Louis Y.Y. Lu

An integrated approach for main path analysis: Development of the Hirsch index as an example

This study enhances main path analysis by proposing several variants to the original approach. Main path analysis is a bibliometric method capable of tracing the most significant paths in a citation network and is commonly used to trace the development trajectory of a research field. We highlight several limitations of the original main path analysis and suggest new, complementary approaches to overcome these limitations. In contrast to the original local main path, the new approaches generate the global main path, the backward local main path, multiple main paths, and key-route main paths. Each of them is obtained via a perspective different from the original approach. By simultaneously conducting the new, complementary approaches, one uncovers the key development of the target discipline from a broader view. To demonstrate the value of these new approaches, we simultaneously apply them to a set of academic articles related to the Hirsch index. The results show that the integrated approach discovers several paths that are not captured by the original approach. Among these new approaches, the key-route approach is especially useful and hints at a divergence–convergence–divergence structure in the development of the Hirsch index.

Knowledge diffusion path analysis of data quality literature: A main path analysis

This study presents a unique approach in investigating the knowledge diffusion structure for the field of data quality through an analysis of the main paths. We study a dataset of 1880 papers to explore the knowledge diffusion path, using citation data to build the citation network. The main paths are then investigated and visualized via social network analysis. This paper takes three different main path analyses, namely local, global, and key-route, to depict the knowledge diffusion path and additionally implements the g-index and h-index to evaluate the most important journals and researchers in the data quality domain.

An innovative approach to identify the knowledge diffusion path: the case of resource-based theory

This study presents an innovative approach for identifying the knowledge diffusion path of a target research field. We take the resource-based theory (RBT) as an example to demonstrate the usefulness of this methodology. Several survey studies have provided valuable summarization and commentaries to the RBT from different perspectives. These analyses are useful and pertinent for understanding the development of RBT. However, limited by the methodologies they used, previous scholars can only select part of the RBT literature to conduct the survey work. To eliminate the limitation, this study develops an innovative approach which can handle thousands of articles. This study analyzes a dataset including 2,105 theoretical developments, empirical studies, and review papers to explore the knowledge diffusion path of the RBT. Citation data are used to build the citation network. Main paths are then probed and visualized via social network analysis methodology. To figure out the total picture of the knowledge diffusion path, this study integrates various main path analyses to supplement the traditional approach. The traditional main path analysis investigates the knowledge diffusion from a local view. The global analysis provides a main path from a macro view. The key-route analysis helps explore and clarify a complete picture of the convergence-divergence phenomena. We believe that through this novel tool, new researchers can easily identify the papers that have made major contributions to RBT knowledge diffusion and uncover the interrelationships among them.

Technological change in lithium iron phosphate battery: the key-route main path analysis

Technological change evolves along a cyclical divergent-convergent pattern in knowledge diffusion paths. Technological divergence occurs as a breakthrough innovation, or discontinuity, inaugurating an era of ferment in which several competing technologies emerge and gradually advance. Technological convergence occurs as a series of evolutionary, variant changes that are gradually combined or fused together to open the industry to successive dominant designs or guideposts. To visualize such a pattern of technological evolution, we choose to study lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery technology through an extension of the citation-based main path analysis, namely the key-route main path analysis. The key-route method discloses the main paths that travel through a specified number of key citations. The resulting multiple paths reveal the structure of the knowledge diffusion paths. The citation network is constructed from 1,531 academic articles on LFP battery technology published between 1997 and early 2012. Findings illustrate that LFP battery technology has completed two full technological cycles and is in the middle of the third cycle.

Total influence and mainstream measures for scientific researchers

We propose two new indices that are able to measure a scientific researchers overall influence and the level of his/her works’ association with the mainstream research subjects within a scientific field. These two new measures – the total influence index and the mainstream index – differ from traditional performance measures such as the simple citation count and the h-index in that they take into account the indirect influence of an authors work. Indirect influence describes a scientific publications impact upon subsequent works that do not reference it directly. The two measures capture indirect influence information from the knowledge emanating paths embedded in the citation network of a target scientific field. We take the Hirsch index, data envelopment analysis, and lithium iron phosphate battery technology field to examine the characteristics of these two measures. The results show that the total influence index favors earlier researchers and successfully highlights those researchers who have made crucial contributions to the target scientific field. The mainstream index, in addition to underlining total influence, also spotlights active researchers who enter into a scientific field in a later development stage. In summary, these two new measures are valuable complements to traditional scientific performance measures.

