Fashion in Organization Theory

Special Themed Section
Organization Studies
Fashion in Organization 32(5) 655–681

© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0170840611405427
Analysis of the Diffusion www.egosnet.org/os
of Theoretical Concepts
Suleika Bort and Alfred Kieser

University of Mannheim, Germany
Abstract
We discuss whether organization theory is susceptible to fashion. Theories of scientific progress often
assert that scientists’ research is guided exclusively by the need to solve problems that are left unexplained
by existing theories. In contrast, we argue that scientists, to some extent, create and follow fashions. We
formulate a number of hypotheses on fashion in scientific communication and test them with a sample of
44 concepts that were published and discussed in 1784 articles in organization studies journals from the
year 1960 until 2005. We suggest that conditions such as reputation of authors and of the outlets in which
concepts are published, or the provision of a methodology for empirical analyses, increase the attractiveness
of academic publications and eventually set off a fashion. Overall, our results show that fashion is present
in communication within organization studies while demonstrating that the field is characterized by trends
toward positivistic empirical studies and economic reasoning. We conclude by discussing whether fashion
has positive or negative effects on theory development, whether it is avoidable at all in the field of science,
and how evaluation systems impact on fashion and innovation in organizations theory.
Keywords
fashion, journal publications, organization theory, peer reviews, theoretical concepts
According to philosophers of science such as Popper (1960) or Kuhn (1970), the development of
science should be governed by the search for truth alone. New paradigms, new theories, or new
methods are generated when researchers discover phenomena that old theories no longer explain
satisfactorily. Concepts of scientific development of this kind do not leave room for fashion.
However, as all areas of human culture are subjected to the whims of fashion – politics, clothes,
sports, given names or the visual and performing arts – why should science be an exception? Isn’t
Corresponding author:
Alfred Kieser, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Mannheim, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany
Email: kieser@bwl.uni-mannheim.de
656 Organization Studies 32(5)
academia one of the fields in which individuals attempt to impress each other? And aren’t
approaches that achieve results in that direction bound to be imitated? Imitation is at the heart of
fashion. Dunnette (1966: 343) was among the first scholars to observe that his colleagues were
fashion followers in that they exhibited
those manners or modes of action taking on the character of habits and enforced by social or scientific
norms defining what constitutes the ‘thing to do’ – including theorizing and theory building, criterion
fixation, model building, null hypothesis testing, sensitivity training, being productive at work, developing
authentic relationships, devising ‘cute’ experiments, simulation, using ‘elegant’ statistics, and so on.
Yet it seems as if scholars see fashion as paving the way to untrustworthiness, as something that
should be resolutely combated (see e.g. Starbuck 2009). However, fashion is unavoidable wher-
ever people compete for attention. It is not bad, only paradoxical: in management theory, like in
other fields, ‘fashion is one of the ways of introducing order and uniformity into what might seem
like an overwhelming variety of possibilities’ (Czarniawska 2008: 851; see also Esposito 2004). At
the same time, fashion fosters innovation; individuals imitate approaches that appear to be attrac-
tive. ‘This leads them to translate management ideas [in our case: organization theory ideas],
objects, and practices for their own use. This translation changes what is translated and those who
translate’ (Czarniawska 2008: 851).
In this paper, we describe fashion in organization studies not as an evil but as a social phenom-
enon that permeates science just as it permeates other areas of social life. We start by developing a
conceptual framework of fashion in science which we then, after a discussion of the susceptibility
of organization studies to fashion, apply to this field. We distinguish between fashions and long-
term trends. In our analysis, the tendency to apply positivist analyses and the tendency toward
economic reasoning constitute long-term trends while the preference for a concept, as part of an
organization theory, may be more temporary. For example, ‘organizational slack’ or ‘garbage can
decision making’ are concepts within behavioural theory (Argote and Greve 2007). New concepts
are introduced more frequently than new theories. As we will discuss below, concepts are the car-
riers of fashion in organization theories. Therefore, we analyse to what extent concepts reflect
fashion in organization studies.
Fashion as Imitation
Fashion, according to Simmel (1957 [1905]: 543),
is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation; it leads the individual
upon the road which all travel, it furnishes a general condition, which resolves the conduct of every
individual into a mere example. At the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differentiation,
the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for change and contrast, on the one hand by a constant
change of contents, which gives to the fashion of to-day an individual stamp as opposed to that of yesterday
and of to-morrow, on the other hand because fashions differ for different classes – the fashions of the upper
stratum of society are never identical with those of the lower.
Simmel (1957 [1905]: 543) holds that fashion has to do with status as ‘fashions differ for different
classes – the fashions of the upper stratum of society are never identical with those of the lower; in
fact, they are abandoned by the former as soon as the latter prepares to appropriate them’. In other
words, individuals prefer to imitate those whom they consider to be in a privileged position. To
maintain differentiation, high-status individuals have to generate a new fashion as soon as they are
Bort and Kieser 657
imitated by lower status individuals. Institutional theory also assumes that individuals imitate other
individuals – especially individuals whom they perceive as successful or as representing higher
status (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; see also Miller 2009: 117). A decision theory concept of
imitation – the concept of information cascades (Bikhchandani et al. 1992, 1998) – illustrates how
fads (even ‘bad’ fads like stock bubbles or bank busts) can spread through a system because people
only look at adoption decisions but not on the success of actors. In this sense, information cascades
come into being when an adoption sends a signal to other actors that they should adopt which, in
turn, leads to a self-reinforcing process. This concept shows some affinity with that of Simmel
insofar as the tendency of decision-makers to follow increases with number of followers even if
information acquired on their own initiative is negative, until the ‘true value’ of a fashion turns out
to be negative.
For Simmel (1957 [1905]: 547) a fashion ends when it no longer provides distinction:
As fashion spreads, it gradually goes to its doom. The distinctiveness which in the early stages of a set
fashion assures for it a certain distribution is destroyed as the fashion spreads and as this element wanes,
the fashion also is bound to die.
Since a fashion that loses value through negative information ex-post also no longer provides dis-
tinction, the cascade concept is in line with Simmel’s argument.
A fashion may last for only a very short period of time, as is the case in fashion for clothes, but
it can also extend over a longer period. Short-term fashions or fads can fluctuate around long-term
fashions or trends. Richardson and Kroeber (1952), for example, found a long-term fashion trend
between 1787 and 1933 in the width of skirts despite yearly fluctuations around a ‘middle value’.
In a similar vein, Robinson (1976) discovered a long-term fashion trend of the amount of hair in
male models’ faces in pictures published in the Illustrated London News. Abrahamson and
Eisenman (2008) established fashion trends in employee-management techniques, superimposed
by short-term fads.
The death of a fashion does not necessarily mean disappearance of its objects or ingredients.
Jeans, sturdy trousers worn by workers, became a fashion in the 1970s for informal wear. They are
still around in great numbers without being perceived as fashionable (from time to time features
like ‘stone washed’ or designer labels add some faddishness). Blazers for women became a fashion
in the late 1980s and early 1990s; now they are matter-of-fact garments. Some companies still stick
to their re-engineered processes or still find their lean production system appropriate though the
heydays of both approaches as management fashions are long gone. These fashions evolved into
permanent features of some organizations (Perkmann and Spicer 2008).
Science Is Supposed to Be Fashion-Free

