Abstract
The objective of this article is to determine the dynamics of the evolution of management as an academic research discipline in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in the past 25 years. The methodology used in the research comprises a combination of co-word analysis with Social Networks Analysis organized in a six-step procedure. First, the data retrieval was carried out; second, a list of key words related to the management discipline was created; third, a key word co-occurrence matrix and its normalization using Salton’s Cosine was done; fourth, each key word was assigned to the research line it represents, taking into consideration the 25 divisions that make up the Academy of Management Society; fifth, the internal cohesion was calculated for each research line using the density of the words network that makes it up and each line’s centrality degree; and, sixth, a strategic diagram was created representing the stage of development of each research line. The results show how the research lines Strategic Management Process and Innovation & Technology Management have formed the backbone of the development of management as an academic discipline in LAC. We also present how research lines that are necessary for the economic and social development of the region such as Entrepreneurship, Cooperative Strategy and Public Sector Management appear as peripheral underdeveloped lines. Finally, we address possible strategies for future development of the management discipline in LAC.
1. Introduction
The purpose of this study is to determine the dynamics of the development of management as an academic research discipline in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and to elucidate and map the development of the research lines that make up the theoretical corpus of management in LAC in the past 25 years.
Studies on the evolution of the intellectual structure of management as an academic research discipline are scarce. In the literature there only appear studies on the intellectual structure of specific research lines within the discipline such as: Strategic Management (Ramos-Rodríguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004), and supply chain (Charvet et al., 2008). From our analysis of the literature we did not find studies of the evolution of the research lines.
Management, as an academic research discipline, emerged 137 years ago. The sustained effort of the Academy of Management Society (AoM) to foster research on the discipline has driven a dizzying sustained growth of scientific production over the last 25 years. The generation of new knowledge about management issues has created a diversification of research into several investigation lines. This accumulated knowledge makes it difficult for researchers and practitioners to have a complete updated image of the discipline. It also makes it difficult to know the individual stage of development of each research line that forms the theoretical corpus of the discipline.
The above-mentioned gap has emerged as a challenge to the scientific community to stay updated on the frontiers of knowledge of the discipline’s main research fronts. This limitation also represents a constraint for editors, science policy makers and research funding organizations related to this discipline. Outstanding authors from the management field such as Podsakoff et al. (2008) have lamented that: ‘Despite this impressive growth, little is actually known about the people and institutions that have shaped the development of the field of management.’
The international visibility of Latin American research on management, too, has increased in the past 25 years in a way similar to that of the entire world. While in 1988 there were just six articles on management in journals of the discipline, ten years later 33 articles appeared, 179 were placed in 2008 and, in 2013, 278 articles were published, demonstrating an exponential growth over ten years. Despite this sustained growth there is a lack of information about the development of the discipline in the region in a general way or about the individual development of the research lines that make up its theoretical corpus in particular.
The results of the present investigation are aimed at scholars, students, editors and scientific policy makers in the management field, and at research funding institutions, all of whom contribute to the formulation of strategies for the future development of the management discipline in LAC and in the global context.
2. Highlights of the social and economic context of the LAC region
There are some indicators that suggest that in the past years the LAC region has experienced an increase in both economic and social aspects. According to the World Bank study on the Latin American and the Caribbean region (Lederman et al., 2014) some of the highlights of this development are:
Some 70 million people have risen above the poverty line.
Some 50 million people joined the middle economic class between 2003 and 2009.
The inequity of income was reduced by 10%, a decrease measured in terms of the Gini index from 0.58 in 1996 to 0.52 in 2011.
The above-mentioned report suggests that the challenges to sustaining the social progress that has been built on productivity growth are mainly the generation of human capital, logistic and infrastructure development, the increase in competition, and lastly perfection of the contractual environment. All these topics should be of primary concern for the business schools of the region in the near future.
According to the World Bank annual indicators (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator), the LAC country with the highest Gross Domestic Product growth in the past 25 years is Peru, with a change in growth rate from −9.44% in 1988 to 2.69% in 2000 to 8.45% in 2013. Colombia’s rate changed from 4.05% in 1988 to 4.41% in 2000 to 4.67% in 2013. Argentina went from −2.55% in 1988 to −0.78% in 2000 to 2.92% in 2013. The LAC countries that present a sustained economic decrease over the past 25 years are, firstly, Chile, whose rate decreased from 7.31% in 1988 to 4.49% in 2000 to 4.07% in 2013, while Venezuela’s rate of growth fell from 5.82% in 1988 to 3.68% in 2000 to 1.34% in 2013. Brazil and Mexico have displayed a pendulum behaviour in that their rates of growth in 2000 grew with respect to 1988 but decreased in 2013.
