The paper summarized is:

Hambrick, D. C., & Chen, M. J. (2008). New academic fields as admittance-seeking social
movements: The case of strategic management. Academy of Management Review, 33(1), 32-54.
The objectives of the authors in this paper were three: presenting a generalizable model to
explain the rise of new academic fields, refine and extend the original social movement model
and in elaborating the model, present a complete analysis of the rise of strategic management.
Members of an informal community will take up a campaign to set up a new academic field only
if two conditions are filled the agenda of the community is long-term and that they cannot
fulfill their objectives by continuing as an informal community.
The authors modeled the ascent of a new academic field as a successful admittance-seeking
social movement on three major elements: differentiation, mobilization and legitimacy. The field
needs to differentiate itself from other fields, saying there are certain problems that cannot be
solved if we dont break away, mobilize resources the political opportunity structure, shared
interests and social infrastructure should be in place or be put in place and build legitimacy by
intellectual persuasion and by adhering to the prevalent style of related adjacent fields.
The various propositions about the factors that affect positively an aspiring communitys
likelihood and speed of achieving the status of an academic field were:
1.
a)
b)
c)

Differentiation
The portrayal of a mission that is socially important
The affirmation of distinctive worthiness by outside influential parties
The portrayal of a mission that is complementary rather than competitive with existing

adjacent fields
2. Mobilization
d) The existence of external demand or at least the appearance of external relevance
e) The existence of internal demand(whether by fiat or student preference) for the
knowledge taught
f) The existence of a bounded set of shared interests among an aspiring communitys
members
g) The existence of multiple credible forums for discourse and rallying
h) The existence of a socially interconnected core and complementary variety
i) The existence of new forums (societies and journals) that pose oblique competition-as
opposed to no completion or direct, hostile competition to forums of the establishment

3. Legitimacy building
j) The adoption of the norms and style of research of more adjacent fields
The model also explain the absorption of International Business in other fields after a short stint
of popularity and the fact that shareholder wealth creation became the main focus of business
lead to the development of the niche area of social issues in management (SIM).
The other area of interests for research from this paper would be rise of new academic fields, role
of leaders in it, later phase of the trajectory of a field and conduct comparisons across academic
field and in global context too.