A co-citation bibliometric analysis of strategic management research

Strategic management remains a recent field of research that is dynamic and changing with the global business economy. Given the sheer importance of research on this field of business management, this paper aims to conduct a co-citation bibliometric analysis of strategic management research. We map the authors and the most relevant approaches as well as detailing the new theoretical perspectives to strategic management theory. The analysis conducted uses three multivariate statistical analysis techniques in addition to the co-citation matrix to shed light on these issues. By incorporating all the citations that are included in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index, we analyze co-citation patterns of the strategic management field during the period 1971–2014 and identify six subfields (clusters) that constitute the intellectual structure and investigate their mutual relationships. The main findings of the factor analysis suggest that there is a clear division between strategic entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship. In addition, the concept of strategic behavior affects most strategic management research as evidenced by the co-citation analysis. A debate of future directions on the strategic management literature is discussed, which highlights the importance of combining more of a strategic entrepreneurship perspective based on behavioral intentions to the emerging research.