Science is supposed to be universal, value-neutral and objective. In contrast, fashion is subjective,
value-laden and short-lived. The two are like fire and water. Accordingly, fashion is given no room
in theories of scientific progress (for an overview see Niiniluoto 2009). They generally assume that
science advances through some kind of inner dynamics resulting in an accumulation of scientific
knowledge: over time, scientific knowledge of a field is able to correctly explain more and more
phenomena. True knowledge replaces wrong knowledge. According to Popper (1962), scientists
predominantly tackle problems that, in the research practice of their peers, prove difficult. The
norms of the scientific community guide researchers to concentrate their research on problems
whose solution particularly seems to provide important contributions to scientific progress. In this
process, false knowledge is corrected.
For Kuhn (1970), to refer to another exemplary theory of scientific progress, scientific
progress is achieved by a process that alternates between phases of ‘normal science’ and ‘scien-
tific revolutions’. In phases of ‘normal science’, scientists engage in ‘puzzle solving’: they apply
familiar concepts and methods in their attempts ‘to force nature into the preformed and relatively
inflexible box that the paradigm supplies’ (Kuhn 1970: 24). The paradigm scientists are commit-
ted to more or less guarantees that ‘the truly clever practitioner will succeed’ in solving puzzles
(Kuhn 1970: 179). However, with more and more puzzles being solved, researchers see them-
selves increasingly confronted with observations – ‘anomalies’ – that they cannot account for on
the basis of the existing paradigm. The resulting crisis induces researchers to develop a new
paradigm that promises the solution of problems the old paradigm was not able to cope with.
Though Kuhn (1970) had the natural sciences in mind when developing his concept, scholars
find it inspiring for analysing progress in the social sciences as well (Barnes 1982; Overington
1977; Polsby 1998).
Neither Popper nor Kuhn imagines that serious researchers engage in research projects or in
suggesting new paradigms just to impress their peers. Nor do they believe that peers adopt a para-
digm because they observe other researchers adopting it and from this observation make inferences
about the potential of this paradigm.
How Fashion Eventually Finds Its Way into Science

One can assume that scientists see themselves as intrinsically motivated puzzle-solvers who, if
they get the chance, mutate into scientific revolutionaries exploring new paradigms (Gustin 1973).
They do not see themselves as creators and followers of fashion. Nevertheless, scientists want their
research to be acknowledged by other researchers. ‘One publishes to get cited and to increase one’s
chances for additional publications’ (Stichweh 1994: 72).1 One can therefore assume that, to some
extent, researchers strategically reflect on which characteristics a publication should have for
attracting other researchers’ attention. As Knorr-Cetina and Cicourel (1981: 7) observe:
[S]cientists constantly relate their decisions and selections to the expected response of specific members
of this community of ‘validators’, or to the dictates of the journal in which they wish to publish. Decisions
are based on what is ‘hot’ and what is ‘out’, on what one ‘can’ or ‘cannot’ do, on whom they will come up
against and with whom they will have to associate by making a specific point.
One can suppose that researchers look for signals that assist them in making these choices before
investing resources into research projects. The more peers choose certain topics, theories, con-
cepts or methods, the more attractive these appear. In this way, fashion could find its way into
science. Indeed, fashion has been observed as a driver of theory development in disciplines as
diverse as linguistics (Pullum 1991), economics (Bronfenbrenner 1966), psychology (Dunnette
1966), medicine (Burnum 1987), law (Sunstein 2001), even in the sciences (Ford and Peat 1988;
Knorr-Cetina 1983; Stevens 1932).
Kuhn seems to explicitly ban fashion from science by adding: ‘Novelty for its own sake is not
a desideratum in the sciences as it is in so many other fields’ (1970: 169, emphasis added).
Nevertheless, new paradigms meet followers and opponents within the scientific community:
Individual scientists embrace a new paradigm for all sorts of reasons and usually for several at once. Some
of these reasons … lie outside the apparent sphere of science entirely. (Kuhn 1970: 152–3, emphasis
added)
Bort and Kieser 659
Kuhn argues that in their decision to accept a new paradigm, scientists take recourse to aesthetic
criteria:
Fortunately, there is another sort of consideration that can lead scientists to reject an old paradigm in favor
of a new. These are the arguments, rarely made entirely explicit, that appeal to the individual’s sense of the
appropriate or the aesthetic – the new theory is said to be ‘neater’, ‘more suitable,’ or ‘simpler’ than the
old. (1970: 155, emphasis added)
Kuhn thus admits that fashion, in some phases of theory development, plays a certain role (Sperber
1990).
Concepts as Carriers of Fashion in Organization Studies

In this article we look at theoretical concepts as objects of scientific discourse that are subjected
to fashion. Generating new concepts is easier than generating new theories. ‘Concepts suggest
first-order questions that need to be researched and aspects of situations that need to be investi-
gated’ (Osigweh 1989: 580). Though different definitions of ‘a concept’ exist (Dubin 1969;
Hempel 1974; Kaplan 1964; Suddaby 2010), there is broad agreement that concepts form a sub-
category of theories: ‘a theory is a statement of relations among concepts’ (Bacharach 1989:
496). Concepts that are applicable to different problem areas or contexts – concepts with a larger
scope – offer audiences attractive possibilities to innovate by applying these concepts to new
contexts. At the same time, however, they can demonstrate that they belong to a group assem-
bling around a generally accepted theory.
Scholars identify questions that remain unanswered by a theory at a given stage, and by formu-
lating concepts they reflect on ways in which these questions could be answered. Examples of
concepts in organization theory studies are: organizational slack, loose coupling, organizational
inertia, or double loop learning. Concepts model in innovative ways relationships between varia-
bles or integrate already existing (sub-)concepts of a theory. Usually concepts contain some ambi-
guity and thus leave room for interpretation which ‘may be their charm, because it raises questions
and is food for thought’ (Van Hees and Verweel 2006: 14; see also Bacharach 1989; Osigweh
1989). Concepts offer new ways of theorizing about certain problems or phenomena. For example,
the development of the concept of garbage can decision-making (Cohen et al. 1972) added a new
way of discussing decision-making in organizations with respect to behavioural theory.
In line with the concept of information cascades, one can assume that researchers not only take
the number of peers who have chosen certain topics, approaches or methods into consideration,
they look for additional signals. McKinley et al. (1999) as well as Ofori-Denkwa and Julian (2005)
or Miller (2009) present factors that increase the attractiveness of scientific publications or
approaches for other researchers. Some of the factors that they discuss are illustrated in Figure 1.
Attractive publications offer newness – to some extent. Scholars are supposed to present new
hypotheses, methods, or results. However, offering radical innovation is dangerous. Readers
and, in particular, reviewers may find it difficult to connect the new knowledge offered with
existing knowledge so that the contribution may not make much sense for them. As Rindova
(2008: 300) remarks: ‘Novel ideas have the disadvantage that they are harder to evaluate and are
harder to appreciate […] The development of novel theoretical ideas, therefore, requires a con-
siderable amount of skilful linking, bridging, and connecting to the current work in a given area.’
This risk becomes obvious when papers are rejected but receive many citations after their even-
tual publication (Campanario 1996; Gans and Shepherd 1994). Scientific novelties that connect
Originator’s Reputation of Origi-

