The Tale of Two research Communities: The Diffusion of Research on Productive Efficiency

The field of theoretical and applied efficiency analysis is pursued both by economists and people from operational research and management science. Each group tends to cite a different paper as the seminal one. Recent availability of extensive electronically accessible databases of journal articles makes studies of the diffusion of papers through citations possible. Research strands inspired by the seminal paper within economics are identified and followed by citation analysis during the 20 year period before the operations research paper was published. The first decade of the operations research paper is studied in a similar way and emerging differences in diffusion patterns are pointed out. Main factors influencing citations apart from the quality of the research contribution are reputation of journal, reputation of author, number of close followers; colleagues, “cadres of protégés”, Ph.D. students, and extent of network (“invisible college”). Such factors are revealed by the citing papers. In spite of increasing cross contacts between economics and operations research the last decades co-citation analysis reveals a relative constant tendency to stick to “own camp” references.Farrell efficiency measures, data envelopment analysis, DEA, bibliometry

Mapping Indonesian Department of Communication

The beginning of the history of communication studies in Indonesia is constructed by the invisible college of Indonesian scholars who returned from their studies in the United States, but no one has explained the contemporary conditions. Popular invisible college researches have tended to use co-citation and co-authorship analysis, even though invisible college relations are also formed through a scholarly background. The explanation about invisible colleges contributes to explaining influential groups in a particular field of science. Using social network analytics combined with historical reviews, this study explains the link between communication science education institutions in Indonesia that form an invisible college based on academic background identity. This study uses data relations between educational backgrounds and work places for 741 lecturers from 30 communication studies with ‘A’ accreditation in Indonesia. This study found that there was a shift in the orientation of communication science education from the USA to the local because of the development of communication science education in the ASEAN region, one of which was Indonesia. This study found that there were five invisible colleges based on the most influential educational backgrounds in communication science education namely the University of Indonesia, University of Padjadjaran, University of Gadjah Mada, University of Mercu Buana, and LSPR College of Communication. There are three factors making them the influential institutions: historical factors, heterogeneity, and geographical proximity

Presencia de los hombres en redes de Investigación de género en el ámbito de comunicación en España

El objetivo de este trabajo es conocer la productividad y colaboración científica de los autores que han publicado trabajos sobre género en las revistas españolas de comunicación, prestando especial atención al rol desempeñado por los hombres. Se ha analizado la red de citaciones con el fin de identificar la red de investigadores y la participación de los hombres en la misma. La hipótesis de la que se parte es que los hombres tienen un papel secundario en las comunidades científicas que investigan sobre género en el área de comunicación. Se aplican metodologías procedentes del análisis de redes sociales. La información extraída ha sido analizada con el programa Ucinet. Se comprueba que los hombres tienen un rol marginal en la red y que las mujeres tienden a citar a otras mujeres en sus publicaciones.The purpose of this paper is to learn about the scientific productivity and collaboration of authors who have published papers on gender in Spanish communication journals by paying special attention to the role played by men. The citation network was analysed in order to identify the researchers network and the participation of men therein. The hypotesis put forward is that men have a secondary role in scientific communities that research gender in the communication field. Methodologies from the analysis of social network were applied. The information extracted was analysed using Ucinet software. It was confirmed that men have a marginal role in the network and that women tend to cite other women in their publication

Spanish Communication Academia: Scientific Productivity vs. Social Activity

At a time when academic activity in the area of communication is principally assessed by the impact of scientific journals, the scientific media and the scientific productivity of researchers, the question arises as to whether social factors condition scientific activity as much as these objective elements. This investigation analyzes the influence of scientific productivity and social activity in the area of communication. We identify a social network of researchers from a compilation of doctoral theses in communication and calculate the scientific production of 180 of the most active researchers who sit on doctoral committees. Social network analysis is then used to study the relations that are formed on these doctoral thesis committees. The results suggest that social factors, rather than individual scientific productivity, positively influence such a key academic and scientific activity as the award of doctoral degrees. Our conclusions point to a disconnection between scientific productivity and the international scope of researchers and their role in the social network. Nevertheless, the consequences of this situation are tempered by the nonhierarchical structure of relations between communication scientists

