Citation analysis combined with a network analysis of co‐citation data from three major operations management (OM) journals is used to reveal the evolution of the intellectual structure of the OM field between 1980 and 2006. This spans the entire time since the beginning of research journals specific to the field. Employing a bibliometric citation/co‐citation analysis to investigate the foundations of the discipline enables a robust, quantitative approach to uncovering the evolution of research in OM. The study finds that the intellectual structure of the field made statistically significant changes between the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s and evolved from a pre‐occupation with narrow, tactical topics toward more strategic, macrotopics, including new research methods and techniques. A factor analysis identifies the 12 top knowledge groups in the field and how they change over the decades. Illustrations of the structure of the co‐citations representing the field are generated from a spring‐embedded algorithm that is an improvement over the standard multi‐dimensional scaling (MDS) approach to illustrating the knowledge groups.

For the past 20 years, the field of production and operations management (POM) has tried to establish itself as a discipline distinct from operations research (OR), management science (MS) and industrial engineering (IE). Sceptics argue that POM has failed to develop its own body of literature, lacks a distinct intellectual structure and that there is little appreciation of what it stands for. In this paper we use bibliometric techniques (a factor analysis of co‐citations) to investigate the intellectual pillars of the POM literature and explore whether these are distinct from those commonly associated with its rival fields. We also use simple non‐parametric techniques to show that the research agenda of European POM scholars differs substantially from that of their North American counterparts, and argue that such transatlantic differences may have exacerbated the difficulties POM has experienced in developing as a respected academic discipline.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper to investigate the major themes of operations management by analysing citations in IJOPM. It aims to discuss changes in the discipline's sub-fields and identifies emerging topics. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is an empirical analysis of citations and co-citations from IJOPM. Network and factor analysis are used to analyse and group the data. Findings -The study demonstrates that the persistent central ideas of operations management concern manufacturing strategy, with specific interests in strategy typologies, best practices, and the resource-based view. Other central themes are performance measurement, the case study method, and process management. The plotting of subfield trajectories shows that recent studies are seeking a more subtle understanding of operations management by considering its practice in relation to strategy, context and resources. Emerging subjects within the field include supply chain management, lean management systems, theory building from quantitative data and sustainable resource limits to capability. Originality/value -The study is unique in performing the analysis at the individual publication level rather than following the normal aggregated author co-citation analysis (ACA) method. The potential problems with citation/co-citation studies are discussed.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the core themes of service research by analysing citations in the International Journal of Service Industry Management (IJSIM). It also aims to discuss changes in the discipline's sub-fields and identifies emerging topics. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is an empirical analysis of citations and co-citations from the IJSIM. Network and factor analysis are used to analyse and group the data. The study is unique in performing the analysis at the individual publication level, rather than following the normal aggregated author co-citation analysis method.Research limitations/implications -The study examines only IJISM. Future study on other top journal such as Journal of Service Research would provide a more complete picture on service research. Findings -The study identifies that the core ideas of service research centred on service quality and customer satisfaction. Also identified are periphery areas which may become more significant. Originality/value -The main contribution of this article is the use of the novel network analysis technique to analyze the 15,003 citations in the 435 articles published in IJSIM between 1990-2005. This is a quantitative analysis unlike previous review articles which rely largely on the observations and reflections of pioneering researchers.

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Information systems as a discipline in the making: comparing EJIS and MISQ between 1995 and Article (Draft)Original Citation: Córdoba, José-Rodrigo and Pilkington, Alan and Bernroider, Edward (2012) AbstractThe status of Information Systems (IS) as a discipline has been widely debated as a body of knowledge that offers a number of concepts, methods and techniques to understand and improve the roles of information communication systems and technologies in organizations. Current state of this debate as reported in academic journals signals an imperative to ground some of the perspectives in relation to what IS professionals use in practice in different cultural and geographical contexts. This paper aims to contribute to the debate by tracing the unfolding of information systems as a body of knowledge using the ideas of Abbott on disciplines. We use three different stages of a discipline's development: differentiation, conflict and absorption and map them using a citation and co-citation analyses of two main IS journals (EJIS and MISQ) in the period between 1995 and 2008. Our results indicate that dominant ideas and models to investigate IS phenomena emerged over time are behavioural based and study IS adoption/acceptance/rejection in organisations, many of which are predictive and thus lending themselves usable for positivistic quantitative and qualitative research. There are however stable varieties within IS building on interpretivism and constructivism that we need to recognise and reignite in order to ensure that this field continues moving forward, in particular in studying current and future processes of innovation and diffusion of technology worldwide.