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Innovar

Print version ISSN 0121-5051

Innovar vol.24 no.54 Bogotá Oct./Dec. 2014

https://doi.org/10.15446/innovar.v24n54.46719 

http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/innovar.v24n54.46719

Individual Scholar Productivity Rankings in Business Ethics Research1

Rankings de productividad académica individual en la investigación sobre ética empresarial

Rankings de productivité individuelle spécialisée dans la recherche sur l'éthique entrepreneuriale

Rankings de produtividade acadêmica individual na pesquisa sobre ética empresarial

Benjamin J. WarnickI, Pablo RodrigoII, Chad O. AlbrechtIII, Nathaniel M. StephensIIII

I Ph.D. Student, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Bloomington, Estados Unidos. E-mail: bwarnick@indiana.edu

II Ph.D. ESADE Business School, Associate Professor, Escuela de Negocios, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago -Chile; Head of Research, UAI Centre for Business Sustainability. E-mail: prodrigo@uai.cl

III Ph.D. ESADE Business School, Associate Professor, Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University. Logan, Estados Unidos. E-mail: chad.albrecht@usu.edu

III Ph.D. The University of Arizona, Associate Professor, Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University. Logan, Estados Unidos. E-mail: nate.stephens@usu.edu

Correspondencia Pablo Rodrigo; Av. Padre Hurtado 750 Viña del Mar, Región de Valparaíso, Chile; Tel: 56+32+2503796.

Citación: Warnick, B. J., Rodrigo, P., Albrecht, C. O., & Stephens, N. M. (2014). Individual Scholar Productivity Rankings in Business Ethics Research. Innovar, 24(54), 183-198.

Clasificación JEL: M19; M14; Z00.

Recibido: Julio 2012; Aprobado: Diciembre 2013.


Abstract:

The last two decades have been a time of significant development for the academic business ethics community. While a number of scholars have contributed to advances in the field, the work of the individuals who have contributed to its progress and growth through their business ethics research is still not comprehensively understood within the academic business ethics community. This study identifies those individuals who have made major contributions to the business ethics field by ranking authors who have published business ethics-related research in the following six journals over the past 20 years: the Journal of Business Ethics, the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, the Business Ethics Quarterly, the Administrative Science Quarterly; and Business & Society. The results of the study should be of interest to a number of constituencies as they provide the academic business ethics community with a better understanding of the history and evolution of the field and its development towards academic maturity.

Key words: Business ethics rankings, business ethics scholars, evolution of the business ethics field, business ethics research contributions.


Resumen:

Las últimas dos décadas han sido un período de desarrollo significativo para la comunidad académica de ética empresarial. si bien varios académicos han contribuido a avances en el campo, el trabajo de quienes han ayudado a su progreso y crecimiento mediante la investigación sobre ética empresarial todavía no se comprende de manera exhaustiva dentro de su comunidad académica. Este estudio identifica a quienes han realizado contribuciones importantes al campo de la ética empresarial, mediante una clasificación de los autores que han publicado investigaciones relacionadas con esta materia en las siguientes seis revistas durante los últimos veinte años: Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Business Ethics Quarterly, Administrative Science Quarterly y Business & Society. Los resultados del estudio deberían ser del interés de varios grupos, pues le proporcionan a la comunidad académica de ética laboral una mejor comprensión sobre la historia y evolución del campo y sobre su desarrollo hacia la madurez académica.

Palabras clave: rankings de ética empresarial, académicos de ética empresarial, evolución del campo de la ética empresarial, contribuciones investigativas a la ética empresarial.


