RESUMO Este artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo em metodologia que determinou um método específico de análise histórica bibliográfica, descrito como cartografia estrutural para revisão de literatura. O método de cartografia estrutural é rigoroso, interdisciplinar e revela a estrutura de uma bibliografia em estudo por meio dos conceitos metodológicos encontrados em pesquisa histórica, pesquisa bibliográfica, teoria dos grafos, análise de índices e redes de citações e cartografia. Pretende-se que o leitor tenha uma ampla compreensão sobre o que é e como se aplica o método de cartografia estrutural. Por fim, serão apresentadas 12 maneiras de se abordar a estrutura de uma literatura utilizando o atlas bibliográfico elaborado por meio da cartografia estrutural para revisão de literatura.
Researchers need maps to effectively navigate increasingly voluminous literatures. This is no less the case in the field of problem structuring methods (PSMs). This paper offers an atlas of the journal literature of the theoretical development of, what are currently acknowledged to be, the four main PSMs up to their consolidation in 1989. A thorough contextual appreciation of the structure and dynamics of this literature sets the stage for addressing some of its specific aspects, for which an atlas is especially effective as an orientation device. Substantiated suggestions for exploratory excursions, as well as potential pitfalls, are accentuated, the overall aim being to provide researchers with navigational support that may assist their research objectives. Based on evidence uncovered from the atlas, a number of issues current in the PSM field are discussed, including the use of the collective descriptor 'family', the extent to which PSMs find their origins, and belong, in the wider field of operational research and the identification of sources that have hitherto received little or no acknowledgment but which merit attention as precursors and promising contributors to PSM research. The paper is accompanied by an electronic supplement containing the basic data of the atlas from which additional maps may be designed and constructed.
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