Gender and citation impact in management research

This study investigates the extent to which a gender gap exists in the citation rates of management researchers. Based on a cross-sectional sample of 26,783 publications and 65,436 authorships, we illuminate possible differences in women's and men's average citation impact per paper, adjusting for covariation attributable to geographical setting, institutional reputation, self-citations, collaborative patterns and journal prestige. We find a marginal difference in citation impact in favor of women management scholars. Women are also slightly more likely than men to author articles among the top-10% most cited in their field. Yet given the sensitivity of our results to uncertainties in the data, these variations should not be overgeneralized. In the large picture, differences in citation rates appear to be a negligible factor in the reproduction of gender inequalities in management research.