The first twenty years of the Strategic Management Journal

Abstract The Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) has now entered its third decade of publication and consistently ranks among the most influential journals in management. While several authors have examined the impact of SMJ vis‐à‐vis other management publications, few studies have examined the internal changes in the publication over time, particularly with regard to the diversity and content of the journal. The current study finds that there has been a significant shift in the number of authors, publication lags, reference lists, and page lengths in SMJ over the past 20 years, while the diversity of authorship has stayed relatively constant. There has also been a marked rise in the proportion of empirical papers being published. The implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.