According to the ranking presented by America Economía (http://rankings.americaeconomia.com/multilatinas-2014/ranking/), there are 86 multinational enterprises called Multilatinas ranked in the top 100. Brazil, Mexico, and Chile account for 79% of these enterprises. Those countries have also experienced a sustained decrease in the registration of new domestic businesses in the past 25 years. For example, according to the World Bank annual indicators (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator), Brazil registered 589 new domestic businesses in 1988, in 2000 this number fell to 459, and to 353 in 2012. Mexico registered 203 new domestic businesses in 1998, in 2000 this number decreased to 179, and in 2012 to 131. This behaviour raises a question: Is there a correlation between the increase in the number of multinationals in a LAC country and the decrease in the number of domestic businesses in that country?
Relevant topics for the social and economic development of the LAC region are entrepreneurship activity and technology and innovation management.
In the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report (Singer et al., 2014), Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago appear as countries in transition to efficiency-driven economies; and Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay appear as countries in transition to innovation-driven economies. Meanwhile in the Global Innovation Index rankings (Dutta et al., 2014), 17 (77%) of the 22 LAC countries have an innovation efficiency ratio below the world median. LAC enterprises introduce new products more slowly than enterprises in other economies. Their entrepreneurs’ management practices lag behind the best practices of entrepreneurs on a global scale. For example, LAC firms have relatively little investment in R&D, and their production of local patents is much lower than the reference values worldwide. The probability of a LAC firm introducing a new product is 20% below what is observed for Europe and Central Asian enterprises.
In the LAC region there are 82 business schools, located in seven countries. Of these, 22 are in México, 16 in Brazil and Chile, 12 in Peru, eight in Argentina, five in Colombia and three in Costa Rica. Ten LAC schools (12% of the existing 82) earned a place in the Global Top 200 Business Schools ranking in 2015. According to the 2015 global ranking (Lavelle & Kahn, 2015), Chile dominates the list with four schools, followed by Mexico with three, and Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina, with one school each. The EGADE-Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey is Latin America’s top school for both employer recognition and academic reputation, followed by the Pontifical Universidad Católica de Chile, which held on to number 2 place. Two schools, unranked in 2014, joined the group: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez at number 5 and Universidad Diego Portales at number 9. Universidad de Chile was the big winner, advancing three places to number 3, followed by INCAE Business School, which moved up two notches to number 6, and Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), which moved up one spot to number 4.
These business schools demand updated knowledge about advanced research areas in the management field, as well as those subject matters that, although important to the economic and social development of the region, are given little attention by the academic community.
The above-mentioned scenario highlights the importance of developing research on management as an academic research discipline in LAC, as a region that can contribute to the international development of this discipline.
3. Literature review
Studies on the evolution of management as an academic research discipline in third-world countries in general and in LAC in particular are scarce (Koljatic & Silva, 2001). Asia and Latin America are considered significant emerging economies in the global context (Vassolo et al., 2011). While investigation of the literature on the management discipline in Asia has been extensively discussed, in Latin America by contrast there has been very little discussion, and the results appear fragmented and concentrated on specific research lines (Nicholls-Nixon et al., 2011).
While studies on the evolution of the intellectual structure of management as an academic discipline are lacking in the literature, also lacking is information on the dynamics of the internal evolution of the interaction of its research lines. Providing information on this topic to scholars as well as to academic institutions would contribute to improving the relevance of the research in the LAC region and its relationship to the economic and social development needs of the region. It would also contribute to preparing the scientific community for the challenges of the coming years regarding the development of the discipline. An understanding of LAC’s centrally developed subject matters in research on management would help scientific policy makers to implement strategies for future development of the discipline in the regional and international context as well.
To elucidate the individual state of development of each research line of the management discipline in LAC would contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of its historical evolution. Having this information would help to contextualize the research that has been completed, and would highlight the main LAC patterns in the generation and dissemination of this new knowledge. In addition, the use of co-word analysis would incorporate new elements in the existing conversation on the topic of the effectiveness of elucidating the structure of scientific disciplines. In the present case we will incorporate information about a new discipline: management.
The research questions to be answered in the present study are: What are the research lines that have shaped the development of management as an academic research discipline in LAC in the past 25 years? What is the state of the individual development of research lines on management in LAC? What should be the strategies of primary concern to the LAC scientific community to foster future development of the management discipline in the region?
Favouring the realization of this investigation and its effectiveness is the fact that academic publications in the management discipline in LAC, although low within a global perspective, have increased steadily during the last decade. This growth allows us to establish the main patterns of development of research on management in the regional context, and to show a general picture of this development in the past 25 years.
4. Methodology and data
To achieve the objective of our research and to answer the research questions, we have analysed all the LAC articles in the Web of Science management category published in journals in the ISI Web of Knowledge (ISI) with a combination of co-word analysis and Social Networks Analysis techniques (SNA) in an effort to elucidate the dynamics of the historical evolution of management as an academic research discipline in LAC and to map the state of development of each investigation line that made up its theoretical corpus between 1988 and 2013.
