As an emerging research approach, social network theory and analysis has been embraced and effectively applied in disciplines that have overlapping interests with sport management researchers including such fields as organizational behavior and sport sociology. Although a number of sport management scholars have investigated network-related concepts, to date no sport management studies have fully utilized the analytical tools that social network theory and analysis have to offer. In conjunction with a discussion about the ontological, epistemological, and methodological perspectives associated with network analysis, this article uses several examples from the sport management and organizational behavior bodies of literature to illustrate a number of the advantageous techniques and insights social network theory and analysis can offer. These examples are meant to provide a general understanding of the utility and applicability of the social network theory and analysis and potentially inspire sport management researchers to adopt a social network lens in their future research endeavors.

The works of Kuhn (1996) and other scholars on the social construction of knowledge suggest that great insight can be gained about an academic field of study by investigating interaction patterns between and among scholars. Using a social network perspective, the intent of this study was to empirically explore the social interaction patterns among scholars in the field of sport management. A network model of coauthorship was generated using several rounds of sampling of scholars in the field and archival data collection from relevant journals. The derived network structure was then explored both visually and quantitatively for meaningful patterns. The results of the study essentially tell a story of the evolution and current state of the field’s collaboration structure. Drawing on propositions from the literature on the sociology of scientific knowledge generation, the findings are discussed relative to what the obtained network structure might hold for sport management scholarship.

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