Analyzing the Socio-Cognitive Structure of an Economic Research Community

Tiwana, Birinder and Sarkar, Sudeshna (2009): Analyzing the Socio-Cognitive Structure of an Economic Research Community.

Abstract

Research papers published by authors in various fields give rise to huge datasets. A social network of the authors can be built up using these datasets by treating the references between papers as the links between the authors publishing those papers. These networks also have a cognitive structure to them based on the themes that various authors discuss. In this thesis we describe the procedure of building up a bibliographical tool for presenting a dataset of research papers in a particular field. We show the results that this tool produces on the dataset downloaded from the Repec website. We also describe a few mathematical measures that analyze the relationship between the cognitive and social structure of the network created from this dataset. The results produced by this analysis are in coherence with the results produced by different researchers in the past.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Social Network Analysis; Cognitive Structure of network; Centrality in a network
• Subjects: Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

References

1. http://www.wikipedia.org/

2. L.C. Freeman “Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarification”, Social Networks, Volume 1, 1979, pp. 215-239.

3. Kaiser, C.; Tiwana, B.S.; Bodendorf, F., "Bridging the Gap between Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Opinion Forums," Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2008. WI-IAT '08. IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on, vol.1, no., pp.120-126, 9-12 Dec. 2008

4. P. Mutschke, A. Q. Haase, "Collaboration and cognitive structures in social science research fields. Towards socio-cognitive analysis in information systems", Scientometrics, Vol. 52, No. 3 (2001) 487–502

5. M. Callon, J. P. Courtial, F. Laville, “Co-word analysis as a tool for describing the network of interactions between basic and technological research: The case of polymer chemistry”, Scientometrics, 22 (1991) 155–205.

6. http://ideas.repec.org/

7. C. Zimmermann, 2007. "Academic Rankings with RePEc," Working papers 2007-36, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2009.

8. M. Callon, J. P. Courtial, W. A. Turner, S. Bauin, “From translations to problematic networks: An introduction to co-word analysis”, Social Science Information, 22 (1983) 191–235.

9. M. Hesse, “Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science”, Harvester Press, London, 1980.

10. P. Mutschke, I. Renner, “Akteure und Themen im Gewaltdiskurs: Eine Strukturanalyse der Forschungslandschaft”, In: E. MOCHMANN, U. GERHARDT (Eds), Gewalt in Deutschland: Soziale Befunde und Deutungslinien, Oldenburg Verlag, 1995, pp. 147–192.

11. L. Grivel, P. Mutschke, X. Polanco, “Thematic mapping on bibliographic databases by cluster analysis: A description of the SDOC environment with SOLIS”, Knowledge Organisation, 22 (1995) 70–77.

12. K. M. Van Meter; W. A. Turner, “Cognitive mapping: The German FORIS database and Sociological Abstracts’ AIDS research”, In: H. BEST et al. (Eds), Informations- und Wissensverarbeitung in den Sozialwissenschaften. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1994, pp. 257–274.

13. I. Renner, “Soziale Kohärenz und Innovatität: Struktureffekte zur Akzpetanz neuer Themen in sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschungsfeldern”, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 49 (1997) 74–97.

14. http://jung.sourceforge.net/

15. Moore, David (August 2006). "4". “Basic Practice of Statistics (4 ed.)”. WH Freeman Company. pp. 90–114. ISBN 0-7167-7463-1.