The recent rapid increase of the scientific output in all areas of knowledge makes it difficult for scientists and scientific policy makers to discover the complex interrelationships of the new knowledge being generated (He, 1999). To rise to this challenge the academic community quickly developed techniques – i.e. co-citation analysis, text mining, co-author analysis, bibliographic coupling – for discovering the underlying structure and the internal dynamic of scientific disciplines. Co-word analysis is among the most commonly used.
Co-word analysis is a technique of content analysis that uses the patterns of the co-occurrence of words to establish the relationship between ideas within a text. This technique was created by Callon et al. (1986) and was developed in collaboration between the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation of the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines of Paris and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; at the time it was called LEXIMAPPE.
Law et al. (1988) used co-word analysis to map the changes in the structure of research on environmental acidification. Subsequently Callon et al. (1991) employed this technique to analyse the interaction networks between basic and technology research in order to study the field of chemistry of polymers. Co-word analysis quickly gained followers and became one of the most-used content analysis techniques by information science researchers all over the world.
Since its inception co-word analysis has maintained its prominence in the content analysis literature. For example, in the last three years 13 articles analysing the intellectual structure of several areas of knowledge using co-word analysis have appeared in the literature. The use of co-word analysis in the scientific literature can be grouped into four main clusters. A first group is related to the description of the methodology for the implementation of this technique (He, 1999; Leydesdorff, 1989; Stegmann & Grohmann, 2003). A second group deals with the mapping of academic disciplines (Bhattacharya & Basu, 1998; Law & Whittaker, 1992; Tijssen & Vanraan, 1989), among others. A third group deals with the discovery of the intellectual structure of research lines (Assefa & Rorissa, 2013; Liu et al., 2012; Vala et al., 1996), and a fourth group addresses the detection of relevant areas within a specific subject matter (Li et al., 2009; Rokaya et al., 2008).
The above-mentioned articles coincide on the employment of co-word analysis as a technique to discover the underlying structures of scientific disciplines in their literature but differ in the time frames analysed, the sources of information used and the fields of study. No doubt all of them have made important contributions to demonstrating the effectiveness of co-word analysis as a tool for discovering, organizing and mapping the evolution of academic disciplines.
In the literature reviewed we have found no previous studies on the use of co-word analysis for studying the intellectual structure of the management discipline in either global or regional contexts. So the present study is a first approximation of the use of co-word analysis to determine the development of the intellectual structure of the management discipline in a specific region, LAC, favouring the incorporation of information into the conversation on using the co-word analysis technique to analyse the structures of academic fields. This additional information on the development of the management discipline in LAC would be of interest to scholars, students of library science, management, funding research institutions and science policy makers to assist in identifying the main challenges to be faced in the near future and to formulate strategies for future development of the discipline in LAC.
Language constitutes a basic element in the birth and formation of the identity of any scientific discipline. This unique language facilitates consensus/dissension among the members of a scientific community (Whorf, 1956). The use of co-word analysis in the management discipline poses a challenge: Unfortunately there is an absence of a broad understandable and shared vocabulary in the discipline. Authors such as Koontz (1980) point out that one of the greatest obstacles to untangling the jungle of management has been and continues to be the problem of semantics. Many authors in the field of management and its related disciplines have tended to use common terms in different ways. Fellbaum (1990) points out that each of the 43,636 nouns listed in the Collins English Dictionary has an average of 1.74 substantive meanings.
To overcome that handicap in the present study, we will use the thesaurus created and presented by the AoM in its key-word list to explore the key words in the titles and abstracts of LAC articles on management published in ISI journals during the time frame analysed. The present study differs from previous ones in that it does not make a random exploration of words with high frequency of occurrence in the articles. Instead, we first explored the key words of the lexicon generally accepted by the scientific community of the management field with their frequency of occurrence in the titles and abstracts, and then we matched each key word to the research line it represents in each stage being analysed.
We also used SNA techniques. The use of SNA techniques in the management field was introduced and developed by Burt (2001, 2007). Their use is related primarily to the study of innovation networks (Cantner & Graf, 2006; Martinez-Torres, 2014; van der Valk & Gijsbers, 2010) and strategic alliances (Gulati, 1998; Gulati et al., 2000). More recently Burgess and Shaw (2010) employed this technique to analyse editorial board membership of management and business journals, while Acedo et al. (2006) used SNA to study the relevance of institutions in relation to their scientific output. We did not find, in the literature reviewed on the evolution of the field of management and its investigation lines, any studies that used SNA techniques.
In the present study we use SNA techniques to determine the internal consistency (density) of each research line in the management field as well as the influence (centrality) of each line. Density describes the strength of the links that tie together the words which make up the investigation line (Callon et al., 1991). Density can be observed in two ways: stronger links show a more coherent, integrated and mature subfield, although lower links may still show the emergent characteristics of the subfield. Density may indicate the capacity of a subfield to survive or develop over time in the field under consideration (Callon et al., 1991). Therefore we use density and centrality values to determine the development of each line of research during the past 25 years.
