Organizational Analysis in North America and Europe: A Comparison of Co-citation Networks

Over the last decade, the field of organization studies has been characterized by a proliferation of divergent perspectives. Using bibliometric techniques, this paper examines the extent to which this state of differentiation may be associ ated with regional differences in scholarly orientation, specifically, between North America and Europe. The study is based on citation and co-citation analyses of articles published by North American authors in Administrative Science Quarterly and by European authors in Organization Studies in the three-year period from 1990 to 1992. Results do show that there is divergence in the perspectives that are currently dominant in Europe and North America, and, to some degree between Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The discussion section elaborates on the nature of the differences in orientation and speculates on factors that may have fostered and helped to maintain this diver gence.