reputation nator’s affiliation
Attractiveness
Novelty/ Provision of a
Scope
Continuity Methodology
Figure 1. Factors associated with attractiveness of concepts
themselves more easily to the major present discourses have a higher chance of getting accepted
than innovations that are not connected in this way.
Once published, concepts prove more or less attractive to other scholars, inviting them to base
their own research on them, to cite them, to contribute extensions or modifications, or to base
empirical studies on them. Basing manuscripts on concepts that are raising interest may be regarded
as a rational strategy for balancing prestige of a journal against novelty and continuity when
planning a submission.
In general, the adoption of an innovation in science (De Solla Price 1963) as well as the dif-
fusion of management fashions like business process reengineering or total quality management
can typically be described as a bell-shaped curve (Abrahamson 1996; Abrahamson and Fairchild
1999; Carson et al. 2000; Heusinkveld and Benders 2001; Kieser 1997; Spell 1999). In line with
Hirsch and Levin (1995), we propose that the diffusion of articles using concepts will also follow
the typical bell-shaped fashion lifecycle.
As Figure 1 suggests, articles in top-tier journals can be supposed to receive more attention than
articles in lower ranking journals (Easton and Jarrell 2000; Judge et al. 2007; Klamer and Van
Dalen 2002). For example, Cole (2000: 118) states that ‘[i]f we consider two articles of equal
quality, one of which is published in a highly prestigious journal and the other in a less prestigious
journal, it would not be surprising for the former to get considerably more citations’. Thus:
Hypothesis 1. The rate at which concepts that are introduced in top-tier journals are referred to is higher
than that for concepts that are introduced in lower ranking journals.
The authors’ reputation is another factor that can impinge on attractiveness (Hagstrom 1965). In
terms of the theory of information cascades, individuals who are in a privileged position to evalu-
ate approaches easily become ‘fashion leaders’ (Bikhchandani et al. 1992: 1002). In science ‘[f]
olks from top schools, editorial board members, established researchers, top-cited researchers’ are
in such a privileged position (Miller 2009: 118). ‘Scientists tend to notice the work of well-known
scientists, take it more seriously, and use it more intensively’ (Ofori-Dankwa and Julian 2005:
1315) – a tendency that is known as the ‘Matthew effect’. Hence, we state:
Hypothesis 2. The rate at which concepts from authors with high reputation are referred to is higher than
that for concepts from authors with less reputation.
Bort and Kieser 661
Concepts are based on theories. Therefore, another critical factor to consider is the popularity of
the theory a concept is based upon. When a particular theory is popular and used widely, concepts
related to this theory should also become more popular. Hence, we propose:
Hypothesis 3. The rate at which concepts related to a popular theory are referred to is higher than that for
concepts that are related to a less popular theory.
Long-term Trends: Positivism and Economic Reasoning

As a result of the described dynamics within the field of organization studies, two long-term trends
have been established: the trend toward positivist empirical analyses, mostly in a quantitative fash-
ion, and the trend toward economic reasoning. In contrast to a fashion, a long-term trend does not
necessarily – at least not during the time under study – follow a bell-shaped curve. Essentially, the
positivist position entails making controlled deductions from given theories and making controlled
observations concerning these deductions, allowing for replications and striving for generalizability
(Landry and Banville 1992). The initiation of these practices can be traced back to people like Emile
du Bois-Reymond (1886), a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, who assumed that
quantification would improve possibilities for cooperation and thus accelerate scientific progress:
Renouncing high fame, thousands of assiduous workers daily generate numerous research details and, not
caring about inner and outer completion, only trying to catch a glimpse of attention and to achieve the best
price for their work.
Taking into consideration today’s organization of science, one cannot help conceding du Bois-
Reymond astonishing clairvoyance: ‘The stream of discoveries splits up into ever more numerous
and minor trickles’ (du Bois-Reymond 1886: 450).
The trend toward positivist empirical analyses in organization studies has been observed by
a number of scholars. For example, Parkhe (1993: 228) notices an emphasis on ‘deductive/
theory-testing/nomothetic research’ in research on joint ventures. Stern and Barley (1996: 155)
find that organization researchers tend to study phenomena that are ‘amenable to specification
and to methods based on the law of large numbers’. In a similar vein, Hambrick (1990: 243)
notes ‘a clear tendency toward multivariate number crunching’ in strategy research (see also
Chen and Hirschheim [2004], and Orlikowski and Baroudi [1991]).
What are the causes of this long-term trend? Parkhe (1993: 244) identifies ‘a strong tendency to
emulate the methods of the “mature” sciences, irrespective of the propriety of such practices’. At
the end of the 19th century Columbia University took on a pioneering role in the social sciences in
making positivist quantification a central methodological approach and thereby pursued two goals:
legitimation and expansion of the field. The main strategy was to make the social sciences appear
like the natural sciences through quantification and thus profit from the sciences’ image.
Mayo-Smith (1888: 10) propagated quantification since ‘statistics give us exact descriptions in
figures [and] betray certain fixed relations which have the character of natural laws’. He continued
that statistics create a ‘scientific standpoint’, a basis for ‘objectivity’ and ‘trustworthiness’ and thus
constitute a legitimate equivalent to the approaches of the natural sciences – ‘statistical observa-
tion, tabulation, analysis and induction [being for the social scientist what] the dissection room is
for the physician or field work for the geologist’ (Mayo-Smith 1888: 14). According to Steinmetz
(2005: 309), ‘The Fordist state [a state that heavily relied on the skills of sociologists and increased
public funding for sociological research] drew heavily on social knowledge packaged in a positive
format and pumped massive amounts of money into research organized that way.’
The long-term trend in favour of positivism in business schools was amplified by the reports
of the Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation (Gordon and Howell 1959; Pierson 1959)
that harshly criticized US higher business education for lacking scientific standards and scien-
tific basis (Cheit 1985; Schlossman et al. 1987). This criticism prompted business schools to hire
scholars from related academic fields such as industrial and social psychology, statistics and
economics – disciplines geared to the natural sciences (Augier et al. 2005; Khurana 2007;
Schlossman et al. 1987).
Positivism suggests a relationship between theory and practice which resembles the one between
science and engineering, thereby further contributing to its attractiveness. (McCarthy 1987).
Research programmes such as the Aston approach (Pugh 1981), network analysis (Pfeffer 1995:
685) or Chase and Borgatti’s UCInet software boosted the trend towards quantitative positivism.
Once a basic approach such as the positivist approach is established as mainstream, it is risky not
to follow it. The chances of finding appreciative reviewers and editors are getting smaller. The top-
tier journals in organization theory typically contain a large measure of quantitative positivistic
analysis characterized by increasing sophistication. Demonstrating methodological virtuosity is a
relatively safe strategy for achieving publication in high-quality journals. It is relatively easy to
reach consensus on the superiority of a statistical method over another one. Citation statistics
amplify this trend toward quantitative studies.
Papers that contain empirical analyses – more precisely, quantitative empirical analyses – are
comparable among themselves. Interestingly, in a study on the causes of high citation rates of
management articles, Judge et al. (2007) use indicators of methodological items that only apply
to quantitative empirical study quality as a predictor for the likelihood of getting cited. It is obvi-
ous that over time the share of theoretical essays and articles containing qualitative research has
continually decreased.
The dominance of positivist approaches is also reflected in leading methodology textbooks.
Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2002: 476) analysed 14 textbooks on research methods in political
science and found in these texts ‘a consensus on positivism as the mode of scientific research in
political (and social) science either stated explicitly or implied through various structural and
rhetorical devices’. The overall message of these texts is, as the authors (Schwartz-Shea and
Yanow 2002: 476) find, ‘that “empirical research” and/or “the best research” is quantitative
research’. Taking this trend into consideration, we argue that the trend toward positivism also
characterizes publications referring to concepts. Therefore we state:
Hypothesis 4: The rate at which concepts that encompass a methodology for empirical, quantitative
research are referred to is higher than that for concepts that do not offer such a methodology.
Recently, the trend toward quantification in organization theory has become increasingly com-
bined with one toward applying economic theory. Since modern economics is predominantly quan-
titative, the two trends are mutually supportive. Heilbronner (2004: 615) characterizes economics
as an ‘imperial social science’: ‘[E]conomics has earned the flattery of imitation by its sister social
sciences. Its formal mode of argument, mathematical apparatus, spare language, and rigorous logic
have made it the model for the “softer” social sciences.’ What has made economics especially
attractive for the social sciences is that it offers a reduction of complexity in theory and, at the same
time, a path to analysing hypotheses concerning the behaviour of whole business organizations
instead of individuals and groups within organizations. Some economists avow themselves to
economic imperialism without a hint of false modesty. Lazear (2000: 99), for example, praises
economics in these words:
Bort and Kieser 663
By almost any market test, economics is the premier social science. The field attracts the most students,
enjoys the attention of policy-makers and journalists, and gains notice, both positive and negative, from
other scientists. In large part, the success of economics derives from the rigor and relevance as well as from
its generality.
Critical observers confirm economics’ strong position in academia and society. Fourcade (2009:
92) argues that the ‘common language of constrained optimization’ enabled ‘the expansion of eco-
nomics into new and increasingly remote fields’ (for the development of this formal language see
also Porter 2001). This achievement, Fourcade holds, is largely an American development.
Economic approaches to human and social behaviour, the use of public choice for the analysis of
political behaviour and the programme to apply economic theory to the design of governance sys-
tems originated in the US. According to Fourcade (2009: 93), ‘[t]he imperialism of American
economics is rooted in a deep moral belief that no one stands outside of economic rationality and
that, furthermore, money is the primary medium through which economic rationality expresses
itself’. Economic imperialism can also be observed in organization studies, as Pfeffer (1995) points
out on the basis of frequencies of references to economist publications.
The normative statements that economics’ complexity-reducing paradigms allow contribute to
its attractiveness. Ferraro et al. (2005) and Ghosal and Moran (1996) criticize the ideological fla-
vour of these normative statements as contradicting psychological and sociological insights into
human behaviour but nevertheless influencing the design of institutions and thus validating its
normative statements.
In the development of economics, quantification marked a change from ‘advocacy’ to ‘objectiv-
ity’ (Furner 1975). ‘[T]he American economics profession sought to find common ground by neu-
tralizing the political element in political economics.’ And, ‘[b]y the 1920s, a whole set of
institutions articulated the language of the objective, impartial knowledge of facts as the necessary
precondition to the resolution of the social and economic problems of an advanced industrial soci-
ety’ (Fourcade 2009: 80; see also Porter 2001). In this vein, Augier et al. (2005: 90) argue that
[b]y 1980, [economics as] a field [within management research] had been defined. It had helped legitimize
business schools as serious academic institutions, and the center of gravity of organization studies had
moved decisively to a business school locale. This home had some effects on the emphases in the field, for
example, moving them closer to economics and further from political science.
Therefore, we propose:
Hypothesis 5: The percentage of concept articles related to economics increases over time.
Data Source and Structure