To answer the research questions, we conducted an analysis of the records of the ISI category ‘articles’ that appear in journals indexed in the ISI database in the Web of Science classification ‘management’ of the LAC countries in the time span from 1 January 1988 to 31 December 2013 inclusive. As this time frame is quite broad, we decided to segment it into two stages of approximately 13 years each. This choice allowed us to perform a dynamic analysis to trace the evolution of the research lines that make up the theoretical corpus of management in LAC countries in the past 25 years. The data were retrieved on 11 April 2014.
We decided to include only documents from the category ‘articles’ for analysis because it is considered to be the primary route of new knowledge dissemination in the majority of scientific disciplines (Adams & Gurney, 2013). The use of the ISI database as the source for the study has several justifications, including: (1) it is the world’s leading database for publications and citation reports (Adams & King, 2009); (2) approximately 20 million researchers in more than 3,800 institutions of 98 countries employ ISI as a source for their studies; (3) this database provides access to approximately 8,500 of the most important journals in the world.
Preparation for quantitative analysis included the following procedure. First, we downloaded the bibliometric records of all articles on management from LAC authors in ISI database journals. The strategy employed to collect the data was: Advanced Search = CU (country name) and WC = (Management), Time span: 1 January 1988 to 31 December 2013; Language: all; Citation database: SSCI; Document type: article. Note that data collection was carried out for each LAC country separately, and individually by year. This choice allowed us to detect the evolution of the scientific production on management of each country during the time frame of the study.
Second, we created a list of key words related to the management discipline. We included only words with a frequency of occurrence of 5 or higher in the title or abstract of articles during each stage. To avoid the possibility of introducing bias in the analysis because of the multiplicity of meanings of the words used in the literature on management, we filtered each key word with the key-words list of the Academy of Management Society.
Third, we created a key-word co-occurrence matrix and we normalized it using Salton’s Cosine (Salton & McGill, 1983). We decided to use the Cosine because its superiority to the Pearson correlation coefficient for this process has been shown by Egghe and Leydesdorff (2009).
Fourth, we assigned each key word to the research line it represents. For this step we took into consideration the 25 divisions that make up the AoM and we filtered each key word with the topic areas declared by AoM. The 25 topic areas according to the thesaurus of the AoM key-words list are: Business Policy & Strategy, Careers, Conflict Management, Cooperative Strategy, Corporate Governance, Corporate Strategy, Critical Management Studies, Entrepreneurship, Gender & Diversity in Organizations, Healthcare Management, Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations, International Management, Management Education & Development, Management History, Managerial & Organizational Cognition, Managerial Consulting, Organization & Management Theory, Organization Development & Change, Organizational Behaviour, Organizational Communication & Information Systems, Organizations & the Natural Environment, Public Sector Management, Spirituality & Religion Management, Strategic Management Process and, lastly, Technology & Innovation Management. The frequencies of co-occurrence of the key words incorporated for the two stages analysed are listed in Appendix 2.
In previous studies cluster analysis was used i.e. (Yongping et al.; 2011, Zong et al., 2013) or multidimensional scaling (i.e. Vaughan et al., 2012) to perform word grouping. In the present study we grouped key words manually using the procedure described in the fourth step of this process (see Appendix 1). This ensures that each key word belongs to a specific research line because it prevents the presence of the group problem described by Higman-Thompson (Lehnert & Schweitzer, 2007). This decision also guaranteed that the density of each cluster is actually associated with the internal strength of the ties between words that make up a specific research line and that the centrality degree of each line is due to its effective influence on the rest of the lines.
Fifth, we calculated the internal cohesion of each research line through the density of the word within the network that makes it up. Then we calculated the centrality degree of each research line in the structure of the network. Both operations were carried out through Pajek (Batagelj & Mrvar, 1998).
Sixth, we created a strategic diagram following the procedure described by Callon et al. (1991). We located each line of research in relation to its state of evolutionary development within the intellectual structure of the management discipline in LAC. To develop the strategic diagram we used the centrality and density values calculated previously. In the strategic diagram the x-axis corresponds to the centrality degree and the y-axis to the density. We used the median value of centrality and density for the intersection point in a similar way to Stegmann and Grohmann (2003), thus forming four quadrants. Subject matters that are central and developed are located in Quadrant I. Little-developed central themes are placed in Quadrant II. Peripheral and developed issues are positioned in Quadrant III, and in Quadrant IV appear underdeveloped peripheral research topics.
Finally, we conducted a paired t-test to determine the statistical significance of changes in the evolution of the internal consistency of the research lines (density) and their influence (centrality) throughout the stages being analysed.
