Geographic Bias in Management Scholarship: Data-Driven Estimates and Trends

Top management scholarship struggles to be globally relevant as it fails to reflect the diversity of global business phenomena. While this issue is informally recognized, the field lacks systematic estimates that detail the level (and trend) of geographic bias favoring the West. Using unique data from over 21,000 articles in six leading management journals, we find that only 3% of authors and 15% of study regions come from mid- or low-income countries. Worryingly, these trends are not improving much over time. Our findings raise serious questions about the extent to which management scholarship truly represents the global business landscape.

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