Concept identification
In our quantitative empirical study2 we collected all words or word combinations that were con-
nected with the signal-term ‘concept’, and which appeared both in the title and in the abstract, or,
alternatively, twice in the abstract of an article.3 In order to identify concepts, we searched for the
term ‘concept’ in the titles, keywords and abstracts of one issue (randomly selected) for each year
from 1960 until 2000 that appeared in the following six scholarly journals: (1) Administrative
Science Quarterly, (2) Academy of Management Review, (3) Organization Studies, (4) Strategic
Management Journal, (5) Journal of Organizational Change Management, (6) Organizational
Dynamics. These journals were selected because, first, they represent different prestige categories
(Harzing 2003), and second, because these journals, within their respective prestige categories, are
cited most frequently (Cleves et al. 2002; Harzing 2003; Harzing and Sorge 2003; Hennig-Thurau
et al. 2006; Johnson and Podsakoff 1994; Tahai and Meyer 1999). We decided to refer to a label
denoting a concept only when at least two authors explicitly used the term ‘concept’ in connection
with our identified word labels.
Next we verified whether the identified concepts belong to an organization theory (including
New Institutional Economics, Institutionalism, Contingency Theory, Constructivism, Organizational
Learning, Population Ecology, Resource Dependence Theory, Network Approach, and Behavioural
Decision-Making). This selection of organization theories is based on an analysis of major organiza-
tion theory publications (Hatch 1997; McKinley et al. 1999; McKinley 2006; Miner 2003). This
identification process resulted in a listing of 44 different concepts (see Figure 3).
Sample
Our data base includes 39 journals in the category ‘Business/Management’ that are considered as
being among the most popular ones of the field (Harzing 2003; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2006). The
time-frame of our study extends from 1960 to 2005.4 Access to these journals was provided through
the SSCI and EBSCO databases (see Table A1 in the Appendix of the long version of this article
under [http://al-laham.bwl.uni-mannheim.de/team/dr_suleika_bort/index.html] for an overview
over the identified concepts as well as the journals in which we identified articles dealing with con-
cepts). To ensure that all concept-related articles were included, we also searched for synonyms,
abbreviations, and slightly different word combinations for the concepts in titles, keywords and
abstracts. Studying, for instance, the diffusion of the concept ‘organizational slack’ included search-
ing for ‘slack’; the concept ‘loose coupling’ was also searched with ‘loosely coupled’.5 We were
able to identify 1784 articles relating in abstract, keywords or title to our 44 identified concepts.
Methods
References to concepts as in hypothesis 5 were studied on the basis of a frequency (citation) analy-
sis, a method that has frequently been applied in studies of diffusion of concepts (Giroux 2006;
Heusinkveld et al. 2000; Heusinkveld and Benders 2001; Spell 1999). The different effects on the
rate at which a concept is referred to were estimated through event history analysis (Hypotheses
1–4). Central to event history analysis is the hazard model where the ‘risk’ of experiencing an event
at a certain point in time is predicted using a set of covariates. In order to study the effects we need
to specify the hazard rate λ(t) . This rate is defined as
λ ( t ) = lim [ q(t, t + ∆t) / ∆t ] , ∆t → 0
where q is the discrete probability of having an event between t and (t + ∆t), conditional on the
history of the process over time t. This rate summarizes the information on the time intervals
between successive events, with higher values of the rate corresponding to shorter times between
events and vice versa. In our study, an event occurs when an already introduced concept will be
picked up again in an article in one of the publications in our sample. Hence, the time between two
events (two concept articles) is the duration approximated through the hazard rate. This hazard rate
can have many forms, yet an exponential model is not only the classical but also the most robust
Bort and Kieser 665
model (Blossfeld et al. 2007), and hence will be applied in this study. The exponential model,
which is defined as ho (t) = exp(βo), assumes that the baseline hazard ho (t) is constant over time
(Blossfeld et al. 2007: 89). All parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood approach
with the STATA 11 program. Table 1 illustrates the operationalization of our variables.
Table 1. Operationalization
Variables Operationalization
Frequency of concept articles and Yearly counts of articles that refer to an identified concept.
citations Citations were accessed through the SSCI Database.
Dependent variable
Rate at which a concept is We recorded the number of months between a concept
referred to publication and the subsequent reference to this concept
in another article in one of the journals in our sample. For
example, if an article introducing a particular concept was
published in February 1990 and the next reference to this
concept occurred in a publication in September 1990, then this
observation received the number 7 (months). If a concept was
picked up twice within a month then 1 (month) was assigned to
this observation.
Independent variables
Methodology Each article received a marker indicating the kind of
methodology applied.
Empirical/theoretical Dummy variable. Theoretical (1) if the article contained no
empirical data. Otherwise the article was coded as empirical
(0).
Empirical (quantitative/qualitative) Articles that applied quantitative methods (e.g. multiple
regressions) were coded as empirical quantitative studies
(1), articles applying qualitative research (e.g. case studies or
qualitative interviews) as empirical qualitative (0) (for a similar
categorization approach see Beyer et al. 1995: 1236).
Popularity of a theory to which a Measured by the number of citations received in the SSCI
concept relates database per year by the two most influential publications of
a theory (Gmür and Thomae 2002). The selection of the two
most influential publications for a theory was based on different
studies on the development of organization theory as well as
on organization theory handbooks (Hatch 1997; McKinley 2006;
Miner 1984; Miner 2003; Shenhav 2003; Tsoukas 2003). With
the help of the SSCI database we determined the time periods
during which the citations of these publications were most
frequent.6 We coded the five years in which a theory received
its maximum citations with 1 and all other years with 0.
Prestige journal (introduction/ The Impact Factor was used as an indicator of a journal’s
aggregated) prestige. However, in the SSCI database Impact Factors are
only provided back to 1992. Hence, for the years 1960 to 1994
we combined different journal rankings from different authors
(Harzing 2003; Johnson and Podsakoff 1994; Starbuck 2005) in
order to measure the journals’ prestige.7 We differentiated the
prestige of the journal in which a concept appeared the first
time and the prestige of the journals in which this concept was
published later on.
(Continued)
Table 1. (Continued)
Variables Operationalization
Reputation of the concept We counted both quality and the quantity of publications
originator published in international journals (listed in the SSCI database)
by the concept originator five years prior to the article through
which the concept was introduced. We only considered the
first author. Books, book reviews or editorial notes, etc., are
not included.
Reputation of the concept We referred to Harzing’s (2003) list for the number of articles
originator (qualitative/quantitative) published and for the distinction between ‘quality’ versus
‘quantity’ of the publications. We coded a journal as ‘prestige
high’ when it was in the aggregated ‘A-category’ in Harzing’s
(2003) list.8 We integrated the number of articles published
prior to the concept article as a continuous variable directly in
our models (Cleves et al. 2002: 140).
Control variables
Number of previously published Number of previously published concept articles of the same
concept articles concept in our journal sample.
Age of the articles Counted months since the introduction of a concept.
Period This monthly counted time variable was included to allow for
time dependence. Start 01.01.1960 until 12.31.2005
Number of total articles Counted number of articles per year in our journal sample.
published p.a. The number of articles has an influence on the rate in which a
concept is referred to insofar as more publication outlets lead
to an increase in publication possibilities (Giroux 2006: 1236).
Results
We assumed that the proportion of articles per year that refer to concepts increases over time. As
Figure 2 illustrates, we found evidence for this assumption. The proportion of articles referring to
concepts stayed nearly constant until 1989/1990. From then on the number of articles of this kind
increased. From 1990 to 2003, there are only three two-year time spans in which the numbers of
concept-presenting articles were lower than in the previous years (1994/1995, 1998/1999 and
2004/2005). The proportion of articles referring to concepts peaks in 2003, and most recently
(2004, 2005) the number has decreased.
We then studied the effect of the frequency of previous publications of the same concept and the
age of the concept-introducing articles on the rate at which concepts are referred to in greater
detail. We found that the frequency of previous concept-introducing articles (of the same concepts)
has a significant positive effect on the rate at which a concept is referred to (p < .001) (see Model
1 in Table 2). However, we also found that the influence is not linear. In applying the quadratic
function to this variable, we found that at the point of 102 concept publications the concept’s func-
tion of being referred to reaches its maximum (see Model 1 in Table 2). After this point the publica-
tion of another concept article reduces the rate a concept is referred to which is reflected through
the significant negative sign of the quadratic term (Model 1, Table 2). Hence, we found evidence
in our data for the assumption of prevalence of fashion in organization theory characterized through
the well-known bell-shaped function.
In this vein, we also studied the effect of the age of the concept articles. The effect of the age of
a concept also does not have a linear influence on the rate at which the concept is referred to (see
Model 1 in Table 2). However, the quadratic term is not significant. Overall the age of a concept
Bort and Kieser 667
6
4
Percent
2
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year
Figure 2. Percentage of concept articles per year
has a significant positive effect on the rate at which the concept is referred to. The results suggest
that it seems not to be so attractive for scholars to work with ‘young’ concepts.
Hypothesis 1 states that the rate of referring to concepts that are introduced in top-tier journals is
higher than the rate of referring to concepts that are introduced in less prestigious journals. To our
surprise, we did not find support for this hypothesis. While the prestige of the journal in which the
concepts are first published does not have a significant effect (see Model 7 in Table 3), the prestige
of the journal in which the concept-introducing articles are published over time has a significant
positive effect on the rate of referring to these concepts (p < .001) (see Model 7 in Table 3).
Note that we also added the number of total articles published per year and the period as control
variables in order to test the effect of the time and the influence of the overall increasing number
of publications on the rate the concept is referred to.
Hypothesis 2 states that the rate at which concepts are referred to correlates with the authors’
reputation. Model 7, Table 3 (see also Model 4, Table 2), strongly supports this hypothesis (p <
.001). Yet, if one looks more closely at quality and quantity of the respective authors’ publications
prior to concept introduction and as a measure to capture the authors’ reputation, one also sees that
the quantity of the prior publications has a significant positive effect on the rate the concept is
referred to while the quality of the publications does not have a significant effect (Model 4, Table 2).
Furthermore, hypothesis 3 states that the popularity of the theory on which a concept is based
has a positive influence on the diffusion of concepts that are based on the respective framework.
Overall, we found a significant positive influence of the popularity of the theory on which a con-
cept is based on the rate the concept is referred to (Model 7, Table 3). If one takes a closer look at
the effects of the popularity of the different theoretical frameworks related to concepts, the follo-
wing observations can be made: The popularity of Organizational Learning, Behavioural
Decision-Making, Contingency Theory, New Institutional Economics, Resource Dependence
Theory, Institutionalism and Constructivism does not have a significant influence on the rate at
which the concepts that are based on these theories are referred to. Only the popularity of the
Table 2. Results of Event History Analysis on the Rate in which a Concept Is Referred toa
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Number of previously 0.0062*** -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0001

