Abstract

Based on the articles published in three top journals in the field of information systems (MISQ, ISR and JMIS) from 1993 to 2012, we conduct a research of the structure, characteristics and development trend of co-authorship network through scientometrics and social network analysis approaches. We gain a number of insights after synthetical analysis. In the last two decades the whole co-authorship network density in information systems faces a tendency of decrease. The co-authorship network presents properties of “small world”. The number of articles published by scholars and institutions in the three elite journals all display a ‘long tail’ phenomenon. The field of information systems has a stable development in the biggest component, and has not yet went into a mature and steady stage. Quite a lot of outstanding scholars and educational resources came from USA, Canada and Hong Kong, and USA has held eight institutions of the top ten. The ranking of an entire institution can be influenced by even one or two authors, indicating that outcome from one level might propagate to the next level.

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