Global Contests in the Production of Business Knowledge: Regional Centres and Individual Business Schools

Drawing on institutional theory, the global production of business research is analysed by examining the system of written outputs using one of the largest databases of journal papers ever assembled, covering over 65,000 articles produced by more than 54,000 authors from over 8,000 different institutions across the period 1992–2005. We acknowledge the pioneering role of US business schools in establishing the modern institutional system of undertaking and disseminating research that involves the intertwining of university business schools and scientific journals. While Wharton and Harvard are still the leading universities globally, their crowns are slipping, together with the position of the US generally. We observe the greatest challenges to the existing order as coming from European and Asian institutions that have either copied, or been inspired to innovate by adapting, the US system. London Business School, Erasmus, INSEAD and Tilburg are threatening to topple leading US universities in the undertaking of research, and other European and Asian institutions are close behind. It is argued that international businesses can now go to non-US institutions to find leaders in thought.