Mapping Intellectual Structure of a Scientific Subfield through Author Cocitations.

The article maps intellectual structure of a scientific subfield through Author Cocitations Analysis (ACA). While author cocitation analysis does not replace subjective understanding of the body of knowledge in a field, it does merit further use and refinement as an adjunct to subjective analysis or to other consensus-building tools, such as the Delphi technique. Nevertheless, while it is a powerful tool, ACA is also a potentially fallible tool. One limitation is that the author cocitation analysis is only as good as its chosen array of scholarly figures. Sample of 36 included authors from a range of disciplines, and some who only questionably deserved the theorist label. The analysis only partially identified dubious cases. Moreover, the results uncovered linkages due not only to disciplinary affinity and shared theoretical perspectives, but also to mentor student or collaborative relationships and possibly to collegial ties through common institutional affiliations. To disentangle such effects, the methodology may need refinement.