published concept articles (0.0008) (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002)
Number of previously -4.593***
published concept articles (0.001)
(squared)
Age of concept articles -0.0459** 0.0145*** 0.0152*** 0.0213***
(0.0158) (0.003) (0.0029) (0.0029)
Age of concept articles 0.0005
(squared) (0.0003)
Period 0.11172*** 0.1111*** 0.1107***
(0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
Number of total articles 0.00011*** 0.00012*** 0.00012***
published p.a. (0.0001) (0.0001) (0.0001)
Prestige journal -0.0489 -0.05 0.0203
introduction (0.0277) (0.028) (0.033)
Prestige journal aggregated 0.186166*** 0.1757** 0.1981***
(0.0536) (0.0536) (0.054)
Prestige author 0.04533***
(0.0098)
Prestige author 0.3078***
Quantitative (0.043)
Prestige author Qualitative -0.069
(0.049)
Constant -1.15*** -225.27*** -224.32*** -224.04***
Statistics
Chi-square 135.53 1074.60 1095.60 1134.80
Df 4 6 7 8
Observation spells 11,762 11,642 11,642 11,642
Legend: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

a
Standard errors are provided in parentheses.
Network Approach has a significant positive effect on the distribution of concepts based on this
theoretical framework. This means that the influence of the popularity of these theories is
relatively weak – compared to the reference theory Population Ecology (Model 8, Table 3).
Figure 3 illustrates that the number of concept articles encompassing empirical studies increases.
Since the 1990s, the total frequencies of articles in which a concept is introduced or referred to that
contain empirical studies has increased more strongly than purely theoretical articles of this kind.
If we look on the proportion of purely theoretical concept-articles we find that these figures have
decreased notably – from 44.44 percent in the year 1990 to 17.42 percent in 2004 and 18.92 percent
in 2005. At the same time, the proportion of concept-articles containing empirical studies has
increased – in particular, articles containing quantitative analyses. Since the 1990s, the increase of
concept articles containing empirical (quantitative) studies over purely theoretical concept-articles
is evident (Figure 4).5
In hypothesis 4 we state that the rate of referring to a concept that encompasses a methodology
for empirical, quantitative research has a positive influence on the rate of referring to a concept. As
reported in Model 7 in Table 3 the empirical base of concept articles has a significant positive
effect on the rate they are referred to (p < .05). In Model 6 in Table 3 one can see that holds for
Bort and Kieser 669
Table 3. Results of Event History Analysis on the Rate in which a Concept Is Referred to (Cont.)b
Variables Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8
Number of previously published -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0002

concept articles (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002)
Age of concept articles 0.0149*** 0.0153*** 0.0154*** 0.0145***
(0.0027) (0.0027) (0.0027) (0.0027)
Period 0.1062*** 0.1067*** 0.0998*** 0.1121***
(0.0041) (0.0041) (0.0043) (0.005)
Number of total articles published p.a. 0.0001*** 0.0001*** 0.0001*** 0.0001***
(0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0001) (0.0001)
Prestige journal introduction -0.0598* -0.0629* -0.0549 -0.0576*
(0. 0285) (0.0288) (0.0285) (0.028)
Prestige journal aggregated 0.1819*** 0.13607* 0.1809*** 0.175**
(0.0539) (0.0554) (0.0538) (0.0539)
Prestige author 0.0412*** 0.0396*** 0.0407*** 0.0412***
(0.01) (0.01) (0.0098) (0.0199)
Empirical 0.1916*** 0.1868*** 0.1916***
(0.0559) (0.0559) (0.056)
Empirical qualitative 0.0202
(0.0755)
Empirical quantitative 0.2472***
(0.058)
Popularity theory 0.2364***
(0.0516)
Popularity theory: organization learning -0.2298
(0.1278)
Popularity theory: behavioural -0.0457
decision-making (0.0953)
Popularity theory: contingency theory -0.134
(0.1508)
Popularity theory: new institutional -0.3418
economics (0.4471)
Popularity theory: resource -0.0796
dependence theory (0.0684)
Popularity theory: institutionalism 0.1895
(0.4819)
Popularity theory: network approach 0.2674*
(0.127)
Popularity theory: constructivism -0.009
(0.0769)
Constant -214.45*** -215.46*** -201.78*** -226.13***
Statistics
Chi-square 1054.50 1071.10 1075.48 1072.26
Df 8 9 9 16
Observation spells 11,267 11,267 11,267 11,267
Legend: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

a
Standard errors are provided in parentheses.
concepts that encompass empirical quantitative studies (the effect is highly significant (p < .05)
while the effect of the ‘qualitative’ variable is not significant). Overall, the results shown in Table
3 support our hypothesis 4.
In hypothesis 5 we assumed that articles referring to New Institutional Economics should
increase over time. This trend is shown in Figure 5. Until the 1990s, the frequencies of articles
150
100
Frequency
50
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year
Empirical Theoretical
Figure 3. Overview concept frequencies (empirical and theoretical) p.a

100
80
Frequency
60
40
20
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year
Emp_Quantitative Theoretical
Figure 4. Overview concept frequencies (empirical (quantitative) and theoretical) p.a
referring to New Institutional Economics stayed relatively constant and were in line with fre-
quencies of publications referring to other concepts, for example to concepts from Behavioural
Decision-Making. However, after the 1990s, the appearance of articles referring to New
Institutional Economics increases at a higher rate than that of articles referring to concepts from
Bort and Kieser 671
18
16
14
12
Frequency
10
8
6
4
2
0
1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005
Year
Concepts New Institutional Economics Concepts Behavioral Decision-Making
Figure 5. Overview of frequencies of concepts articles building on two theories
other schools of thought (only in 1997 is the number of articles referring to concepts from
Behavioural Decision-Making higher than the number of articles referring to concepts from New
Institutional Economics). After this time, articles referring to concepts from New Institutional
Economics dominate clearly. Notably, the numbers have recently declined again. Yet, except for
the recent decline, we found evidence for hypothesis 5.
The attractiveness of economic approaches for organization theory is also reflected in the
distribution of citations of different theories and their publications in the SSCI. As one can see in
Figure 6, overall the percentage of citations of Williamson’s (1985) book The Economic Institutions
of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting increases over time, whereas, for example,
citations of Contingency Theory, represented through Pugh and Hickson’s (1976) book
Organizational Structure in Its Context decrease over time. In addition, one can see in Figure 6 that
overall the citations of the work of Hannan and Freeman (1984) ‘Structural Inertia and Organizational
Change’, the most popular publication of Population Ecology Theory, also increase over time.
9,0
8,0
7,0
6,0
Percentage
5,0
4,0
3,0
2,0
1,0
0,0
1965
1967
1969
1971
1973
1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
Year
Contingency Theory New Institutional Economics Population Ecology
Figure 6. Overview percentage of SSCI-citations to particular theories

