies of economic provided, and this is followed by a description organization and bureaucracy (Rumelt et al. of the methods employed in the study. Second, 1994). Among the numerous writers who the results of the analysis of the content of the started to investigate the role of management strategic management literature and its evolution and possibilities for strategic choice, the over time are presented. The analysis of the most famous are Taylor (1947), who initiated literature involves a classification of articles a ‘science of work’, Barnard (1938), who that allows an evaluation of disciplinary trends. studied the roles of managers, Simon (1947), Third, the most published authors and the who developed a framework to analyse most cited papers in the strategic manage- administration, and Selznick (1957), who ment field are examined and assessed. Finally, introduced the idea of ‘distinctive competence.’ the conclusions offer a discussion about the An important contribution of these authors future of the strategic management literature is their linkage of the study of organization and provide some insights into the possible with economic ideas. future development of the field. However, the birth of the field of strategic management in the 1960s can be traced to the following three works: Alfred Chandler’s Development of Strategic Management: Strategy and Structure (1962); Igor Ansoff’s An Overview Corporate Strategy (1965); and the Harvard In order to understand the future of strategic textbook Business Policy: Text and Cases management research, it is important to (Learned et al. 1965), the text of which is provide a historical perspective on the origins attributed to Kenneth Andrews and was later of the observed changes and evolutions in rewritten in a separate book The Concept the development of the field. Therefore, it is of Corporate Strategy (1971) (Rumelt et al. important to present a broad but non-exhaustive 1994). With these authors, research shifts overview of the field’s development. Numerous from a deterministic one-best-way approach textbooks (e.g. Grant 1991a; Hitt et al. 1999; to a more contingent perspective where Johnson et al. 2004;