The main paths of eTourism: trends of managing tourism through Internet

ABSTRACT Drawing from the tourism and hospitality literature, this paper highlights the main research trajectories and themes in the context of eTourism. We use main path analysis to investigate the development trend of the synergistic relationship between innovative tourism applications and the new technologies. Further, the literature is classified into six groups through discovering the coherence structure in a citation network. The analyses show that research on websites, blogs, and social media on tourism is experiencing accelerated growth, which hints that there is a pendulum shift whereby the information and negotiation power asymmetry between the supply and demand sides are moving from provider-centric to consumer-centric. This study also elucidates the associated market disintermediation phenomenon and long tail effects on the distribution of destinations.

Prediction Model for Warranty Costs: A Case Study of a LCD Monitor Company

In the OEM/ODM business, the total cost of a product and its after-sales service is always one of the top considerations for customers buying the product or service. The cost management on the bill of material (BOM) and warranty is therefore a very important task for gaining an OEM/ODM order. Based on the analysis of repair data collected over more than four years by an ODM company, this study generates a prediction model for the warranty service costs on LCD monitors. Once a prediction model is built, a company can apply it to figure out the volume prediction of warranty returns and to prepare the necessary spare parts and resources so as to maintain the warranty returns.

Research Fronts and Prevailing Applications in Data Envelopment Analysis

Research activities relating to data envelopment analysis (DEA) have grown at a fast rate recently. Exactly what activities have been carrying the research momentum forward is a question of particular interest to the research community. This study finds these research activities, or research fronts, as well as some facts on applications in DEA. A research front refers to a coherent topic or issue addressed by a group of research articles in recent years. The large amount of DEA literature makes it difficult to use any traditional qualitative methodology to sort out the matter. Thus, this study applies a network clustering method to group the literature through a citation network established from the DEA literature over the period 2000–2014. The keywords of the articles in each discovered group help pinpoint its research focus. The four research fronts identified are “bootstrapping and two-stage analysis”, “undesirable factors”, “cross-efficiency and ranking”, and “network DEA, dynamic DEA, and SBM”. Each research front is then examined with key-route main path analysis to uncover the elements in its core. In the end, we present the prevailing DEA applications and the observed association between DEA methodologies and applications.

Recent Themes in Social Networking Service Research

The body of literature addressing the phenomenon related to social networking services (SNSs) has grown rather fast recently. Through a systematic and quantitative approach, this study identifies the recent SNS research themes, which are the issues discussed by a coherent and growing subset of this literature. A set of academic articles retrieved from the Web of Science database is used as the basis for uncovering the recent themes. We begin the analysis by constructing a citation network which is further separated into groups after applying a widely used clustering method. The resulting clusters all consist of articles coherent in citation relationships. This study suggests eight fast growing recent themes. They span widely encompassing politics, romantic relationships, public relations, journalism, and health. Among them, four focus their issues largely on Twitter, three on Facebook, and one generally on both. While discussions on traditional issues in SNSs such as personality, motivations, self-disclosure, narcissism, etc. continue to lead the pack, the proliferation of the highlighted recent themes in the near future is very likely to happen.

R&D and marketing integration in Taiwan's IT industry

Taiwans IT (information technology) industry has achieved outstanding performance over the last two decades. However, no prior research had been dedicated to the NPD (new product development) project of Taiwans IT industry. This study explored the actual R&D and marketing integration situation in Taiwanese IT firms. The results could be a good reference for those developing countries which are struggling to enhance their national competitiveness. This study found that the intangible perception of R&D-marketing integration has a higher impact on the actual achievement of integration than any other tangible integrating mechanism. Formalisation is the most effective tangible integrating mechanism to enhance R&D-marketing integration, because it clearly defined the NPD process. Joint reward system, informal social network, and job rotation significantly impact the actual achievement of R&D-marketing integration.