Discussion
Our results show that fashion is prevalent in organization theory. Against the background of our
findings, the following three questions pose themselves: Is fashion negative or positive for the
development of science? Is fashion in science avoidable? What are the effects of rankings and
other forms of performance evaluations in academia on the dynamics of fashion in science?
Starbuck (2009) comes up with clear answers to our first two questions: fashion or ‘faddishness’
in science is detrimental because it induces researchers to fill journals with ‘useless chaff’.
Therefore it should be – and can be – weeded out. He identifies four causes of faddishness in sci-
ence: Researchers no longer strive for strokes of genius, not even for originality. Instead, they
mass-produce articles by replicating well-tried approaches furnished by theory fads. Variations in
publications – just enough variations to justify the claim of newness – are achieved by recombin-
ing theory or methods modules. Researchers also prefer to add detail after detail to theories over
attempts to advance theory through bold conceptual or methodological innovations. Another
chaff-producing tendency is the researchers’ preference for generalizations across different types
of organizations and cultures. Tests of these generalizations produce contradictory results requir-
ing the re-conceptualization of hypotheses by introducing contingencies. Re-conceptualizations
necessitate further tests. Researchers, making use of comfortable statistical software, also show a
tendency to test every relationship between variables that can possibly be tested. Often data do not
fit the assumptions of the methods leading to critical discussions (including Starbuck’s 2009 arti-
cle) and to revisions of theory and methods. Considering all these tendencies, it is not at all dif-
ficult for researchers to contribute countless articles – many of them ‘useless chaff’ – to discourses
that develop around faddish theories.
In their replies to Starbuck’s (2009) article, authors argue that he promises but does not deliver
instruments for separating the wheat from the chaff. He neither provides definitions of fashions or
fads in theory (Abrahamson 2009), nor does he present reliable indicators of research effective-
ness. Kantelinen (2009: 230) asks: ‘By which measure would ‘effectiveness’ [of research] be
judged?’ She expresses concern that ‘crafting universal criteria would either mean suppressing
some conceptions of knowledge and science, illegitimating some ways and methods of doing
research and muting some values and identities or making the criteria so vague that they would
apply – at least in general – to all research’ (2009: 230). She also ‘cannot avoid the feeling that
Starbuck imbues natural sciences with some kind of a functional role as an authority, ideal or refer-
ence point’(2009: FN 1). We agree. Why should science be different from other areas of social life?
As we have argued above, adoption of theories is not exclusively determined through evidence. ‘[I]t
is not enough for a social theory to be merely true; it must also be seductive’ (Davis 1986).
While Starbuck (2009) makes faddishness in science responsible for mass production of useless
chaff, other authors not only consider fashion in science unavoidable, they even link it to some
positive effects. For example, Abrahamson (2009: 238) suggests that scientific fads and fashions
have some benefits: they loosen the grip of past theories and methods and thus make room for
potentially new and interesting ones. This is a benefit that Blumer (1969: 289) attributes to fashion
in general. In addition, as Blumer (1969: 289) remarks: ‘Fashion introduces order in a potentially
anarchic and moving present’.
Esposito (2004) argues that fashion provides a basis for innovations. Applying this argument to
the context of science, one could hypothesize that theory fashions deliver bases and frames for
innovative explorations. Researchers need the frame of a theory to be able to communicate innova-
tions in theory with colleagues. If too many components of a theory are changed simultaneously,
the frame gets lost from sight, making it difficult to evaluate potential contributions to theory
Bort and Kieser 673
development innovative research can induce. A theory fashion enables researchers to experiment
with different innovations on the basis of this fashion, some of which may prove useful in the
scientific discourse by getting adopted and tried out conceptually and empirically by a number of
other researchers. We are aware that a number of variations may be classified retrospectively as
chaff. However, perhaps some amount of chaff is unavoidable in the process of theory develop-
ment. A similar observation can be made with regard to management fashions: some management
fashions, e.g. lean production or business process reengineering, proved highly useful and survived
the hype by getting implemented in companies, others, e.g. balanced scorecard, more or less disap-
peared in discourses on management practices as well as in the practice of companies.
We think that impact factors and other approaches for assessing and ranking research increase
the impact of fashion in science – and the production of chaff. Macdonald and Kam (2009: 223)
state that ‘publishing in the top journals of management is a fad’. Then they ponder: ‘Can a fad
be enduring and still be a fad?’ In contrast to their view, we claim that having reached a certain
degree of institutionalization, a fad ceases to be a fad. Impact factors have become a criterion in
assessments of academic institutions and individual scholars that is so entrenched in administra-
tive practices in universities that it resists the harshest critiques. It is just as institutionalized as
grading student papers. Impact factors force researchers to publish in high-ranking journals.
With regard to impact factors, mass producing articles appears as a rational strategy – mass pro-
duction not only with regard to the sheer volume of output but also with regard to closely follow-
ing well tried exemplars (Macdonald and Kam 2007b). Authors can hope that a fraction of their
output makes it to the top.
We could identify an increasing importance of referencing theoretical concepts over time – in
particular since 1991, which is about the time when criteria such as impact factors or citation indi-
ces began to get more frequently applied to promotion decisions (Hornbostel 1997). This finding
might indicate that researchers are more inclined to follow theoretical concepts than developing
new ones. The more recent increase in the proportion of articles referring to existing concepts
might indicate an increasing emphasis on exploitation of theories and concepts at the cost of
exploring new concepts and theories. If this observation is supported, it is in line with the one made
by other authors that innovations of a more basic nature in articles are declining as a consequence
of the peer-review system (Armstrong 1997; Bedeian 1989; de Rond and Miller 2005).
We found some evidence for the hypothesized trends toward positivism and economic
reasoning – a finding which might also be interpreted as a consequence of tighter control of sci-
entists’ output on the basis of impact factors. With regard to the popularity of the theories included
in our study, we found that the number of concepts as well as the SSCI citations that are related to
New Institutional Economics, with its emphasis on economic reasoning, has increased over time.
The same holds true for the SSCI citations related to Population Ecology, as a theory, with its ten-
dency towards empirical quantitative analyses. The development of these theories stands in contrast
to, for example, the Contingency Theory. This theory dominated the discourse in organization
theory in the 1980s and early 1990s; however, it lost its influence over time while other theories
such as Institutionalism gained prominence. The tighter the competition for journal space, the
stronger the pressure for mainstream articles: ‘Competition requires a common currency to certify
the winners and losers. The commoner the currency, the better’ (Harmon 2006: 239). Yet, Colquitt
and Zapata-Phelan (2007: 1295), in their study of theory building and theory testing in the Academy
of Management Journal, show evidence for the opposite: ‘the rate of new and reconceptualized
constructs being introduced appears to be increasing in recent years’. Similarly, McKinley (2010)
sees a growth with regard to the development of new organizational theories. Thus, further studies
are needed to explore these developments. Nevertheless, we found evidence for our assumption
that fashion is prevalent in organization studies and has an impact on the development and diffu-
sion of concepts over time.
Conclusion
The problem of decreasing creativity and innovativeness in organization studies warrants a more
