ABSTRACT
Introduction Insight into the subject emphasis of a research community is valuable information both for the members of that community and its related areas, and for determining the degree of alignment between the research community and commercial applications of the research (Culnan, 1987). Knowledge of the mechanisms by which a research community chooses to direct its resources is also of interest to the academic community in general, and to researchers in organizational behavior and dynamics, including those interested in group decision theory and concept diffusion through groups (Alavi et al., 1989). Research by several authors supports the commonsense observation that a research community is actually an aggregation of “invisible colleges” (Culnan, 1987; Pfeffer et al., 1977), each with specific research directions, under a common “umbrella” heading. The common heading is an accurate gauge of general direction but is always broad enough to support (and require) meaningful sub-topics “which tend to concentrate on examining common [highly specific] questions in common ways” (Pfeffer et al., 1977). Yet despite interest in understanding research directions, no research that we are aware of has attempted to model the dynamics of an extended research community.
