{"doi":"10.5465/ambpp.2012.13505abstract","title":"Optimal specialization: Theory development and testing amongst management scholars","abstract":"Does the single topic expert outperform the jack-of-all-trades? The notion that specialization is linked to productivity is embedded in foundational economic theory, job design, and career advice. However, very little empirical research has examined this important question. This article offers a new conceptualization of knowledge specialization, and an advanced measure of the construct that can be applied across many contexts. Further, we develop and test the proposition of an optimal degree of specialization, and in our sample of management scholars, find support for an inverse-U relationship between degree of specialization and research performance. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (101 words).","journal":"Academy of Management Proceedings","year":2012,"id":3959,"datarank":0.4735724719268182,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"self_citation_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citation_network_contribution":0.3087806286266017,"self_endowment_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citer_contribution":0.3087806286266017,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":2,"citers_with_citation_signal":2,"citers_with_endowment":2,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0497,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2012-07-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":235,"name":"Nees Jan van Eck","orcid":"0000-0001-8448-4521","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236,"name":"Ludo Waltman","orcid":"0000-0001-8249-1752","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39891,"name":"Erin Leahey","orcid":"0000-0002-6023-9115","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39890,"name":"Will Felps","orcid":"0000-0003-2147-075X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}