Résumé:

Les vingt dernières années ont été une période de développement important pour la communauté scientifique d'éthique entrepreneurial. Bien que divers spécialistes aient contribué aux progrès dans ce domaine, le travail de ceux qui ont contribué à son progrès et à son développement par leurs travaux de recherche sur le sujet n'est pas très connu dans leur communauté scientifique. Cette étude identifie ceux dont la contribution a été importante dans ce domaine par une classification des auteurs qui ont publié des recherches liées à cette matière dans les six revues suivantes au cours des vingt dernières années: Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Business Ethics Quarterly, Administrative Science Quarterly y Business & Society. Les résultats de l'étude devraient être d'un grand intérêt pour plusieurs groupes, car ils apportent à la communauté scientifique d'éthique professionnelle une meilleure compréhension de l'histoire et de l'évolution du domaine et de son développement vers la maturité scientifique.

Mots-clés: Rankings d'éthique entrepreneuriale, spécialistes d'éthique entrepreneuriale, évolution du domaine de l'éthique entrepreneuriale, contributions de la recherche sur l'éthique entrepreneuriale.


Resumo:

As últimas duas décadas têm sido um período de desenvolvimento significativo para a comunidade académica da ética empresarial. Embora vários académicos tenham contribuído para avanços no campo, ainda não é entendido de maneira exaustiva dentro da comunidade acadêmica o trabalho daqueles que têm ajudado ao seu progresso e crescimento mediante a pesquisa sobre ética empresarial. Este estudo identifica aqueles que têm realizado contribuições importantes ao campo da ética empresarial mediante una classificação dos autores que tenham publicado pesquisas relacionadas com este assunto nas seguintes seis revistas durante os últimos vinte años: Journal of Business Ethics, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Business Ethics Quarterly, Administrative Science Quarterly e Business & Society. Os resultados do estudo deveriam ser do interesse de vários grupos, já que proporcionam à comunidade acadêmica de ética trabalhista melhor compreensão sobre a história e evolução do campo e sobre o seu desenvolvimento rumo à maturidade acadêmica.

Palavras-chave: Rankings de ética empresarial, acadêmicos da ética empresarial, evolução do campo da ética empresarial, contribuições para a pesquisa da ética empresarial.


Introduction

Over the last several decades, the business ethics field has grown from a small, tightknit group of scholars to a thriving academic community with researchers drawn from all regions of the world (Calabretta, Durisin & Ogliengo, 2011; De George, 1987; Freeman, 2000). The research conducted by business ethics scholars has provided insight into the nature of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, corruption, sustainability, the environment and a host of other issues that are important for management today (Cordeiro, 2003; De Bakker, Groeneweger & Hond, 2005; Garriga & Mele, 2004; Preston & O'Bannon, 1997; Rugman & Verbeke, 1998).

Moreover, throughout the last 20 years, the academic business ethics community has become more accepted within the greater academic management community (Albrecht, Thompson, Hoopes & Rodrigo, 2010; Ma, 2009). This has resulted in an increase in the membership of the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management, as well as various other academic communities in the field of business ethics, such as the European Business Ethics Network, the International Association for Business and Society, the European Academy of Business in Society, and the Society for Business Ethics (Albrecht, Thompson & Hoopes, 2011). Furthermore, the inclusion of the Journal of Business Ethics as one of the 45 journals that is used by the Financial Times to compile its prestigious business school ranking provides additional evidence of the support for the business ethics field from both management and the popular press today.

While a number of scholars have contributed to the growth and progress of the field, their individual contributions are not comprehensively understood within the academic business ethics community. By identifying the pioneers of business ethics research, we can better understand the evolution of the field as well as the influence that has been exerted by certain individual scholars. It has been suggested that research that provides insight into the history and status of an academic community is one indication of the field's maturation (Kuhn, 1970). This study identifies those individuals who have made major research contributions to the business ethics field by ranking researchers who have published business ethics-related research over the past 20 years. The results of this study should be of interest to a number of constituencies as it provides the academic business ethics community with a better understanding of the history and evolution of the field and its development towards academic maturity.

