The ASQ Years Then and Now Through the Eyes of a Euro-Brit

The personalities who have come and gone in five editions of Writers on Organizations epitomize the changes in organization theory during the ASQ years. An analysis is made of the trends shown by those who have been "top of the pops" in this longstanding book of summaries. One trend in particular is examined: the slow though accelerating growth of cross-national research. Despite this acceleration, organization theory is still globally patchy. It is overwhelmingly Northern and Western, that is, North American and Euro-U.K. Further comparison of papers in the American-based ASQ and the European-based Organization Studies shows that Americans cite Americans and very little else. Organization theory and its theorists continue to be uncomfortably ethnocentric.