Editorial board interlocking in knowledge management and intellectual capital research field

Abstract

Due to the importance of academic journals, it is critical to understand how they can create influence on research fields. An alternative way to understand how scholarly journals create influence in academic fields is to analyze the editorial board interlockings (EBI) and how they may generate networks within academic fields. EBI is the term used to describe the general circumstance where the same scholar is a member of multiple editorial boards, which creates a social network dimension within and between academic journals. The aim of this paper is to examine EBI phenomenon within knowledge management and intellectual capital fields (KM–IC). Assuming that EBI creates a social structure within scholarly journals, this paper investigates how KM–IC journals are connected through EBI, which journals are the most influential within KM–IC field and identify if KM–IC scholarly journal network breaks into subgroups. Social network analysis was the method applied using data from KM–IC ranking. Results identified the scholarly journal network, the high influence journals, and the cohesive subgroups within KM–IC field.