Literature Review

Research to identify influential scholars within an academic community has been conducted in a number of disciplines, such as management (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1992; Podsakoff, MacKenize, Podsakoff & Bachrach, 2008), international business (Morrison & Inkpen, 1991), entrepreneur-ship (Shane, 1997), accounting (Bazley & Nikolai, 1975), economics (Medoff, 1996), finance (Heck, Cooley & Hubbard, 1986) and law (Lindgren & Seltzer, 1996). In order to better understand research productivity in business ethics, Sabrin (2002) provided the first comprehensive ranking of business ethics scholars by listing the individuals who had published the most business ethics-related research over a five-year period from 1995 to 1999. Sabrin analyzed the total number of articles and pages published by business ethics scholars. Thirteen journals were included in the analysis, as follows: Business and Professional Ethics Journal; Business & Society; Business and Society Review; Business Ethics: A European Review; Business Ethics Quarterly; Ethical Theory and Moral Practice; Ethics and Information Technology; International Journal of Value-Based Management; Journal of Accounting Ethics & Public Policy; Journal of Business Ethics; Journal of Markets & Morality; Research on Accounting Ethics; and Teaching Business Ethics. While Sabrin's study provides additional understanding of the business ethics discipline, including details on the individuals who influenced the field from 1995 to 1999, it has several limitations, of which the next section discusses five.

The first limitation of Sabrin's study is that the research is based only on a five-year period, providing a mere snapshot of business ethics research during a very critical period in the development of the field. Because the last 20 years have been instrumental to the establishment and growth of the field (Collins, 2000; Ma, 2009), a much longer time frame is required. Furthermore, providing a ranking for just five years may have skewed the research in favor of authors who whose work had been most recently completed and who were especially active in business ethics research during the time period examined. Those scholars who had previously made a major contribution to the field but were subsequently given administrative or other responsibilities-limiting the amount of time they could devote to research during the five-year period-would not have been recognized.

The second limitation of Sabrin's research is that it was based both on the number of pages and of articles published. While this approach may control for those researchers who publish short articles, it favors others who tend to publish especially long ones. Indeed, some journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics, allow articles as long as 26,000 words, surely skewing the results in favor of individuals who publish longer manuscripts. Furthermore, while a single long article is peer reviewed, each manuscript contribution, regardless of length, must go through a peer-review process too, making an author of several shorter articles subject to multiple manuscript reviews. Finally, because promotion and tenure decisions are typically based on the number of articles published, rather than the length of a given article, we believe that analyzing the number of articles and excluding introductions to special issues, dissertation summaries, and other non-peer-reviewed materials is a much better indicator of research productivity than the number of pages published.

The third limitation of Sabrin's study is that it was intended to provide a better understanding of business ethics scholarship around the turn of the century. As such, its purpose was not to understand the individuals who had made significant contributions to the development of the field but to identify people who were doing so currently. Therefore, as Sabrin himself points out, a longer time frame than five years would have been inappropriate. The purpose of our research, however, is to identify those individuals who have published the most business ethics-related research since 1991, in order to identify the researchers who have made important contributions to the field over the last twenty years - a time of significant advancement for the academic business ethics community.

Fourth, research that has identified influential scholars in a number of disciplines including law (Lindgren & Seltzer, 1996), accounting (Bazley & Nikolai, 1975) and management (Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1992; Podsakoff et al., 2008) has always been based on those individuals who have published in the most respected journals for each discipline. However, as Sabrin points out, in 2000 no ranking of the top business ethics journals had been carried out. As a result, Sabrin was forced to include over 13 business ethics-related journals as well as various databases such as the Accounting & Tax Index, the Index to Legal Periodicals & Books, the Business Periodicals Index, the Journal of Economic Literature, The Philosopher's Index, ABI/INFORM ProQuest and The PA Research II Database to search for any business ethics-related publications. Today, several of the original thirteen journals are no longer in print or have been combined with other publications. Fortunately, as a mature academic community, several studies now exist in the business ethics field that provide insights into the most respected business ethics-specific journals. All of these studies agree that the most respected titles in the field include the Journal of Business Ethics, the Business Ethics Quarterly and Business & Society (Albrecht et al., 2010; Beets, Lewis & Brower, forthcoming ; Calabretta et al., 2011; Ma, 2009; Paul, 2004; Serenko & Bontis, 2009; Wicks & Derry, 1996). As such, by identifying those scholars who have published the largest number of articles in these three elite business ethics journals and in three mainstream management journals, we can better understand the development of the business ethics field as a whole.

