Publication Concentration Trends of Top Business Journals, 1990–2020

Abstract

We conduct a comprehensive analysis of trends in publication concentration across seven business disciplines from 1990 to 2020. The predominant evidence has so far been limited to a single discipline, sometime one journal. We construct different measures of publication concentration using over 64,000 articles in top 24 business journals. We find that the concentration of institutional affiliations has steadily declined. However, significant heterogeneities exist across and within disciplines. Additionally, there is an increasing democratization of institutional affiliations as measured by the number of business schools that contribute more than 20% of the top business journal articles. While there is significant churn in the makeup of the top contributors, a few business schools are able to consistently stay as the top contributors throughout the sample period. Textual analysis shows that the elite business schools have research visions very different from those of less successful competitors.

Keywords: Publication concentration; Publication trends; Journal publication; Author affiliation; Textual analysis

JEL Classification: A20; I20; I21; I23