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Management Research and Religion: A Citation Analysis

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Abstract

Research on management with regard to religion became a growing field of interest in the last decades. Nevertheless, the impact of religion on actor’s economic behavior is also an old research topic, as the writings of Max Weber (The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Allen and Unwin, London, 1930) underline. The purpose of this contribution is to highlight the developments of this topic and to guide scholars to identify possible gaps. The structuring and investigation on this topic will help us to advance and better understand past research, while leading to some further reflections. We conduct a citation analysis of 215 articles and 7,968 cited references to examine the citation structure and make out the most-influential publications that have shaped research most so far. On the basis of the analysis it is to be assumed that three research streams affect progress: Best practices regarding performance issues, religion at work as well as religion, and personal ethics. Finally, the publications that each topic-clusters contains are reflected and discussed to achieve a structural overview of the state of the art of research.

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Notes

  1. See for example for the Judeo-Christians: Ex. 20:1–17; and for the Christians: Mt. 25:14–30; Lk. 19:12–27; Lk. 16; Lk. 12:16–31; Mt. 20:1–16; Mt. 21:12–13; Mk. 11:15–17, Mk. 12:13–17 (Calkins 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier Business School, Montpellier Research in Management, 2300 Avenue des Moulins, 34185, Montpellier, France

    Katherine Gundolf & Matthias Filser

Authors
  1. Katherine Gundolf
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  2. Matthias Filser
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Correspondence to Katherine Gundolf.

Additional information

M. Filser is preparing his PhD at School of Economics (USE), Chair of Entrepreneurship, Utrecht University, Janskerkhof 12, 3512 BL Utrecht, The Netherlands.

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Gundolf, K., Filser, M. Management Research and Religion: A Citation Analysis. J Bus Ethics 112, 177–185 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1240-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1240-7

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