The most influential researchers in information behaviour. An integrative view on influence indicators
| Published date | 20 March 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-01-2017-0027 |
| Date | 20 March 2017 |
| Pages | 215-229 |
| Author | Faramarz Soheili,Ali Akbar Khasseh,Afshin Mousavi-Chelak |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
The most influential researchers
in information behaviour
An integrative view on influence indicators
Faramarz Soheili, Ali Akbar Khasseh and Afshin Mousavi-Chelak
Department of Library and Information Science,
Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to identify the top researchers in information behaviour (IB) based on
ideational and social influence indicators.
Design/methodology/approach –The population included papers on IB indexed in the Web of Science
from 1980 to 2015. UCINET and Bibexcel were the tools used for measuring the ideational and social influence
indicators. The correlations among the study variables were measured by applying SPSS and LISREL.
Findings –There was a significant relationship between IB researchers’productivity and performance, and
between ideationalinfluence and social influence.The structural equation modellingshowed that a researcher
with top placementin his/her co-authorship networkcan gain higher ideational influence.In total, it seems that
the singleand traditional criteria areincreasingly replacing new andintegrative ones in measuringresearchers’
scientific influence in fields including IB studies. Resultshave shown that based on total scoresof the studied
indicators,Spink, A., Nicholas,D., Ford, N., Huntington, P.,Wilson, T.D., and Jamali,H.R. gained the high scores.
Originality/value –The current study used an integrative method based on influence indicators to identify
the influential researchers in IB studies. None of the few studies done using bibliometric methods in the realm
of IB has investigated the ideational and social influence indicators altogether.
Keywords Bibliometrics, Social influence, Co-authorship, H-family indices, Ideational influence,
Information behaviour
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
As information and communication technologies develop increasingly and new procedures
and instruments are used for searching information, human information behaviour and
information needs change, too. Investigating the different aspects of Information Behaviour
(IB) has been one of the main research concerns in information science. According to Wilson
(1999), IB research is a “general term for a series of nested fields, including the sub-field of
information seeking behaviour, which is particularly concerned with the variety of methods
people employ to discover and gain access to information resources”(González-Teruel et al.,
2015). As a broader term, IB includes other aspects such as information need, information
seeking behaviour, information searching behaviour, and information use behaviour
(Wilson, 2013).
Research on IB dates back to more than half a century. Different theories have been
propounded, and many papers have been published in the field. As a result, IB is considered
one of the main subject categories in the field of library and information science, as
highlighted in some research (e.g. Sugimoto et al., 2011). For this, Fisher and Julien (2009)
concluded that research on IB is developing increasingly.
Considering the above-mentioned points and gradual development of IB studies, it is
needed to depict a comprehensive and inclusive picture of the ideational and social influence
of top researchers in the field. The use of the notion of “influence”for evaluating research
output has the advantage of having powerful theoretical foundations and supportive
indicators (Egghe, 2006; Hirsch, 2005; Cuellar et al., 2016). Cuellar et al. (2016) identified the
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 69 No. 2, 2017
pp. 215-229
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-01-2017-0027
Received 18 January 2017
Revised 31 March 2017
Accepted 2 April 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
This research was funded by the Payame Noor University (PNU).
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The most
influential
researchers
in IB
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