Abstract
The field of innovation studies has grown considerably in the last four decades, which has led to the emergence of new approaches and theoretical aspects that need to be examined and considered. Therefore, this paper aims to understand what are the main theoretical pillars that support the structure of innovation theories and fields, how it evolved over the years and what are the directions that lead to future trends in innovation research. The procedure consists in a mix-methods using the citation and co-citation analysis associated with bibliometric methods, Social Network Analysis, and a systematic review of the literature. The results were validated by Delphi with academic specialists in innovation. Considering publications between 1956 and 2016 divided into four 15-years timespan, the longitudinal analysis results indicate the evolution of the main streams of thoughts that support the current innovation research fields and depict a research orientation for future works that can be developed to generate relevant contributions for the theoretical development of the area. This paper differentiates itself bringing results based on a large database, by the research methods employed, and by the perspective adopted provides solid contributions to the understanding of the past, present, and future of the scientific research in innovation to business administration field.
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Notes
For the year 2016, data were collected referring to the articles published until February 17th.
Search formula with the use of Boolean operators: “(TS = Innovat*) AND ((WC = Management) OR (WC = Business) OR (WC = Economics) OR (WC = Business, Finance) OR (SU = Business & Economics)) AND (SU = Business & Economics) AND LANGUAGE: (English) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article).
Indexes = SSCI Timespan = All years”, being: TS = Topic (includes the search for titles, abstracts, keywords, and additional keywords; WC = Web of Science Categories; SU = Research Area, Language = Only articles in the English language; and Document types = Only articles (excluding reviews, books, editorials, among others).
The core collection of Web of Science (Web of ScienceTM Core Collection) was chosen because it contains a complete set of available data from each reference, including the references cited in each paper, important for the later stage that will use these data for the co-citation analysis.
Keywords Plus® are keywords with indexing terms created by Thompson Reuters. These terms are derived from the titles of the articles cited by the author of the article that was indexed. The “Keywords Plus®” broadens search results by keywords or titles (See http://images.webofknowledge.com/WOKRS521R5/help/WOS/hp_full_record.html).
Although the seminal works of Schumpeter (1939, 1942) were not included in the sample, primarily because they are books, and secondly, because they are publications prior to the year of beginning the collection of articles published in innovation, Schumpeter appears in a relevant way in the citations analysis, highlighting the importance of this technique of analysis, which allows us to gather the core literature used as reference by the scientific production in the field of innovation.
The journal Technovation was created in 1981, within the second period under analysis, when it released its first volume. However, it emerged among the twenty best periodicals in the innovation area in the 4th period, occupying the 4th position in the ranking with a CV of 2.2%.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all reviewers and people who contributed with their suggestions and feedbacks. I gratefully acknowledge the support and generosity of the National Council for the Improvement of Higher Education—CAPES from the Brazilian Ministry of Education (Grant No. 021.535.379-08/2014-2017, and Grant No. 88881.131969/2016-01), without which the present study could not have been completed.
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Rossetto, D.E., Bernardes, R.C., Borini, F.M. et al. Structure and evolution of innovation research in the last 60 years: review and future trends in the field of business through the citations and co-citations analysis. Scientometrics 115, 1329–1363 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2709-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2709-7
Keywords
- Bibliometrics
- Innovation
- Social network analysis
- Systematic literature review
- Co-citation analysis
- Citation analysis