A Social Network Analysis of the Literature on Management Control

Abstract

This paper investigates the literature on management control published in accounting and management journals. Social network analysis of citation data from the 25-year period 1981-2005 enables us to examine topics and ties among researchers. Social ties have important consequences for the development of the literature, shaping topics, research methods, and the diffusion of knowledge. We observe minimal communication between the two disciplines, appearing as two distinct communities despite similar interests. This lack of communication includes citations and authoring across the two disciplines. When citations across disciplines occur, it is almost exclusively accounting authors citing management authors, not vice versa. There is virtually no joining of accounting and management scholars within social networks. Within the two broader communities, there also exist smaller research clusters. While we cannot determine the impact this has on our understanding of management control, we discuss possible reasons for this phenomenon and its potential implications for management control research.

A long-term bibliometric analysis of journals influencing management accounting and control research

“…Their conclusion is that publication in the most highly ranked journals is highly skewed; just a few authors publish most of the papers. Based on this view, the proposition from Euske et al (2011) that the control literature shows tendencies towards tribalism between management and accounting researchers should be of no concern for accounting researchers. If management research is skewed in a negative way, as claimed by Macdonald and Kam (2011), accounting potentially loses little by not drawing on the management literature.…”

“…On the other hand, even being skewed, some or all of these papers may be of the highest quality, and thus they may enhance management accounting research. Nevertheless, Euske et al (2011) call for more diversity of methods and theoretical frameworks in accounting, because it would allow for more advances in the field. In management accounting, Hesford et al (2007) reveal two distinct networks of researchers: those publishing in Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS), and Management Accounting Research (MAR), and those publishing in eight 'major' North American journals.…”

Tweet, tweet, tweet: A content analysis of nonprofit organizations’ Twitter updates

“…Mediante el análisis de redes de cocitaciones (quién cita a quién), co-autoría (quién publica con quién) o temas comunes (qué palabras claves se usan simultáneamente), se examinan las pautas de comunicación e influencia dentro de un campo o disciplina (Euske, Hesford, & Malina, 2011;Polites & Watson, 2009). El análisis de redes aplicado a la producción científica permite conocer el grado de unión o desunión de un campo o área científica, detectar comunidades internas, e identificar obras o autores centrales (Molina, Muñoz, & Domenech, 2002;Vélez-Cuartas, Lucio-Arias, & Leydesdorff, 2015).…”

Networking de conocimiento en sociología: análisis de redes de blogs, vídeos de youtube y comentarios en twitter sobre sociología

“…La introducción del análisis de redes en el análisis de la producción científica en los años 2000 supuso una enorme innovación ya que permitió pasar de analizar rankings a analizar mapas de la ciencia. Mediante el análisis de redes de cocitaciones (quién cita a quién), co-autoría (quién publica con quién) o temas comunes (qué palabras claves se usan simultáneamente), se examinan las pautas de comunicación e influencia dentro de un campo o disciplina (Euske, Hesford, & Malina, 2011;Polites & Watson, 2009). El análisis de redes aplicado a la producción científica permite conocer el grado de unión o desunión de un campo o área científica, detectar comunidades internas, e identificar obras o autores centrales (Molina, Muñoz, & Domenech, 2002;Vélez-Cuartas, Lucio-Arias, & Leydesdorff, 2015).…”