Exploring the limits of tourism research collaboration: a social network analysis of co-authorship patterns in Australian and New Zealand tourism research

Abstract

Research output in the tourism field has grown enormously in the last decade and this growth has led to the establishment of new networks of researchers collaborating on a variety of projects. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new approach to the study of collaboration in the tourism field by using bibliometrics and social network analysis to examine co-authorship patterns in Australia and New Zealand. A sample of 1,192 papers published by Australian and New Zealand authors between 1999 and 2005 are used to examine co-authorship networks, cross-institutional collaboration and international collaboration. The findings indicate that like other fields, tourism has experienced steady growth in co-authored publications. The network analysis indicates that the network of Australian and New Zealand authors is quite dispersed. A range of network metrics are presented to identify the most productive and collaborative authors and institutions and the implications of these measures are explored. The relationship between productivity, citations and collaboration is also discussed.