International competition in the academia: the European challenge

During the past 30 years, the European management scholars' community, traditionally characterized only by national association, has witnessed the birth of two European associations: the European Group for Organizational Studies and, later on, the European Academy of Management. There is a wide ongoing interest on how these two actors are playing the game of international academia, traditionally represented by the Academy of Management. Analyzing the evolution of the international network of scholars we focus on European Academy of Management and we argue that to increase its reputation within the academia there are two choices: a generalist and a specialist approach. We discuss the risk and opportunities of the two alternatives.