A Study on Co-Author Networks of The Tourism Sciences Society of Korea Using Social Network Analysis: Focusing on Co-Author of the Journal of Tourism Sciences

Abstract

This study examined the conditions of joint authorship research activities in the Journal of Tourism Sciences to find out the structural co-author network characteristics among co-authored papers according to social network analysis. Research using joint authorship has widened the range of knowledge and provides opportunities for research from various perspectives. Currently, there is no analysis of collaborative research or research on the social relations between authors in tourism. This study identifies the cooperative relationship of 1,863 research papers in the Journal of Tourism Sciences, network configuration, and characteristics. The results indicated that although the ratio of joint authorship is increasing, the Journal of Tourism Sciences has exhibited the typical “Stevens’ power law,” which is observed in co-authorship networks. Furthermore, the participation of researchers belonging to public corporations or businesses was rather insufficient and had a characteristic of being a narrow academic field that was connected with other researchers in four stages. Additionally, the individual researchers’ centrality analysis results show that they play different roles in the network. In contrast, this study confirms that the increase in the number of co-authors is a characteristic of interdisciplinary research within the field of tourism.