EXAMINING THE IMPACT AND ROLE OF SPECIAL ISSUE AND REGULAR JOURNAL ARTICLES IN THE FIELD OF MANAGEMENT

One of the key ways in which many scientific fields (including management) develop is through scholarly journal publication. The top journals in a field serve as a collection and dissemination system, annually gathering in thousands of submissions that are then carefully evaluated and critiqued by reviewers. Recently there has been a trend toward dedicating a relatively high proportion of journal space to topics that a subset of scholars have deemed as important to study. Issues featuring such topics are often labeled "special" (as compared to "regular") journal issues. Because the way in which "scientific journals select the papers they publish has critical effects on both the development of individual scientists and of scientific fields," it is essential to explore how regular and special issues influence the variety of goals that scholarly journals pursue. This study sought to answer 2 comparative questions: First, compared to regular issues, do special issues better promote the scholarly advancement of the field of management, as evidenced by their acceptance as a foundation upon which to build scholarly research? Second, do special issue articles generate different patterns of authorship than regular issue articles? Nine upper-echelon journals were sampled over 18 years, thus providing a comprehensive investigation of special and regular issue articles in the leading management journals.