Uncovering the multidisciplinary nature of technology management: journal citation network analysis
Technology management (TM) is multidisciplinary in nature. This paper investigates the multidisciplinary characteristics of TM through journal citation network analysis. The TM network composed of ten TM specialty journals and relevant journals of other disciplines is constructed based on their citation relationships. In particular, the relatedness index is employed to capture the citation relationships between journals with consideration of different journal sizes. Scrutinizing the network reveals what disciplines have contributed to TM and to what disciplines TM has contributed. The role of TM journals in exchanging knowledge with other disciplines is also identified by using brokerage analysis. TM is shown to have a high degree of interaction with six disciplines: Business and Management, Marketing, Economics, Planning and Development, Information Science, and Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. It is shown that visualizing and analyzing the TM network can provide an excellent overview of its multidisciplinary structure in terms of knowledge flow. This can help TM researchers easily grasp the historical development and fundamental features of TM.
multidisciplinary technology management journal citation network brokerage analysis