Finally, while Sabrin's article (2002) provides important insights into the academic business ethics community by identifying those researchers who were publishing the most articles around the turn of the century, his research is now more than 10 years old. Because of the rapid growth in the field, additional studies are required to provide business ethics scholars with up-to-date information on those individuals who have published business ethics-related research over the last two decades.

In order to better understand the evolution of the business ethics field, Calabretta et al. (2011) provided a comprehensive analysis that uncovered the intellectual structure of research in the fied by providing a history and analysis of the Journal of Business Ethics since its first publication in 1982. The authors included a ranking that identified all the contributors who had published more than 10 articles in the Journal of Business Ethics since its inception, finding that 24 individuals had published more than 10 manuscripts each, accounting for 320 of the 3,793 articles analyzed. While Ca-labretta et al.'s (2011) study provides additional insight into those individuals who have made significant contributions to the business ethics discipline since 1982, the analysis is limited in that it only looks at individuals who have published in the Journal of Business Ethics.

Stakeholders

The results of this study will be of interest to many stakeholders. As noted by Serenko and Jiao (2012), several stakeholders interact with each other in order to develop the identity of an academic field (Serenko & Jiao, 2012; Sidorova, Evangelopoulos, Valacich & Ramakrishnan, 2006). This study provides them with valuable information regarding the most prolific authors in the academic business ethics community. Such stakeholders include those who influence the field directly and those who are affected by its development.

Among the stakeholders interested in understanding the most prolific business ethics scholars are not only the leading academics identified by the study, but also journal editors interested in attracting business ethics research, organizers of conferences on the topic, government research entities and anyone else who subscribes to the relevant journals or reads business ethics research. When selecting guest editors, reviewers and editorial board members, journal editors may wish to consult our analysis in order to identify prolific researchers engaged in business ethics research. Increased awareness and better understanding of the most influential business ethics scholars also allows scholars themselves to communicate their academic achievements when seeking employment, tenure, promotion, and funding for research, which in turn helps universities that seek to enhance their academic image by employing these scholars. As a result of this study, potential opportunities for collaborative research might also be realized. For instance, prospective students may take more informed decisions regarding where to study and with whom to engage in research. Moreover, industry professionals may also benefit, since they will be able to identify the leading academics in the field. In turn, by identifying the most respectable scholars, industry professionals will be able to identify best practices that they will be able to implement in their own organizations.

Method

In a global survey of business ethics researchers, Albrecht et al. (2010) found that academics who publish business ethics-related research prefer to do so in the following six journals: the Academy of Management Review (AMR), the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE), the Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ), the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Business & Society (B&S) and the Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ). Other research examining the most influential outlets for business ethics research has produced similar results (Beets et al., forthcoming; Ma, 2009; Serenko & Bontis, 2009). The three business ethics-related journals that we include were also found by Beets et al. ( forthcoming) to be the top three publications in the field ( JBE, BEQ, B&S), while three were among the top four business journals (AMJ, AMR, ASQ) that appear in the journal lists used by academic institutions to evaluate faculty research. Investigations of individual faculty research rankings in other disciplines have also chosen to focus on the six most prestigious journal outlets for each field (Pickerd, Stephens, Summers & Wood, 2011; Stephens, Summers, Williams & Wood, 2011). As a result, our study analyzes those scholars who have published business ethics related research in these six journals.

