Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the most influential countries and universities that have contributed to science in the field of industrial marketing research during the period from 1990 to2015. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric methodology is adopted, focusing on the most productive and influential countries and universities within this discipline, for the scientific community analyzing journals listed in the Web of Science (WoS) database from 1990 to 2015 and is supplemented by using VOS viewer to graph the existing bibliometric networks for each and every variable. Findings Evidence that the USA and UK remain leaders in the investigation of industrial marketing research. Finland stands at the third place, leaving Australia and Germany behind. In reference to the universities, Michigan State University ranks as the leader. Research limitations/implications The process of data classification originates from WoS. Moreover, to provide a comprehensive analytical scenario, other factors could have potentially been considered such as the editor's commitment to leading journals, to partnerships and conferences, as well as other databases. Originality/value This paper takes into account alternative variables that have not been previously considered in previous studies, such as universities and countries in which the transcendental contributions to this field have taken place, providing a closer look, which gives rise to further discussions and studies with more detail to the history of this science in the future.