The life cycle of the “industry life cycle”: An empirical study of the diffusion of a new concept in economics and management

Life cycle has always been a hot topic when speaking about the product life cycle or, more generally, industry life cycle. However, modest attention has been dedicated to the analysis of this phenomenon on the nature of the written articles (economics, and managerial) and the pace of growth of the concept. For this reason, the current paper aims at presenting itself as a useful instrument to understand how the trend of the articles have changed during the years and how have changed the concept of “life cycle”. To this aim, this research focuses on demonstrating that even the concept of “life cycle” has its own life cycle, that the diffusion of the idea of “life cycle”, among the research field, follows the classic theoretical pattern, and in which dimension the citation obtained by economics and managerial articles are related between them.