Bibliometric approaches for tracing knowledge flows

Despite the growing interest in the study of knowledge flows, researchers often face the problem of insufficient data. Most previous studies in the sociology of science relied on qualitative data such as interviews or shadowing of scholars resulting in small case numbers. These methods are time-consuming in terms of data acquisition and data analysis. This shortcoming in data collection on knowledge flows was addressed in this thesis by investigating what traces knowledge flows leave in bibliometric data and developing methods to track them. Bibliometric data enable to identify the participants in knowledge flow processes, the channels through which knowledge flows and the content of the knowledge that flows. The typology used in this thesis is based on the distinction between formal knowledge, informal knowledge and tacit knowledge. Furthermore, the analytical framework distinguishes between an impersonal and an interpersonal mode of knowledge flow. The cumulative contributions in this dissertation are based on the assumption that whenever scientists interact, different types of knowledge flow. A particular focus is placed on the copresence and collaboration of internationally mobile scientists and the research groups in which they are embedded. The proposed methods therefore only consider the interpersonal mode of knowledge flows, as the interest of this thesis is on the knowledge flows associated with international mobility, and collaboration is a prerequisite for the development of the methods. The methods proposed in this thesis can identify the participants in the knowledge flow process, which are referred to as knowledge sources and knowledge recipients. Internationally mobile scientists represent a special type of participant in the identification of knowledge flows, as they act as transmitters of knowledge between the host research group abroad and the research group at home. The developed methods reconstruct the channels of knowledge flows by using co-authorship as an indicator of collaboration and the associated flow of knowledge. The proposed methods rely on citations as a further channel for knowledge flows and on lexical terms in abstracts of publications, which make it possible to operationalise the content of knowledge flows to a certain extent. The results suggest that it is basically possible to capture knowledge flows using bibliometric methods and that different types of knowledge and different modes of flow require different operationalisations. Furthermore, the bibliometric methods developed allow for large-scale analyses of knowledge flows that would not be possible with qualitative methods. The approaches presented in this thesis have the potential to track knowledge flows in contexts other than international mobility.