Getting into top-ranked management journals from business schools at the periphery: the role of doctoral education and co-authorship

Drawing upon recent extensions of the centre–periphery model, we examine research and publications by academics at the periphery within the present environment of increasing institutional pressures to publish internationally. Reviewing the emergence and the historical development of management as a discipline, we describe the fragmentation in approaches to research that has arisen in this field among countries that are typically considered as the ‘centre’ of worldwide scholarship. We propose and empirically demonstrate that the differentiation within the ‘centre’ becomes largely mirrored at the periphery with respect to attention to societal contexts, research methodology and publishing. Our companion argument that doctoral education in and/or co-authorship ties to various parts of the ‘centre’, or a lack thereof, serve as the main vehicles in generating heterogeneity and some degree of agency at the periphery receives strong support. We also find that when ties to the ‘centre’ are absent contributions from the periphery remain limited. In addition, we show that tendencies towards decontextualized research, quantitative methodologies and publishing in US-based journals have become stronger over time. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical contributions, main findings and the implications of our study for the possible futures of research at the periphery.