careful analysis. It is possible that, overall, the number of approaches in organization theory has
not been reduced, but few find their way into the high-quality journals. An elite stabilizing itself
through ‘homosocial reproduction’ (D’Aveni 1996: 168) determines which theoretical and meth-
odological approaches are welcome (Macdonald and Kam 2007a). A tight net of authors, who in
their function as reviewers and editors also serve as gatekeepers, develop and perpetuate views
of what constitutes good research. Authors increasingly seem to pursue research that ‘can impose
a deadening uniformity on its field of endeavour’ (Harley and Lee 1997: 1434).
Many academics vehemently criticize the strict regime of evaluation systems building on
impact factors and citation indices (see the recent special section in the Academy of Management
Learning & Education; Bell 2009) for reducing creativity in research. They suggest different
strategies for coping with this problem. While some authors hope that ‘ridiculing and mockery’
(Macdonald and Kam 2007a: 713) will accelerate this system’s collapse (Harmon 2006), others
are convinced that researchers have to work out a consensus on how to change it (see, e.g., Adler
and Harzing (2009) and other articles in the special section of Academy of Management Learning
& Education). However, Sauder and Espeland (2009: 68) express serious doubt whether existing
rankings that ‘have become naturalized, shaping the cognition and activities of even the harshest
critics’, can be replaced by less biased evaluation systems. Resistance, including resistance by
bringing alternatives into play, ‘creates a relationship and, regardless of its effectiveness, resist-
ance prolongs entanglements by evoking new forms of engagement, which in turn elaborate and
extend discipline’ (Sauder and Espeland 2009: 76).
We found evidence for the impact of the author’s reputation and the prestige of the journal in
which a concept is published on the chances of dissemination of a concept. Yet, regarding the
author’s reputation, the quantity of previously published articles seems to be more important.
This result contradicts previous studies which assume that the quality of research is more often
and more substantially rewarded than sheer quantity (Cole and Cole 1967: 384ff). This counter-
intuitive finding might be explained by noting that authors whose reputation is based mainly on
the number of their publications are liable to ‘pester the ear’, i.e. they are present at conferences
and are well-known in the community – even if the quality of their publications does not quite
match their presence. Interestingly, the prestige of the journal in which a concept is published
the first time does not have a significant impact on the rate of diffusion of a particular concept while
the prestige of the journals in which a concept is published later on has a significant positive
effect on the diffusion rate. We explain this finding by referring to the publication system which
makes it hard to publish a new concept in a top-tier journal. As Miller (2009: 118) explains:
‘Editorial gatekeepers are conservative. Therefore new ideas are hard to publish.’ However, our
results suggest that if a new concept has the potential to spread, it will do so – regardless of
whether it is introduced in a top-tier journal or not. Nevertheless, it seems to be important that a
concept eventually gets into and is discussed in top-tier journals in order to diffuse.
Like other studies, ours certainly has its limitations. While our paper focuses on the diffusion
of concepts, the results cannot be generalized and extended to other forms of knowledge produced
and distributed in organization studies. The analysis is also biased toward a particular set of con-
cepts and a particular set of academic journals. It would therefore be interesting to explore the
Bort and Kieser 675
diffusion of concepts outside of the selected mainstream journals. These journals (and their
editors) might be less dependent on theory fashions and therefore less likely to follow fashion and
background trends. Furthermore, in our study we only considered the effects of context variables
on the dissemination of concepts. However, further variables, for example the scope of a concept
or the use of rhetorical elements in its introduction, may influence absorption of a concept. These
variables provide a potential avenue for further studies.
We also found that, overall, the popularity of the theory a concept is based on has a significant
positive effect on the diffusion of the concepts related to this theory. If we look at the different
theories separately, we find that this holds true in particular for the Network Approach. For the
other theories the effect was rather low. Thus, exploring the relationships between factors that cause
popularity of theories and the factors that cause popularity of concepts also appears promising.
Finally, we think that it might be interesting to investigate the different trajectories of concepts
within particular theories and subjects areas, their origins, and how they get in and ‘out’ and how
and where they ‘travel’ to when they decline (Czarniawska and Joerges 1996). While we focused
on concepts that gained at least some prominence in the literature, it might also be interesting to
look at concepts and fashions in theory that did not spread. We know little about why some ideas
do not get picked up at all or only after a considerable time lag and about the role and power of
particular groups (e.g. editors of top-tier journals) within this process (Jonsson 2009). Within this
process it might be interesting to have a closer look at the origins of fashions in science and the
trickle-down and trickle-up processes that are related to them.
Notes
1. All quotes taken from German texts are translated by the authors.
2. We are fully aware that we are trend followers.
3. Not included are words like conjunctions (and, or, etc.), prepositions (on, in, to, etc.), articles, or numerals.
4. Referring to McKinley (2006), who points out that a significant expansion of organization science started
in the 1960s.
5. Note the following limitation of our approach. It is likely that a researcher refers to a concept yet the
concept plays only a minor role for the respective article. His or her referencing of the concept may be
a rhetorical strategy to get the reader’s attention rather than an acknowledgement of the research behind
the concept. In other articles a concept which is referred to may play a central role. These considerations
are beyond the scope of this paper. Nonetheless, we assume that, in most cases, reference to a concept
in the title, the keywords, and/or the abstract indicates that the concept constitutes an important input to
the article. We base this assumption on Mullins et al. (1973) who argue that ‘keywords like title terms
are content words […] used to classify papers’ and that ‘the abstract is a short, succinct summary of the
scientific paper which is placed at the beginning of the work in order to allow the reader to determine if
the paper is of interest’ (Mullins 1973: 88).
6. Here, one has to keep in mind the overall small number of articles in the early years of this study. In the
years 1966, 1969 and 1970 only one article per year was identified. Hence, the results have to be inter-
preted with caution.
7. In nearly all cases (exception: Behavioural Decision-Making) the maxima were in a coherent time span.
8. In general, it is assumed that overall a journal’s prestige does not change much over time (Johnson and
Podsakoff 1994).
9. For a similar approach see for example (Teichert and Talaulicar 2002: 412ff).
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Author Biographies
Suleika Bort is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Strategic and International Management at the
University of Mannheim, Germany, where she received her PhD in Organizational Behaviour. Her current
research interests include networks, the evolution of organizations and institutions as well as the diffusion of
practices and innovations.
Bort and Kieser 681
Alfred Kieser is Professor Emeritus of Organizational Behavior at the University of Mannheim, Germany. He
presently teaches management at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany. His research interests
include the history of organization, organizational evolution, cross-cultural comparisons of organizations,
management fashions, consulting, and organizational learning. He has published in journals such as
Administration Science Quarterly, Journal of Management Inquiry, Organization Science, Organization,
Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change and in German journals. He has received honorary doc-
toral degrees from the University of Munich and Corvinus University, Budapest, and is a member of the
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.