Results
Between 1988 and 2000, 290 articles on management were published by authors from LAC countries. Between 2001 and 2013 this output increased significantly, by approximately seven times, to 1,974 articles published in ISI journals. The number of articles published in journals from the Scopus database was 499 for the 1988–2000 period and increased 14 times to attain 7,095 papers for the 2001–2013 period. It is important to note that six countries account for 92% of the scientific production in the management discipline. These countries are Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina. Table 1 shows the results by country.
Scientific production of LAC countries on management.
The LAC countries with the largest scientific œuvre for both databases account for 62 (76%) of the 82 business schools of the LAC region. In addition these countries are among those with the greatest economic growth ratio in the region in recent years. As Table 1 shows, 22 countries (51.16%) did not publish any articles on management in the ISI Web of Science database in the time frame analysed. These countries are among those with the lowest economic growth ratio in the LAC region over the years analysed. Ten countries published fewer than ten articles in the period under analysis. One country (3.22 %) published between 50 and 100 articles; five countries (16.16 %) published between 100 and 1,000 articles, while only one country (Brazil) managed to publish more than 1,000 articles in the 26 years analysed. Brazil is the country with highest economic development in the LAC region. These results lead us to ask the question for future research: Is there any relationship between annual economic growth ratio and scientific production on management?
In accordance with the key words that represent each of the research lines (Appendix 2), we see that Critical Management Studies, Management History, Managerial Consulting, and Spirituality & Religion Management are not represented in the LAC articles published in the periods analysed. This lack of investigations by the academic community from the LAC management discipline on topics related to religion and spirituality is intriguing since these elements are deeply embedded in LAC countries’ cultures. Another deficiency is the lack of research on issues related to management consulting, which is an important element for the promotion of technology transfer of best practices in management within the region’s business sector, especially with regard to entrepreneurial activity.
Furthermore, lines such as Careers, Conflict Management, Healthcare Management, and Management Education & Development account for only one or two key words during the time frame analysed and with a frequency of occurrence of less than five. Among these issues, the lack of investigation by the LAC management academic community in health care management warrants attention since it is an issue widely criticized by societies in the region. Nor have topics related to education management and development been sufficiently studied by the academic community, whereas this is another sector strongly criticized by social sectors in the LAC region.
Figures 1 and 2 present the strategic diagrams, with the location of the 14 research lines that represent the LAC academics’ efforts in research on management between 1988 and 2013, and Table 2 presents the centrality degree and density values of each research line at each stage of the study.
Strategic diagram of LAC research lines on management, Stage 1988–2000.
Strategic diagram of LAC research lines on management, Stage 2001–2013.
Centrality degree and density values of the research lines on management in LAC.
Business Policy & Strategy and Organization & Management Theory gained in relevance in the second stage and were placed as centrally developed lines. Organizational Development & Change went from being a peripheral research line in the first stage to a centrally developed one in the second.
Organizational Behaviour remained a central research line but has not achieved its development during the time period analysed. Cooperative Strategy was a peripheral underdeveloped line of investigation in both stages. In this respect it would be important to carry out research into strategic alliances and collaboration networks because of the strong presence of commercial reciprocity and free trade treaties as a source of economic development in the LAC region. The academic community should therefore develop research on this topic in the coming years.
As well as the Cooperative Strategy line, Corporate Governance remained on the periphery and underdeveloped in both stages. This demonstrates the lack of attention to this topic on the part of the academic community. Efforts to develop this research line should be aimed at the relationship between a CEO’s compensation and their performance.
The International Management research line, which appears as a developed central subject matter in the first stage, becomes a peripheral underdeveloped theme in the second stage. This result is not consistent with the research needs of the discipline for contributing to the economic development of the LAC region. According to Lederman et al. (2014) only a small number of LAC enterprises internationalize their activities, although the survivor rates are equal to or higher than the reference values for the global context. It could therefore be interesting to investigate this line of research in the near future. This change of stages leads us to ask the question: What are the causes of the decline in attention to the research line International Management in LAC?
Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations is maintained in both stages as a developed research line but it has not received enough attention from management scholars in the region. The region’s scientific community, and especially its businesses schools, need to pay special attention to this topic because of the importance of human capital for the economic development of any society. This was highlighted by Lederman et al. (2014) as one of the major challenges for the future sustainable economic development of the LAC region.
Entrepreneurship is a topic that evolves from an underdeveloped peripheral issue in the first stage to become a developed theme in the second, but it is still located in the periphery. Coronado et al. (2015) found that LAC institutions are very productive in this research area. This development is related to the significant growth of small and medium-sized enterprises in the LAC region in the past decade. The percentage of entrepreneurs in LAC is higher than in other regions but, in contrast, they create less new employment than entrepreneurs in other regions. According to the World Bank indicators report (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator), the creation of small business in LAC is decreasing. For example, in 1988 Brazil registered 589 new domestic ventures, in 2000 this number decreased to 459, and further fell to 353 in 2012. Mexico registered 203 domestic new ventures in 1998, in 2000 this number decreased to 179, and in 2012 to 131. While Argentina in 1988 registered 186 domestic new ventures, in 2000 this number decreased to 127, and slipped to 101 in 2012. Special attention and study should be devoted to the support given to new ventures and to the relationship between this behaviour and the entry of multinationals into these countries.