In order to gather the data for analysis, we personally examined every article that was published in each of the six journals recommended by the academic business ethics community (Albrecht et al., 2010) and entered each article's information on a spreadsheet. While other methods for measuring scholarly output exist, including author position (the first author listed receives most credit while subsequent authors receive less, according to their author position) and the equal credit method (credit is distributed among contributing authors), we decided to use a straight count method. That is, authors received credit for each article on which their name appeared, regardless of the number of authors on the paper or their author position. Serenko, Cocosila & Turel (2008) found that despite differences in these count methods, the results of all three of these methods are highly correlated and may be used as substitutes. The spreadsheet also contained information on the journal in which each article was published, its title, the volume and issue number, the year in which the article was published, page numbers and the names of all the authors.

After entering this information into the spreadsheet, we then read each article's abstract to determine whether the article should be included or excluded from the study. If, after reading an article's abstract, we were unable to decide if it should be included in the analysis, we read the entire article before making our decision. Since the Journal of Business Ethics; Business Ethics Quarterly; and Business & Society are specifically dedicated to business ethics research, we automatically included all research articles published in these three journals in the study. However, we only included articles published in the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal and the Administrative Science Quarterly if its focus was specifically related to business ethics2. In order to protect the integrity of the study, at least two of the co-authors reviewed every article to determine whether it should be included in the study or not. Digital copies of the articles were obtained by accessing EBSCOHost, SpringerLink, JSTOR, and the H.W. Wilson Web databases. In the rare case that an article was not available online, as with some of the earliest articles published in Business & Society, we referred to a physical copy.

Once this process had been completed for all six journals, the articles were incorporated into a single spreadsheet. All of the author's names were then examined to ensure consistency in spelling. Discrepancies in author names were usually due to easily detectable variations (e.g. Will and William, inclusion or omission of suffixes such as Jr., etc.). When uncertainty arose as to whether similar names referred to the same person, we searched for specific author details to validate and clarify our findings. For example, when such information was omitted from the article, we followed the methodology used in prior research (Certo, Sirmon & Brymer, 2010), conducting a secondary search to identify author names online.

While Sabrin's ranking was based on a five-year time frame, we analyzed publications over a 20-year period in order to provide a more comprehensive analysis of individual scholarly productivity. As a result, our analysis begins in January 1991, the same year that Business Ethics Quarterly began publication, and ends in December 2010, the most recent year for which information on all the articles published in the journals was available when the study began.

Although we included all research articles from the Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Business & Society in the analysis, we chose to exclude book reviews, dissertation abstracts, editor's notes, letters to the publisher, obituaries, indexes, research notes and dialogues that were published in the three journals. Similarly, for the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly we excluded not only all articles that did not specifically address business ethics but also commentaries, book reviews, dissertation abstracts, editor's notes, letters to the publisher, research notes and dialogues. While all of these submissions add to the business ethics domain, they differ somewhat from complete, peer-reviewed articles.

Findings

The results of our research clearly indicate which scholars have published the most business ethics-related research over the last 20 years in the six journals included in our analysis. These findings are shown in Table 1. As can be seen, Scott J. Vitell is ranked as the most highly published author in business ethics with a total of 36 articles and Patricia H. Werhane as the second most highly published scholar with 22 articles. It should be noted that both of these authors, along with the majority of the scholars identified in our research, have been highlighted in previous research (Calabretta et al., 2011; Sabrin, 2002). Our study also suggests that there are many academics who are prolific in business ethics research. Specifically, we found that 15 scholars have published 15 or more business ethics-related articles, 110 scholars eight or more, and 285 scholars five or more articles since 1991.

TABLA 1

While examining the articles that are included in our research, we discovered that some authors have published almost all of their articles in just one of the six journals that were included in the study. For example, while Scott J. Vitell ranked first in our analysis with 36 total articles, 35 of these were published in the Journal of Business Ethics, giving him the top overall ranking as well as the highest ranking in the Journal of Business Ethics. Other authors, by contrast, published in multiple journals, or at least in the majority of the journals included in our analysis. The research also suggests that the first 100 scholars identified in the ranking each published at least one article in the Journal of Business Ethics. It seems fitting that a large percentage of the individuals included in the study chose to publish their research in the Journal of Business Ethics, as it has been identified by a number of studies as the most prestigious business ethics-specific publication ( Albrecht et al., 2010; Calabretta et al., 2011; Ma, 2009; Sabrin, 2002; Serenko & Bontis, 2009).

