Management and Labour Studies Turns Fifty! History and Evolution

As the Management and Labour Studies ( MLS ) commemorates its golden jubilee, this review presents a historically grounded account of its engagement with uninterrupted management thought and scholarship. This honorary review chronicles 50 years of intellectual evolution, consolidation and pragmatic orientation of the journal from 1975 through 2025. The journal is examined along three dimensions: thematic analysis, methodological orientation and theoretical evolution. The findings from the thematic analysis map the journal’s intellectual development and dominant debates during this period, while identifying themes that respond to economic reforms, policy shifts and global challenges. The review of methodological orientation examines the journal’s research paradigms and epistemological stances, as well as their integration with behavioural realism, responsible management, corporate social responsibility, digitalization and societal relevance. The analysis of the theoretical evolution of MLS reveals a distinctive trajectory marked by successive phases of early conceptualization, contextual integration and a progression towards value-driven inquiry. The subsequent sections on country collaboration and co-citation analysis offer structural and epistemic interpretations of the journal’s intellectual maturation. This commemorative review seeks to illuminate the journal’s impactful journey, marked by sustained efforts to bridge theory and practice within the broader landscape of global management research.