The research and best practices transfer to LAC entrepreneurs in this area is still low. Future efforts should include elucidating the determiners of the birth, growth, and death of LAC new ventures, as well as the influence of the institutional rules and regulations in the development of local industries in the LAC region.
In the first stage, Public Sector Management appeared as a major theme but became a peripheral topic in the second, which is contrary to the international trend. For example, business schools around the world are placing greater importance on the teaching of corporate social responsibility, partly as a result of the huge economic development in recent years. In addition, the high levels of corruption in the public sector bureaucracy in LAC call for more research attention from the management academic community. The research should bear on corporate social responsibility and its influence on governance transparency as well as the influence of the excessive bureaucracy on governance effectiveness.
The Technology & Innovation Management research line is central and developed in both stages, which is consistent with the results reported by Coronado et al. (2015) on the high productivity of LAC institutions in this area. Conversely, according to the Global Innovation Index ranking (Dutta et al., 2014), 17 of 22 LAC countries (i.e. 77%) have an innovation efficiency ratio below the global median. LAC enterprises introduce new products more slowly than enterprises from other economies. Another issue is the region’s entrepreneurial management practices, which are far behind the best practices of entrepreneurs at the global scale. For example, LAC enterprises invest less in R&D and the production of local patents is far from reference values worldwide. The probability of a LAC enterprise introducing a new product is 20% below that observed for European and Central Asian enterprises (Lederman et al., 2014).
Table 3 presents the data of the innovation index of LAC countries according to the Global Innovation Index ranking (Dutta et al., 2014). Only five countries are above the global median of innovation efficiency ratio. The countries placed in the top 10 within the LAC region are those with the highest percentage increase in their scientific output on management (see Table 1).
LAC countries’ Innovation Index rankings.
Source: GII rankings 2014. Note: World Bank Income Group Classification (July 2013) B = Below. A= Above. HI= High income. LM= lower-middle income. UM= Upper-middle income.
6. Discussion and conclusions
The scientific production on management in LAC countries has grown significantly in the past 25 years; this is demonstrated in the statistically significant changes in the number of articles published in ISI journals W=208.0 (T+= 209.0; T–= −1.0), Z= 3.885, p=0.001. Nevertheless, the low impact this scientific production has had should be noted. More than 50% of the LAC articles on management have not been cited yet.
Results have shown that LAC scientific production on management has increased in a disproportional manner. Five countries account for 89% of the total scientific articles on management in the LAC region, while 51.16% of LAC countries had no publications on management. It is noteworthy that the 82 business schools of the LAC region are located in the countries that have experienced the highest increase in scientific production on management in the stages analysed. For example, the countries with business schools increased their scientific production on management in a range between 5 to 17 times in the period between 2000 and 2013 with respect to 1988–2000. It is also important to highlight that the countries with the best performance in management research are located among the top ten within the LAC region in the Global Innovation Index rankings, and are also classified as in transition to innovation-driven economies according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report.
The sustained increase in LAC scientific output on management in the time frame analysed could be explained by the theory of collaboration (Leydesdorff & Wagner, 2008; Ronda-Pupo et al., 2014; Wagner, 2005). Of LAC articles on management, 79.10% were published through collaboration, mainly with authors from North America (USA) and Europe (UK) situated in the core of the research network on management at the international level. So collaboration fostered the relevance of the LAC investigations on management because of the increase of LAC authors’ skills in leading-edge techniques, their access to scarce resources, and their active participation in studies on the main research fronts of the discipline in a world context. Here it is important to highlight that smaller countries with lower economic development may be stagnating because they have not accessed the core of the collaboration networks in management research, while the countries with higher economic development in the region have access to PhD programmes or collaboration networks with the most relevant institutions in the research on management in the world context.
Of the articles published between 2001 and 2013, 56.32 % appear in journals from the LAC region. This result evidences that the incorporation of five LAC journals on management in the ISI Web of Knowledge database in 2007 created a space for the dissemination of results of investigations with a regional scope, as well as providing the possibility to publish in a regional author’s native language. This represents a way of overcoming the constraint of publishing articles in the English language since more than 95% of journals on management publish articles solely in English. The host countries of those native-language journals have increased their scientific output faster than the countries that did not have journals.