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Special Themed Section

Fashion in Organization 32(5) 655­–681

Suleika Bort and Alfred Kieser

Science Is Supposed to Be Fashion-Free

How Fashion Eventually Finds Its Way into Science

Concepts as Carriers of Fashion in Organization Studies

Originator’s Reputation of Origi-

Figure 1. Factors associated with attractiveness of concepts

Long-term Trends: Positivism and Economic Reasoning

Data Source and Structure

λ ( t ) = lim [ q(t, t + ∆t) / ∆t ] , ∆t → 0

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 2. Percentage of concept articles per year

Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Number of previously 0.0062*** -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0001

Legend: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

Variables Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8

Number of previously published -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0001 -0.0002

Legend: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 3. Overview concept frequencies (empirical and theoretical) p.a

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Figure 4. Overview concept frequencies (empirical (quantitative) and theoretical) p.a

Concepts New Institutional Economics Concepts Behavioral Decision-Making

Figure 5. Overview of frequencies of concepts articles building on two theories

Figure 6. Overview percentage of SSCI-citations to particular theories

Mayo-Smith, R. (1888). Statistics and economics. Baltimore: American Economic Association.

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Fashion in Organization 32(5) 655–681

Legend: * p < .05; p < .01; * p < .001

Legend: * p < .05; p < .01; * p < .001