Ravi S. Ramani

The First 20 Years of Organizational Research Methods : Trajectory, Impact, and Predictions for the Future

We analyze the trajectory of Organizational Research Methods (ORM) during the first 20 years of its existence (i.e., 1998-2017). First, beginning with the inaugural volume, we review the editorials to create a qualitative account regarding ORM’s journey as narrated by the journal’s leaders in their own voices. Second, we examine the composition of the five senior editorial teams (i.e., editors and associate editors), including their qualitative-quantitative, micro-macro, and disciplinary orientation, as well as the types of articles published by ORM along the qualitative-quantitative and micro-macro distinctions. Third, we describe the 27 feature topics (i.e., set of articles addressing a common issue) published by ORM. Fourth, we offer information regarding ORM’s impact and influence based on impact factor data, journal lists, and other indicators (e.g., ORM articles that have received awards from professional organizations, most cited ORM articles out of a total of 484). Fifth, we identify the most frequently published ORM authors (and their disciplinary background) out of a total of 884 who have published at least one article. Finally, we discuss implications and outline opportunities and challenges as well as possible future directions for ORM. Overall, our review and analysis of the first 20 years of ORM allowed us to create a historical record for future generations, gain qualitative and quantitative insights into ORM’s trajectory and its impact and influence over time, and make predictions for the future of the journal and, more broadly, research on methodological issues.

A Pluralist Conceptualization of Scholarly Impact in Management Education

Knowledge transfer is the primary conduit through which management professors communicate what is known about human and organizational dynamics. This process has been conceptualized by the construct of scholarly impact. However, scholarly impact is often conceptualized and measured as an internal exchange, exclusively within and between communities of researchers. We investigated external knowledge transfer to a critical management education constituency: Students. To do so, we used bibliometric methods to investigate scholarly impact in management education by examining which sources, articles, and authors are most frequently cited in 38 widely-used organizational behavior (OB), human resource management (HRM), strategic management (SM), and general management (GM) textbooks. By extracting all endnotes and references, we created a database including 7,445 unique sources (e.g., peer-reviewed journals, business periodicals), 33,719 unique articles and book chapters, and 32,981 unique authors. Examples of o...