However, because publishing in mainstream management journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal and the Administrative Science Quarterly may provide additional exposure to a scholar's research and introduce business ethics research to the greater management academic community, identifying the scholars that have published in these journals may also provide insight into the evolution of the business ethics field. Therefore, we conducted a second analysis to identify those researchers who had published the most business ethics-related research in these three mainstream management journals. The results of this analysis can be seen in Table 2 below.

TABLA 2

Because so few academics have published business ethics-related articles in the Administrative Science Quarterly; the Academy of Management Journal and the Academy of Management Review we chose to include every author who had published at least two business ethics-related articles in these three journals in Table 2. As the table shows, the three scholars who have published the most business ethics-related research in mainstream management journals include Thomas M. Jones, Linda K. Trevino and Gary R. Weaver.

Because a span of 20 years is long period of time we decided to divide the analysis into two 10-year periods (1991 to 2000 and 2001 to 2010 - see Table 3). This split helps identify the 'rising stars' in contrast to those who may have been more active in research at an earlier date.

TABLA 3

As is indicated by Table 3, the "rising stars" contributing to business ethics research from 2001 to 2010 are, in many cases, not the same as those that have the highest overall ranking. While some authors such as Sean Valentine, Scott J. Vitell, and Patricia H. Werhane rank very well both in the 2001 to 2010 period and the overall ranking covering 1991 to 2010, some authors published less from 1991 to 2000, giving them a disadvantage in the overall analysis. These include Cam Caldwell, Andrew Crane, Antonio Argandoña, Chong Ju Choi, Domènec Melé, Mark S. Schwartz, and many others. The 2001 to 2010 count and ranking provide a better assessment of those scholars who have more recently been active in business ethics research.

To clarify whether the number of business ethics-related articles being published in the elite mainstream management journals is increasing or decreasing, we counted all the business ethics-related articles published in the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, and the Administrative Science Quarterly. We then divided the articles into four separate time periods: 1991 to 1995, 1996 to 2000, 2001 to 2005 and, finally, 2006 to 2010. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 4.

As can be seen, over the last five years (2006-2010), more business ethics-related articles were published in the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review and the Administrative Science Quarterly than during any previous five year period (51 articles). This result is somewhat surprising, because it represents a significant increase in the number of published business ethics-related articles compared to all previous periods (see Table 4) and because the number of published articles decreased from 33 in the 1996 to 2000 period, to only 17 in the 2001 to 2005 period. This unexpected growth in the number of published manuscripts between 2006 and 2010 may be the result of an improvement in the quality of submissions and/or of an increase in overall levels of interest in business ethics-related research by the greater management academic community, reflecting the field's development toward maturity.

The number of business ethics-related articles published in the three business ethics-focused journals increased dramatically from 1991 to 2010 (see Table 5). This increase is largely due to the constant expansion in the number of articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics.

In order to better understand how business ethics researchers collaborate with colleagues on articles published in the three elite journals described above, we further analyzed the data to see how many authors each paper had. Furthermore, to understand if the number of authors per article is increasing or decreasing, we again divided our analysis into four five-year time periods. The results of this analysis are shown below in Table 6.

As can be seen, during the period from 1991 to 1995 the average number of authors per article was 1.76, while for the most recent time period from 2006 to 2010 this figure had increased to 2.51, suggesting that the number of authors per article on business ethics-related research published in these three elite journals has increased over the last twenty years. We believe that this increase in author collaboration is the result of a growth in the overall number of business ethics researchers, as well as the creation of numerous conferences and forums that have provided business ethics scholars with the opportunity to network and collaborate.

To understand whether this trend is also occurring in journals that are specifically dedicated to business ethics research, we conducted a final analysis in order to gauge how many authors are involved with publishing articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, the Business Ethics Quarterly and Business and Society. Again, we divided this information into four five-year time periods. The results of this analysis are provided in Table 7.

