Linton, J. D., Himel, M. and Embrechts M. J. (2009). Mapping the structure of research: Business and Management as an exemplar. Serials Review, 35, 218-227.

Linton, J. D., Himel, M. and Embrechts M. J. (2009). Mapping the structure of research: Business and Management as an exemplar. Serials Review, 35, 218-227.

information visualization/self-organizing map

本論文以202種商學與管理類的期刊為研究對象。每一種期刊蒐集約200筆摘要，統計詞與詞對在所有摘要內的出現次數，選取出現次數較多的300個詞與163個詞對做為摘要的特徵，建立202種期刊的特徵向量，訓練自組織映射圖，並且進行映射。在產生的自組織映射圖上，領域相關的期刊可以被映射到相同或相鄰的節點上，如果期刊之間的映射距離較遠，它們之間的關係較小。作者認為這種方法所建立的自組織映射圖可以提供新進研究人員在選擇期刊上的參考，做為研究人員升等的評估參考，了解跨學科的研究領域的特性，並且提供大量資訊較佳的組織方法。

The relationship of different journals to each other is of interest to management academics and librarians for a number of reasons:

1) New researchers (students and junior faculty) often find it difficult to determine which journals offer a good fit with their interests because they are new to the field.

2) Evaluation of promotion and tenure is often complicated by lack of common agreement and sufficient domain knowledge for assessing the relevance and quality of the journals a candidate has published in.

3) Better understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of a field and the relative distance and proximity of different subfields is essential.

4) Demonstration of techniques and methodology to better organize large amounts of information without having to find individuals with suitable domain knowledge is useful and does not risk selection biases that can result from reliance on individuals.

5) Selection/cancellation of journals in a collection depends on many metrics. ... These techniques can assist in identifying the fit of journals that are candidates for the addition or cancellation process in a serials collection.

Parameswaran and Sebastian (2006) indicate that the problems with objective ranking studies include the following:

1) bigger journals may have higher citation scores because there is greater potential for citation;
2) journals connected with professional associations have a large default subscriber base;
3) all references are not equally important;
4) authors tend to cite more from their own culture;
5) citations are countedwhether they involve praise or criticism;
6) citation analysis does not capture influence that extends beyond academia;
7) some seminal works are so well known that authors no longer feel the need to reference them.

Method used in this study

202 business and management journals selected from the “Business,” “Business-Finance,” and “Management” categories of the Social Sciences Citation Index, the “Operations Research and Management Science” category of the Science Citation Index and the "Top 40" journal list selected by the Financial Times.

The 200 most recent abstracts were downloaded for each selected journal.

The 300 most frequently occurring words and 163 most frequently occurring word couplets, with the condition that the words that lacked specificity to business and management research were eliminated, were selected as a “dictionary” of common terms for the business and management field. Each journal is described by a vector offering the relative occurrence of the commonly occurring technical words and word pairs. Once this process was completed for all of the journals in the study , the set of vectors describing the journals was entered into a Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) program.

 Results of the Mapping

The journals are all arranged based on the relative use of commonly used technical words. Journals that sit in the same cell are very similar to each other. Journals that are sitting in adjacent cells have clear similarities in relative frequency of common technicalwords.While there are some similarities amongst
journals that have a cell situated in between them, once journals are further apart than this, the degree of similarity declines rapidly.

Another area in which interesting insights are offered is into the structure of interdisciplinary research. In some cases, journals associated with different traditional disciplines sit in adjacent cells. This relationship suggests that the journals may offer a bridge between these fields.

The self-organizing map has substantial utility for management researchers and practitioners in the following ways:

1) This tool offers new researchers a way of accelerating the build up of domain knowledge regarding which journals are and are not a fit with their research interests and agenda.

2) The SOM can assist in bridging the lack of agreement and insufficient domain knowledge that adds great variability into the assessment of the relevance and quality of journals into the tenure and promotion process.

3) This approach can create a better understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the relative distance and proximity of different fields. The SOM can also be used to identify journals that have a role in acting as a bridge spanning two or more disciplines or subfields.

4) The process demonstrates techniques and methodology to better organize large amounts of information without having to find individuals with suitable domain knowledge and thus risk selection biases that can result with relying on individuals.