Abstract
Management and business-related research (MBR) exhibits a disciplinary dissension path and a lack of cumulative knowledge development. This study aims to find and discuss evidence of MBR dissension and to identify intellectual/methodological bridges as potential pillars for cumulative knowledge development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A co-word network analysis of 22,000 + keywords sourced from 4600 + articles published between 1998 and 2017 by authors affiliated with LAC institutions showed a network’s decreasing density and modularity in addition to a noticeable increase in the number of communities detected. The prominence and consistency of sustainability-related topics in LAC among the networks’ principal components and key-terms with higher betweenness could be explained by global solution-oriented agreements such as the MDGs/SDGs. In contrast, MBR topics are not yet core issues on the SDG agenda. Methods from the sciences/disciplines heading toward consensus (e.g. mathematical models, computer simulation) showed a higher and consistent betweenness than MBR methods and mainstream topics, such as the case study or marketing or leadership.
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Source: based on Cortés-Sánchez (2020b)
Source: elaborated by the author based on Scopus (2020) and computed with bibliometrix (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017) for R and Gephi (2009). Note: tables below networks show the color of the top-five most crowded clusters. The percentages displayed equal the percentage of nodes in each cluster as a proportion of each network’s total nodes. Nodes and links visible: 1998–2002 nodes: ~ 47%, links: ~ 56%; 2003–2007 nodes: ~ 39%, links: ~ 49%; 2008–2012 nodes: ~ 20%, links: ~ 24%; 2013–2017 nodes ~ 25%, links ~ 38%
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Acknowledgements
This study is extended research in progress presented at the 18th International Conference on Scientometrics & Informetrics-ISSI 2021 (Cortés, 2021c). The author thanks the Universidad del Rosario’s School of Management and Business for its support. Finally, the author thanks Dr. Francesca Cauchi for editing a draft of this manuscript.
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Cortés, J.D. Identifying the dissension in management and business research in Latin America and the Caribbean via co-word analysis. Scientometrics 127, 7111–7125 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04259-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04259-5