dominance is not surprising, but it is interesting, since the relative little certainty of BSC
positive impact on management.
A more interesting analysis has been conducted taking in consideration the citation
frequency over time. In particular, Figure 2 presents the trend over time for the ten most
frequently cited works. What is remarkable to note about the data in Figure 2 is the relative
stability of citations for the most frequently cited papers in terms of their continuing
appearance in the citation rankings. This position contrasts with a more general analysis of
the production and operations management (P/OM) research literature. Finally, Figure 3
presents the number of citations per year while Figure 4 the number of published items per
year. From such figures it is possible to remark that even if the field is relatively young and the
literature appear to be yet immature, the situation is speedily evolving.
A social network analysis is showed in Figure 5 to understand co-citation patterns in the
previously data set. In particular the net shows the patterns of the citations for the most
influential articles, i.e. those with a citation count of over ten when the citing articles had to be
cited at least three times. The resultant network, as showed in Figure 5, contains a central
group consisting of authors focusing on performance measurement, such as Dixon, Eccles,
Kaplan, Maskell and Neely (Neely, 2005). Other contributions come from the business