Reviewing the Literature on Social Media in Organizational Management: A Bibliometric Study Based on Network Analysis

Purpose: The increasing popularity of social media in the past decade has led many researchers to investigate its implications for organizations, creating a significant body of knowledge in the literature. This literature review aims to capture the extant knowledge map and chart the leadership and social network in social media articles published in major business and management journals, thereby helping future stakeholders (e.g., researchers, practitioners, governments) seek for collaboration opportunities and improve their research plans.
Design/methodology/approach: This study combines quantitative techniques with qualitative analyses. Firstly, this study applies social-network-based bibliometric analysis to map the social network and chart the leading authors, institutions, and regions in social media research. Secondly, this study deploys a cocitation-based clustering analysis and citation-based PageRank analysis to identify major research clusters and their representative articles. Thirdly, by conducting a content analysis for clusters’ articles, cluster themes and alternative research directions are developed.
Findings: This study charts the leadership and maps the social network in the literature of social media. Moreover, it identifies seven research clusters and their research themes, and employ such cluster findings to come up with three alternative directions for future research.
Originality/Value: Firstly, insights on the leadership and the social network among the major social media publications facilitate future stakeholders to collaborate and exchange knowledge. Secondly, the knowledge map and cluster themes identified help stakeholders keep abreast of the latest developments in social media research and formulate better research plans. Thirdly, this study covers a board range of disciplines within the context of business and management, contributing to understanding the multi-discipline nature of social media research.