Tracing the influence of James March’s most cited works: an empirical approach using historical analysis of co-citation contexts

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the historical continuity of James March’s contributions to management scholarship by tracing the co-citations that appear within the textual contexts of articles in premier management journals that cite both March and Simon’s 1958 book Organizations and other works co-authored by March. Design/methodology/approach This study uses within-citation context analysis to examine 522 passages from eight premier management journals that contain co-citations to Organizations and any another work co-authored by March. This entails coding the citing passages to identify the specific knowledge claims from March’s works and how citing authors used them, which establishes linkages between the content in different works of March’s works as used by citing authors. Findings This study finds that 31 other works by March are co-cited within the same citation contexts along with Organizations. The vast majority (71%) of these co-citations of March’s later works are to Cyert and March’s A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. The four other most highly co-cited works are Levitt and March (1988); March (1991); Cohen et al. (1972); and Levinthal and March (1993). Of the eight summary codes used in the analysis corresponding with the contents of Organizations, two summary codes – “Routines and Programs” and “Cognitive Limits” – accounted for the clear majority (60.1%) of all co-citation contexts in this study. Research limitations/implications This study only examined the co-citations to Organizations in eight premier journals in organization studies, and a larger selection of journals might have altered the results to some degree. A truly comprehensive analysis might consider every citation context in the published literature where citing authors jointly mention any two or more of March’s works. Given the extraordinarily large number of citations to March’s works, this was impractical and unfeasible. Practical implications A time-bound and rigorous review of co-citations in common contexts allows both scholars and practitioners to recognize the genuine threads of theory presented by leading scholars and trace them through subsequent works to see how theories have evolved both in practice – reflected in empirical work – and in conception – reflected in theoretical development. Social implications Prior research into citation methodology has shown the proliferation of references over time. It is not uncommon for contemporary works to list 100 or more references for a single paper. This research encourages and facilitates a greater discipline in understanding and using citations by tracing the roots of citations and the extent of their importance in citing works. Originality/value This paper presents an historical perspective of the influence of James March’s body of scholarship by tracking within context co-citations that link a seminal early work of March to his most cited works in premier journals. This study tracks specific knowledge claims that have persisted throughout March’s corpus of scholarship. This historical method is a systematic approach to tracing how subsequent scholarship ties together and uses multiple works to support specific knowledge claims, enabling an objective analysis of the commonalities among a scholar’s works over time. This is the first example of research using this bibliographic method to form an historical perspective of a seminal author or a classic work.