The scholarly exchange of knowledge in Operations Management Kevin Linderman a, *, Aravind Chandrasekaran b,1 a Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, United States b Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, United States 1. Introduction Scholarly progress can be defined as the advancement or exchange of ideas (adapted from wordnet.princeton.edu). Scholar- ship involves the progressive creation and exchange of knowledge that cumulates over time. Much of our current knowledge has been developed from the Shoulders of Giants from the past (Merton, 1965). That is, ‘‘science is by and large cumulative; it builds on what has gone on before’’ (Bird, 1998, p. 159). Sarton notes ‘‘the acquisition and systemization of positive knowledge are the only human activities which are truly cumulative and progressive’’ (Sarton, 1936). Similarly, scholarship in Operations Management should also be progressive and cumulate over time. However, a narrow disciplinary focus can hinder the development of a field of study. Scholars from different communities should cross-pollinate and learn from one another by exchanging ideas. Often real world problems that managers face do not belong to a single discipline, but are rather inter-disciplinary in nature (Van de Ven, 2007). Management scholars may need to transcend disciplinary bound- aries when investigating real world phenomena. The field of Operations Management should not only influence, but also be influenced by other management disciplines. Research can ‘‘lock quickly into a single research discipline, paradigm or theory and ignore the developments and insights from other fields that could shed light on the research issue on which they are focusing’’ (Merchant et al., 2003, p. 251). As a result, Operations Management scholars should actively participate in an ecosystem of exchanging ideas with other management disciplines to enhance learning and create knowledge. This study investigates the exchange of ideas within Operations Management, and between Operations Man- agement and other management disciplines. Journal citation data provides the basis for measuring the exchange of scholarly ideas. Measuring scholarly activity can be a daunting task. The pioneering work of Price (1963) provides one of the first attempts to quantitatively measure scholarly activity. Early measures focused on simple metrics like journal article or publication counts (Vastag and Montabon, 2002). However, these measures only consider the volume of research activity and did not consider the exchange of scholarly ideas. Researchers have argued that cutting edge science increasingly involves collaboration across disciplinary boundaries (Rinia et al., 2002). In spite of this, relatively few empirical studies examine cross-disciplinary cita- tion exchanges in management (Agarwal and Hoetker, 2007). This research attempts to understand citation exchanges between Operations Management and other disciplines, specifically — Management, Marketing and Finance. Citation metrics can help measure the exchange of ideas between disciplines. In particular, the Citation Proportion (CP) (Tahai and Meyer, 1999), and the Balance of Trade (BOT) (Lockett and McWilliams, 2005) can help assess the cross-citation behavior between Operations Management and other management dis- ciplines. These metrics helps understand how Operations Man- Journal of Operations Management 28 (2010) 357–366 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 26 September 2009 Received in revised form 1 November 2009 Accepted 16 November 2009 Available online 5 December 2009 Keywords: Knowledge Citation analysis Co-citations interpretive methods Inter-disciplinary Citation exchange among disciplines ABSTRACT A number of studies have investigated the quality of journals in Operations Management. This research steps back from these studies and investigates the exchange of ideas within Operations Management journals and between other management disciplines (Management, Marketing, and Finance) during the last decade (1998–2007). Journal citation metrics provide a measure for the exchange of scholarly ideas. Operations Management (OM) journals show a willingness to cross-pollinate ideas with other management disciplines. But, they also tend to have a higher level of self citations and lower level of within discipline citation exchanges when compared to other management disciplines. As a result, Operations Management journals may reflect methodological silos in the field that could potentially dampen scholarly exchange. In general, increasing the diversity of scholarly exchanges within Operations Management, and conducting more cross-disciplinary research with other management disciples should improve the scholarly development of Operations Management. ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 612 626 8632; fax: +1 612 624 8804. E-mail addresses: linde037@umn.edu (K. Linderman), chandrasekaran.24@osu.edu (A. Chandrasekaran). 1 Tel.: +1 614 292 4233. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Operations Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jom 0272-6963/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jom.2009.11.012