As may be observed, the number of authors collaborating on research that is published in the Journal of Business Ethics, the Business Ethics Quarterly, and Business & Society has also continued to increase. However, the overall increase has not been as great as the increase that has occurred in business ethics-related research published in the mainstream management journals.

Finally, we analyzed the data using Lotka's law (Lotka, 1926) in order better to describe the frequency of publication by authors in the business ethics field. Lotka's law provides a formula for analyzing the frequency of publication, where the number of authors publishing a certain number of articles in a field decreases according to a function of domain-specific constants and the number of authors responsible for each article. The formula for Lotka's law is Y = C /Xn, where X is equal to the number of articles and Y is equal to the number of authors with X articles. The constant C is equal to the number of authors who have published one article and n is a field-specific constant usually near two. According to Lotka's law, the number of authors publishing X articles is equal to 1/Xnof those publishing one article. Our analysis of Lotka's law as it relates to the business ethics field is presented in Table 8, with n calculated according to the least-squares method, as suggested by Pao (1985).

We found strong support for Lotka's law in the business ethics field. The chi-square p-value is 0.81, providing support for the goodness-of-fit of the prediction model based on Lotka's law. We found an n of 2.42, suggesting that researcher loyalty is low in the business ethics field, with 73.9% (3921/5,304) of authors included in this study publishing only one article (Serenko, Bontis, Booker, Sadeddin & Hardie, 2010).

As is shown in Table 8, the number of authors who contributed one article to the field was 3,921, but this figure drops significantly as the article count increases: Only 700 (13.2%) authors wrote two articles, 263 (5%) wrote three, 135 (2.5%) wrote four, and so on. Although 47 authors contributed over 10 articles, we stopped the analysis of Lotka's law at an article count of 10, as suggested by Lotka, as the law does not accurately predict the number of authors with a very high count of articles (Pao, 1985).

Discussion

Although from a comparison of the results of our research with Sabrin's (2002), it is apparent that many of the authors identified in Sabrin's study were also identified in ours, for the most part, the order of scholarly rankings was quite different. For example, of the top ten scholars identified by Sabrin, only one, Andrew C. Wicks, was included in the top ten authors in our ranking. We believe that this is due to the fact that Sabrin's research included 13 business ethics-specific journals as well as a number of databases, while our sample included only the most elite business ethics and management journals. Interestingly, Robert W. McGee, the most highly published author in the Sabrin study, was not even included in the top 150 scholars identified in our research, because much of his research has been published in various journals not included in this study.

Another interesting finding is the fact that while there is some overlap between the scholars identified in the overall ranking and the mainstream management ranking, the two are in fact quite different. Additional investigation into the scholars identified in the research showed that many of the individuals from the mainstream management ranking have much higher citation counts on a person-by-person basis than the majority of the individuals identified in the business ethics-specific journal rankings. This is evidence of the additional visibility provided by publication in these journals. Furthermore, additional research into the backgrounds of the authors identified in the mainstream management ranking showed that many of them currently serve as editors and associate editors both of mainstream management journals as well as a number of business ethics-specific journals. Since many of these individuals published their articles in the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review and the Administrative Science Quarterly before becoming editors and associate editors, we speculate that these publications were springboards for their careers and reputations.

Our analysis further reveals that the volume of business ethics-related research has grown significantly over the last 20 years. For example, in each of the mainstream management journals, more business ethics articles have been published over the past five years than ever before. Similarly, compared to 20 years ago, the Journal of Business Ethics and other business ethics-specific journals now publish more articles than ever before, as indicated by the number of volumes and issues that are produced each year. We anticipate that this trend will continue over the foreseeable future as the management community continues to recognize the importance of business ethics research. The growing number of authors and articles provides evidence that the business ethics discipline is progressing toward academic maturity, although the vast majority of articles are written by those who publish infrequently in business ethics journals.

