The development of social network analysis research in mainland China

Abstract

Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been introduced to mainland China since the end of last century. Now it is a hot research field and can also be applied to study other disciplines as a research method or analysis tool. It is often stated that SNA research has experienced rapid growth in mainland China these years, but few studies have been conducted to prove the statement. This paper aims at exploring the research status and development of SNA in mainland China by a critical assessment of journal articles. Through selecting papers from China Academic Journals Full-text Database (CAJFD), a literature review is conducted to get an overview framework about SNA research both as a research object and a method in mainland China by bibliometric analysis and classification scheme based approach. Finally a discussion is made from the systematical data analysis, and an interesting finding is that the iSchool community in mainland China plays a leading role in the SNA related researches. Furthermore, some implications are put forward to explore how SNA can be applied to or fit with the IS-related disciplines or topics in the future.