Mapping the (In)visible College(s) in the Field of Entrepreneurship

Despite the vitality and dynamism that the field of entrepreneurship has experienced in the last decade, the issue of whether it comprises an effective network of (in)formal communication linkages among the most influential scholars within the area has yet to be examined in depth. This study follows a formal selection procedure to delimit the ‘relational environment’ of the field of entrepreneurship and to analyze the existence and characterization of (in)visible college(s) based on a theoretically well-grounded framework, thus offering a comprehensive and up-to-date empirical analysis of entrepreneurship research. Based on more than a thousand papers published between 2005 and 2010 in seven core entrepreneurship journals and the corresponding (85 thousand) citations, we found that entrepreneurship is an (increasingly) autonomous, legitimate and cohesive (in)visible college, fine tuned through the increasing visibility of certain subject specialties (e.g., family business, innovation, technology and policy). Moreover, the rather dense formal links that characterize the entrepreneurship (in)visible college are accompanied by a reasonably solid network of informal relations maintained and sustained by the mobility of ‘stars’ and highly influential scholars. The limited internationalization of the entrepreneurship community, reflected in the almost total absence of non-English-speaking authors/studies/outlets, stands as a major quest for the field.Invisible College; Entrepreneurship; Bibliometrics

Assessing the diffusion of nanotechnology in Turkey: A social network analysis approach

This dissertation assesses the diffusion of nanoscience and nanotechnology in the scientific community in the last decade using Social Network Analysis (SNA) in Turkey. This dissertation aims to evaluate the flow of knowledge diffusion of nanotechnology among scientists by using ethnographic methods, co-words analysis and by focusing on an invisible college in the scientific community in terms of citation analysis in Turkey. A total of 10,062 articles and reviews were extracted from WoS (2664 between 2000 and 2005, and 7398 between 2006 and 2011) using a compound text query. Results compiled from co-authorship network analysis comprised a high closeness centrality indicating the small-world phenomenon which facilitates the diffusion of nano-related technology in Turkey. We discovered the scientists who are instrumental in the diffusion of nanotechnology knowledge in the network. We test the hypotheses that: (1) prolific authors stimulate the diffusion of nanotechnology in network structure; (2) dissemination of nanotechnology is more diffusive within sub-clusters than that of the whole network structure; and (3) taxonomy identified by co-word analysis in the research process matches the findings at the global level. Universities with the highest co-occurrence in terms of centralities in the network structure were studied. Then, we compared the results from each period to investigate the rate of diffusion of nano-related technology in Turkey. We found out that research on nano-related technology is done in a wide spectrum from Materials to Biomedical Sciences. Moreover, we found that TÜBİTAK and the Ministry of Development (MoD) have increased their funding support. We corroborate the findings by interviewing the key scientists or authors who are instrumental in the diffusion of nano-related technologies in Turkey. We collected and elaborated on 10 interviewees' responses using a qualitative method (Latent Semantic Analysis). Outcomes indicated that scientists' behavior who participated in interviews share similar patterns matching their co-authorship maps. It was concluded that the diffusion of nano-related technology is steadily progressing due to scientific collaboration among scientists through social network

Making visible the invisible through the analysis of acknowledgements in the humanities

Purpose: Science is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas acknowledgements, despite being a well-established element in scholarly communication, have not received the same attention. This paper aims to put forward the bearing of acknowledgements in the humanities to bring to the foreground contributions and interactions that, otherwise, would remain invisible through traditional indicators of research performance. Design/methodology/approach: The study provides a comprehensive framework to understanding acknowledgements as part of the reward system with a special focus on its value in the humanities as a reflection of intellectual indebtedness. The distinctive features of research in the humanities are outlined and the role of acknowledgements as a source of contributorship information is reviewed to support these assumptions. Findings: Peer interactive communication is the prevailing support thanked in the acknowledgements of humanities, so the notion of acknowledgements as super-citations can make special sense in this area. Since single-authored papers still predominate as publishing pattern in this domain, the study of acknowledgements might help to understand social interactions and intellectual influences that lie behind a piece of research and are not visible through authorship. Originality/value: Previous works have proposed and explored the prevailing acknowledgement types by domain. This paper focuses on the humanities to show the role of acknowledgements within the reward system and highlight publication patterns and inherent research features which make acknowledgements particularly interesting in the area as reflection of the socio-cognitive structure of research.Comment: 14 page

The invisible college of the economics of innovation and technological change

economics,innovation, technological change

The invisible college of the economics of innovation and technological change

The research area of the economics of innovation and technological change (EITC) has flourished over the past decades. While it was a relatively marginal field of economics in the 1950s and 1960s, the field has now grown to become a major part of economic analysis. Because many of the early scholars in the field were rather critical about the standard tools of (neoclassical) economics, EITC has become a research area in which a curious mix of mainstream methodology and alternative approaches co-exists and co-evolves. The paper reports on a survey that was conducted among scholars in the field. We construct networks of scholars, based on weak or strong linkages. Strong linkages are defined as relations between co-workers, weak linkages as relations between people that meet in the circuit of conferences, workshops, etc., or just read each other’s work. We also explore how network linkages are related to opinions on the field, e.g., which are the important journals or important centers of activity.economics of technology ;