We believe that it is important to recognize those business ethics researchers who have appeared frequently in the top business ethics journals as well as in publishing business ethics-related articles in the leading management journals. We speculate that these researchers have contributed significantly to the development of the field. Furthermore, we believe that the academic business ethics community owes these authors a debt of gratitude for their work in bringing prominence and recognition to the academic business ethics community by providing insight and interest into business ethics-related research. The identification of these prolific business ethics researchers has implications not only for the authors themselves, but also for journal editors, conference organizers, researchers interested in business ethics-related studies, prospective doctoral students, industry professionals, and committees making hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions in academic institutions.

Limitations and Conclusions

While we believe that the findings of this research improve our understanding of the history and evolution of business ethics research, our study's limitations may influence their interpretation. The first of these limitations is the inherent subjectivity of classifying what constitutes a "business ethics" article. Even though we had at least two authors review every article published in each issue of all three mainstream management journals, we accept the idiosyncratic nature of our decisions. Having said this, we did our best as a team to determine whether the focus of each article was on business ethics or whether it just briefly mentioned some small aspect of a business ethics dilemma. Such judgment often required the authors not only to read the title, abstract, and complete article, but also to debate and fully understand the objectives, findings and contributions of an article.

The second limitation involves our decision to award equal credit to each author regardless of author order. As such, first, second, third, and fourth authors were all given equal credit for each publication and a sole-author article was given the same weight as a multiple authored manuscript. Similarly, articles that have had a high level of impact in the field were weighted no more heavily than any other article. A researcher who published a highly cited article in one of our target journals was given the same credit as someone who published an article with fewer citations. However, straight count, equal credit, and author position credit methods all produce similar results, showing that our count method should not raise concerns (Serenko et al., 2008).

Third, researchers who are at an early stage in their career were at an inherent disadvantage in the analysis. As such, a "rising star" who has become prolific in publishing in recent years was given no more credit than a researcher who has published the same number of articles during the entire 20-year time frame. To address this limitation, the rising stars were also identified in Table 3. Finally, some business ethics scholars, because of the multi-disciplinary nature of the field, may have published business ethics-related research in publications other than the six journals included in our analysis. By no means does our study intend to dilute or take away from, the importance of these academic contributions.

The Journal of Business Ethics has published many more articles on business ethics over the last twenty years than any other journal included in the study. This is due to the fact that it publishes more volumes per year than any other business ethics journal and is devoted exclusively to business ethics research. While 3,987 articles were examined from the Journal of Business Ethics, only 3,102 were looked at from the other five journals combined. It is not surprising that the vast majority of the articles included in our study came from Business & Society, the Business Ethics Quarterly; and the Journal of Business Ethics, since these journals are exclusively devoted to business ethics research.

This research provides insight into the development of the business ethics field by identifying scholars who have published business ethics research over the last 20 years. This information should be useful for a number of constituencies including pre-doctoral students, doctoral students, and new scholars pursuing a tenure-track position as well as faculty, departments, business schools and universities with an interest in business ethics research. While we believe that this research provides important insights and an opportunity for self-reflection for the academic business ethics community, it should not be used as a measure of who is the most prolific scholar(s) in business ethics research. Rather, its purpose is to provide insights into those scholars who have been the most prolific researchers, as measured by the number of articles in high quality journals over the last 20 years. It should be noted that, in addition to the scholars identified in this research, many other individuals have also influenced the field by serving as editors and reviewers, as well as by contributing to the development of the field through books, research reports, and other types of academic contributions.


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1This study was not sponsored by any journal, institution, or individual and none of the authors nor any of their affiliates are included in the ranking.
2For a list of all articles from Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Administrative Science Quarterly included in the analysis, please contact the authors.
3Journal names are abbreviated as follows: AMJ = Academy of Management Journal, AMR = Academy of Management Review, ASQ = Administrative Science Quarterly, B&S = Business & Society, BEQ = Business Ethics Quarterly, and JBE = Journal of Business Ethics.


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