Mapping the aliran of the academic discipline of entrepreneurship: A ...

various journals in Graphic 4a, which range from 0.233 for the International Jour nal of
Technology Management to 3.533 for the Academy of Management Journal, does pale by
comparison. Whether such low impact inde xes are a measure of the dubious nature of the
discipline, not only of entrepreneurship, but of management as well, or simply a measure
of their adolescence, is a moot point.
4.1.3.06 I tend to believe that simple quantitative numerics such as ISI Impact Indexes
may not be an ideal measure of the relationship between journals within the discipline and
with the discipline itself. Biehl, Kim and Wade [2006] measure the groupings of journals
with the concept of different roles of journals either being sinks, transmitters or sources.
Using large-scale sociometric analyses on about 140,000 citations we found that
the integration of the citation network has increased over time. Moreover, the
information flow from Finance and Economics to Management has become
stronger and, within Management, a polarization between information generators
and users has taken place. We also found that most business academics published
in distinct and mos tly non-overlapping disciplines. The only exceptions were
Finance and Economics as well as Strategic Management and OB/HR.
Surprisingly, we also found that the general business journals, which could be
assumed to be cited by most other journals across the management disciplines, are
not central to the entire field [p1].
4.1.3.07 The Biehl, K im and Wade [2006] type of study presents a more relative view of
the impact of the journals on the discipline. It could be said that based on my discussion of
citations, gravitas and discontinuities in Part Two that the more established journals may
accept work from those authors with higher gravitas, but which may present a repetition of
established ideas, i.e. sinks. It is the new authors, without a high recognition or level of
gravitas, but which may be conducting and presenting new research and work, but which
cannot get published in the better regarded journals, are instead turning to the lower
regarded journals for publication, i.e. sources or transmitters. These works may have a
better chance of providing discontinuities that encourage new, and maybe more relevant,
directions to the discipline. Entry levels are less stringe nt and may be less orientated
towards the status quo.
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