Exploring the direction and diversity of interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion: A case study of professor Zeyuan Liu's scientific publications

Bei Zeng, Haihua Lyu, Zhenyue Zhao and Jiang Li ()
Additional contact information
Bei Zeng: Nanjing University
Haihua Lyu: Nanjing University
Zhenyue Zhao: Nanjing University
Jiang Li: Nanjing University

Scientometrics, 2021, vol. 126, issue 7, No 43, 6253-6272

Abstract: Abstract Inspired by the concept of “potential energy” in physics, we propose a new indicator to measure the “direction” of interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion named “disciplinary potential energy” (DPE). We also used the Shannon entropy to measure the “diversity” of interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion. In memory of Professor Zeyuan Liu, a pioneer in the field of science of science (SoS) in China, we measured the direction and diversity of his interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion, based on his 371 publications and subsequent citations in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database, and 236 journal articles and subsequent citations in the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) database, respectively. The findings are (1) the newly proposed indicator that has advantages over previous interdisciplinary indicators characterizing the relative location of each discipline in the knowledge flow, through both direct and indirect citations; (2) particular importance was attached to Liu's contributions to management science (focusing on SoS) and philosophy (focusing on philosophy of science and technology) because of the “reverse-flow” of his knowledge from “net-inflow” disciplines to “net-outflow” disciplines, although his contributions covered at least four disciplines, namely management science, economics (focusing on technical economics), philosophy, and engineering; and (3) Liu's research has had ever-increasing influence on management science over the past decade, while his interdisciplinary citation influence decreased in economics, philosophy and engineering. This study not only demonstrates how extensive Liu's knowledge contributions have been to Chinese academia. We also shed light on the methodology to measure interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary knowledge diffusion; Disciplinary potential energy; Citation analysis; Knowledge flow; Mapping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-021-03886-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:7:d:10.1007_s11192-021-03886-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-03886-2

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().