Another reason for this increase in scientific output is related to the use of scientific production in top-tier journals as an effective indicator of performance for ranking institutions, scholars and business schools on international rankings and the allocation of resources by governments and funding agencies in relation to this parameter. So scholars and institutions are systematically under pressure to increase their scientific œuvre. In addition, the evaluation of the performance, promotion and tenure of researchers encourages them to carry out research of relevance with the goal of publication in top-tier journals.
The research on management in LAC has developed significantly in the past 15 years. This assertion is evidenced in the emergence of an intellectual structure within the discipline and the evolution of the internal consistency of its research lines. A sample paired t-test indicated that the density of research lines in Stage II in LAC significantly added on average more density cohesion than in Stage I: t(13)= −4,374; p < 0.001 .Power = 0.986. The difference shows a great size effect according to Cohen’s (1988) guidelines. However, we consider the discipline still to be in a nascent stage of development: of the 25 research lines of the AoM, only 14 are present in LAC research articles on management. So the discipline’s future depends on the concern evinced by the academic community for the most impacting issues that foster the social and economic development of the region, such as technology and innovation, entrepreneurship, and cooperative strategy.
The relevance of research on management in LAC has also increased in recent years. The differences found in the centrality degree of research lines in the paired t-test (p= 0. 064). t(13)= −4,466; p < 0.001 . Power = 0.987) shows a great size effect according to Cohen’s (1988) guidelines. The results show that the dynamics of the evolution of research in the management discipline in LAC between 1988 and 2013 was fostered by the Strategic Management Process, Technology & Innovation Management, and Organizations & the Natural Environment research lines. These three research lines maintained centrality and density values above the median in the two stages analysed. While Technology & Innovation Management appears as a developed line of research, the practical results do not correspond to the stage of maturity of these research lines. This is evidenced by the Global Innovation Index rankings (Dutta et al., 2014), which show that LAC countries have an innovation efficiency ratio below the global median as well as the fact that entrepreneurial management practices are quite a bit behind the best practices of entrepreneurs at the global level. Furthermore Lederman et al. (2014) characterize LAC as a region with a high number of entrepreneurs but little innovation. It would be interesting to study this contrast by answering the question: Is there a correspondence between innovation development in LAC and the scientific production on this subject?
For future development of the research on the management discipline in LAC, it would be advisable to strengthen the investigation in those research lines that represent needs for social and economic development as well as social prosperity of the LAC region such as: Corporate Governance, Health Care Management, Public Sector Management and International Management, and especially research on the lines of Technology & Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship.
Focus on developing academic collaboration networks with the most outstanding international institutions should improve the impact of LAC research on management in the coming years, particularly for those countries that have experienced less economic development. Strengthening the LAC journals’ editorial teams and raising the quality of articles could also help increase LAC’s visibility in management research. Finally, encouraging research on the main fronts of the discipline should improve the international impact and visibility of such research.
Practical implications and possible future lines of research
LAC science policy institutions and national universities should encourage basic research on management on the major research fronts with the aim of generating new knowledge about the discipline. This would strengthen regional research on management in mainstream topics, which in turn should contribute to the progressive development and academic recognition of LAC research on management by the international scientific community. The LAC academic community’s vision of management research for the next 15 years needs to aim at transforming the region from being a new-technology receptor to a new-technology disseminator.
The present study raises a number of new questions: What is the intellectual influence of North American and European research on management practice in LAC? Does the publication language of a LAC article on management affect its impact? The answer to these questions may constitute new research avenues for the LAC scientific community. Finally, it would be advisable to contribute knowledge to this conversation through the expansion of the present study to the worldwide level in order to elucidate the development of the management discipline.
Footnotes
Appendix
Frequency of occurrence of key word.
