While citations have been established as a scientific norm in order to support assertions and to acknowledge the contribution of past authors, research has largely shown that they are often employed for other motives, such as influencing reviewers, increasing one’s citation rate, showing erudition, etc. Despite the literature that has accumulated on this topic, however, an integrative framework is still missing. The objective of this methodological paper is thus to elicit the various motives to cite, drawing on examples from management research. We propose a typology that classifies them in four categories: epistemic, rhetorical, symbolic and economic. We then present each of these motives by distinguishing between their nature and their consequences. We finally inventory the subsequent implications of this analysis, both for scientific production and for the evaluation of this production.
