Social Networks as an Approach to Systematic review

Whether we are in the process of designing a new empirical study or our interest lies in conducting a review study, a solid literature review is needed to acquire an accurate idea of the current state of affairs with regard to a phenomenon of interest. Even if we can find contributions to the literature by entering keywords in search engines, we need tools that can help us to structure all the contributions encountered in terms of their interrelations and impact. This article presents social network analysis as such a tool. Although social network analysis is commonly thought of as a method in a particular empirical study, where individuals and groups of participants are studied, we can view writing and citation behavior in a field as an empirical study as well. In that context, participants can be individual authors and author teams as well as publications. Social network analysis can provide indicators that can help to qualify and quantify impact of contributions to a field across time.