Conflict, Incommensurability, and Theory Groups: A Longitudinal Investigation of Citations in the Organization-Environment Literature

Much is already known about how theory groups-schools of thought centered on the influential works of a small number of scholars-emerge. Yet, little is known about how prolonged periods of conflict between theory groups affects the theory-group life cycle. The author presents a review of critiques and exchanges published by scholars in the organization-environment subfield, and shows that these can be used to identify "emergence," "conflict," and "postconflict" periods. Poisson and negative binomial regression analyses of 656 publications show that the frequency of intertheory-group citations decreased following the conflict period (1985-1994). Linear regression models show that, when intertheory-group citations appeared following the conflict period, they were increasingly likely to be of older rather than newer publications. The results suggest that periods of heightened conflict, because of their effect on intertheory-group citations, may impact future theory development.