Deriving disciplinary structures: Some new methods, models, and an illustration with accounting

Abstract

This study demonstrates the use of two microcomputer based extensions of cocitation clustering, and content analysis to derive a disciplinary structure. The use of an independent data source and multiple discriminant analysis as a validation tool is also demonstrated. One extension of cocitation clustering is a form of nonhierarchical single-link clustering, and the second is sequential cocitation threshold stepping. These extensions can be used to cluster cocitations and syntactically represent cluster structure in the form of a dendogram. This structure can be given semantic content through the use of content analysis. The Research Markets Model of the behavior of research scholars provides a framework within which the heterogeneity and homogeneity apparent in the structure of scholarly disciplines is interpreted.

Business Ethics Research with an Accounting Focus: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1988 to 2007

“…A considerable number of articles published in accounting apply bibliometric tools, with motives ranging from author-and article-based citation analysis, which determine the most prolific authors and most influential journals and articles, to co-citation analysis, which aims to ascertain the structure of the literature (Beattie and Davie, 2006;Bricker, 1991;Brown and Gardner, 1985;Locke and Perera, 2001;McRae, 1974;Tahai and Rigsby, 140 Ö zgür Ö zmen Uysal 1998; Wakefield, 2008). As a specific type of citation analysis, co-citation analysis has been perceived as valuable for empirical mapping the intellectual underpinnings of accounting research (Beattie and Davie, 2006).…”

“…Any discipline tends to build itself around core publications and nourishes its intellectual groundwork through the accumulation of research (Ü sdiken and Pasadeos, 1995, p. 503). In this regard, various forms of citation analysis have been used in diverse disciplines to understand how the composition of an academic research network evolves based on previous academic accumulation (Bricker, 1991;Culnan, 1986;Hoffman and Holbrook, 1993;McCain, 1991;Ü sdiken and Pasadeos, 1995). As a bibliographic analysis technique, citation analysis is based on the rationale that authors tend to cite articles they consider critical in supporting their own arguments.…”

Journal impact and proximity: An assessment using bibliographic features

“…Bibliometricians have studied many kinds of citation networks to create graphic representations of scientific and scholarly communication (e.g., Garfield, 1979;McCain, 1991) and research areas (Boyack & Klavans, 2010;Bramm, Moed, & van Raan, 1991;Bricker, 1991;Zhang, Liu, Janssens, Liang, & Glänzel, 2009). Some researchers have compared the networks, clusters, or maps produced by bibliometric analysis with other observations of the same data (e.g., Tijssen, & Van Leeuwen, 1995).…”

Strategies in the development of accounting history as an academic discipline

“…Stigler (1951) made the basic observation that the division of labor is limited by the size of the market or, to reverse the premise, labor will become more specialized as the market grows larger. It is not surprising then that specialties within academic accounting emerged with the growth of business and accounting education since the 1960s (Bricker, 1991).…”