The Balance of Trade Between Disciplines

This study was motivated by the admonition of Professor Hambrick, as president of the Academy of Management, that the field does not “matter” much. One reason for this may be that management scholars have not done a good job of disseminating knowledge to scholars in related fields. The article examines this proposition by assessing the citation patterns between management journals and journals in the related social sciences (citations received and citations sent). Results indicate that management continues to run a significant balance-of-trade deficit with economics, psychology, and sociology. Management exports a significant (but small) amount of knowledge only to psychology, while importing a significant amount from economics, psychology, and sociology. Results indicate that there is much work to be done to improve our management of knowledge, relative to the social sciences.