| Research line | Words | 1988– 2003 | 2004– 2013 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Policy & Strategy | Advantage | 4 | 23 |
| Assets | 0 | 22 | |
| Barrier | 0 | 43 | |
| Business | 24 | 137 | |
| Capabilities | 0 | 27 | |
| Competition | 8 | 23 | |
| Competitive advantage | 0 | 12 | |
| Competitiveness | 0 | 27 | |
| Competitors | 0 | 6 | |
| Heterogeneity | 0 | 5 | |
| Industry | 28 | 69 | |
| Intelligence | 2 | 6 | |
| Intensity | 2 | 11 | |
| Material | 10 | 8 | |
| Means | 4 | 34 | |
| Move | 4 | 6 | |
| Resources | 20 | 93 | |
| Skills | 0 | 15 | |
| Cooperative Strategy | Alliances | 0 | 5 |
| Collaboration | 2 | 14 | |
| Co-operative | 4 | 9 | |
| Networks | 26 | 96 | |
| Outsourcing | 0 | 22 | |
| Relational | 0 | 5 | |
| Corporate Governance | Authority | 0 | 8 |
| Board of Directors | 0 | 5 | |
| CEO | 0 | 5 | |
| Director | 0 | 12 | |
| Incentive | 2 | 8 | |
| Owner | 0 | 5 | |
| Ownership | 0 | 7 | |
| Stakeholder | 0 | 17 | |
| Top | 0 | 9 | |
| Corporate Strategy | Acquisition | 0 | 10 |
| Diversification | 2 | 4 | |
| Investment | 14 | 53 | |
| Merger | 0 | 6 | |
| Portfolio | 2 | 21 | |
| Restructuring | 2 | 3 | |
| Scope | 2 | 10 | |
| Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneur | 4 | 20 |
| Entrepreneurial | 4 | 22 | |
| Entrepreneurship | 0 | 19 | |
| Family | 2 | 11 | |
| Growth | 8 | 36 | |
| Survival | 4 | 8 | |
| Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations | Bargaining | 0 | 5 |
| Diversity | 0 | 6 | |
| Satisfaction | 0 | 23 | |
| Selection | 2 | 18 | |
| Styles | 0 | 9 | |
| Power | 6 | 15 | |
| Training | 2 | 24 | |
| Work | 22 | 133 | |
| International Management | Countries | 20 | 103 |
| Entry | 0 | 7 | |
| Export | 2 | 4 | |
| Foreign | 8 | 0 | |
| Geographic | 2 | 4 | |
| Global | 6 | 49 | |
| Globalization | 0 | 7 | |
| Integration | 0 | 18 | |
| International | 4 | 64 | |
| Location | 24 | 40 | |
| Multinational | 6 | 31 | |
| Subsidiary | 0 | 5 | |
| Organization & Management Theory | Change | 10 | 68 |
| Culture | 8 | 46 | |
| Decision | 46 | 130 | |
| Design | 28 | 53 | |
| Effectiveness | 2 | 18 | |
| Environmental | 2 | 30 | |
| Identity | 0 | 5 | |
| Learning | 6 | 60 | |
| Linkages | 2 | 7 | |
| Risk | 4 | 47 | |
| Structure | 20 | 39 | |
| Organizational Behaviour | Attempt | 4 | 19 |
| Attitudes | 0 | 25 | |
| Awareness | 0 | 8 | |
| Behaviour | 4 | 43 | |
| Commitment | 4 | 8 | |
| Concern | 6 | 14 | |
| Efforts | 4 | 21 | |
| Employee | 2 | 38 | |
| Expectations | 0 | 7 | |
| Meanings | 8 | 10 | |
| People | 4 | 22 | |
| Perception | 2 | 41 | |
| Rules | 8 | 12 | |
| Trade-off | 4 | 4 | |
| Values | 10 | 109 | |
| Willingness | 0 | 5 | |
| Organizational Development & Change | Creation | 0 | 19 |
| Framework | 24 | 81 | |
| Models | 102 | 370 | |
| Performance | 13 | 145 | |
| Political | 0 | 12 | |
| Role | 12 | 77 | |
| Theories | 0 | 11 | |
| Organizations & the Natural Environment | Environment | 14 | 63 |
| Operations | 14 | 50 | |
| Organization | 24 | 141 | |
| Production | 34 | 84 | |
| Quality | 16 | 67 | |
| Supply chain | 0 | 45 | |
| Public Sector Management | Conduct | 0 | 8 |
| Corruption | 6 | 1 | |
| Crisis | 0 | 16 | |
| CSR | 0 | 19 | |
| Public | 10 | 93 | |
| Responsibility | 0 | 19 | |
| Social | 18 | 115 | |
| Strategic Management Process | Actions | 8 | 21 |
| Activities | 4 | 34 | |
| Alternatives | 0 | 32 | |
| Choices | 12 | 50 | |
| Control | 14 | 50 | |
| Focus | 8 | ||
| Formulation | 14 | 26 | |
| Goal | 3 | 31 | |
| Implementation | 10 | 22 | |
| Initiatives | 4 | 17 | |
| Marketing | 2 | 49 | |
| Methodologies | 4 | 14 | |
| Methods | 42 | 103 | |
| Planning | 22 | 48 | |
| Plans | 4 | 13 | |
| Policy | 4 | 24 | |
| Process | 32 | 144 | |
| Programs | 6 | 28 | |
| Strategy | 10 | 62 | |
| Support | 16 | 53 | |
| Technology & Innovation Management | Attribute | 2 | 32 |
| Cognitive | 0 | 6 | |
| Development | 18 | 133 | |
| Information | 14 | 130 | |
| Innovation | 20 | 87 | |
| Patent | 4 | 4 | |
| Knowledge | 10 | 125 | |
| Technology | 36 | 53 |
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the Editor Anne Rocha Perazzo and an anonymous reviewer for their intuitive and insightful comments. Special thanks to Caroline Wagner for her constructive suggestions and intuitive comments on a previous draft.
Funding
This research was partially financed by project 40101001 of the Universidad Católica del Norte.