Interdisciplinary influences in the study of intercultural relations: a citation analysis of the International Journal of Intercultural Relations

Abstract This article identifies the influential disciplines, scholars and books in the interdisciplinary study of intercultural relations. Influence is measured in terms of the number of citations that a scholar, book, etc. received in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations from 1983 to 1996. According to the citation analysis conducted, psychology is the most influential discipline, followed by communication, sociology and last anthropology. The most influential authors (in order of rank) are (1) W. Gudykunst (2) H. Triandis (3) R. Brislin (4) B. Ruben and (5) E. T. Hall. The Handbook of Intercultural Training, Intercultural Communication: A Reader (all editions), Culture’s Consequence and Cross-Cultural Encounters are among the most influential books. The results of the present study are compared to the results of a past survey-based study of influences in the area of intercultural relations.