Disseminating research in management of technology: journals and authors Derrick F. Ball 1 and John Rigby 2 1 RADMA and De Montfort University. dfball@radma.free-online.co.uk 2 PREST, University of Manchester UK. John.Rigby@manchester.ac.uk This paper describes part of a study into the emergence and evolution of the management of research and development (R&D), innovation and technology as a subject in its own right. It deals with communicating research in this area via the relevant journals. The first part of this paper describes the history and development of the bulk of the relevant journals. The second part focuses on the extent and frequency of author participation and the author affiliation in the journals described in the first part of the paper. Computing the number of author entries in these journals for the years 1954–2003 demonstrates the substantial increase in publication over this period. The analysis also examines the affiliation of authors by dividing the sample into academic and non-academic. Finally, the study then sets out to identify those who make up the ‘community’ on the basis of publication in these journals over the period 1954–2003. The importance of the study is not only as an historical record but also to act as a guide to practicing R&D managers on which journals would best meet their needs. 1. Introduction A major feature of the literature on research and development (R&D) and innovation management has been the massive growth in refereed journals dealing with this subject. Eleven journals were selected for this study and they are listed in Table 1 together with their first year of publication. The selection of journals is to some extent arbitrary but is based on the authors’ knowledge and experience. It would be expected that those researchers who were active in the field for some years would be represented in one or more of these journals. Linton and Thongpapanl (2004) identify the top 10 journals in the field of technology management by citation analysis. Nine of these top 10 journals are in the list selected for the study reported here. The only exception is Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Including articles on technology man- agement appearing in general management jour- nals such as Harvard Business Review was considered but the selection of journals and articles would have posed an intractable problem. There are many journals that from time to time feature papers on R&D management (see for example Butler et al., 1978; Pearson, 1990). 2. The journals The value of specialist innovation journals will be maximized if they meet the needs of their target audience. Despite their differing stated objectives the content of many of the journals is inter- changeable one with another in terms of where authors choose to submit their papers. It is unrealistic to expect R&D and innovation man- agers to read more than one or two specialist innovation management journals and many do R&D Management 36, 2, 2006. r 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation r 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 205 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA, 02148, USA