“…In other words, the degree of a network indicates the number of lines emanating from a particular node (i.e., keyword) (Andrikopoulos & Kostaris, 2017); hence, the higher the degree, the greater the number of lines connecting a particular keyword to other keywords, implying the tightness of the network (Wang & Chen, 2003). The increasing value of the average degree across the periods indicated the propensity for higher connectedness of the keywords in the auditing discipline (i.e., 7.17 in 2000-2005, 7.26 in 2006-2010, and 8.19 in 2011-2016 (Gallardo-Gallardo et al, 2017). Third, across the periods, the consistent increase in connectedness and decrease in fragmentation in the network showed that the co-word network became increasingly tight and cohesive (Kılıç et al, 2019;Varga, 2011), because the connectedness index measures the extent to which individual actors are connected in the network, whereas the fragmentation index indicates how the network fragments into clusters (Shimada & Sueur, 2014).…”