The Empirical Study of Knowledge Diffusion Based on Citation Networks

This paper investigates the influence of various knowledge roles on knowledge diffusion empirically. Exponential random graph models (ERGM) are constructed, which provides a novel perspective for examining the factors that influence knowledge diffusion. Our empirical findings reveal that the endogenous structural effects of the network have a significant impact on the formation of diffusion relationships in citation networks and that there is a correlation between the number of the three knowledge roles -contributors, seekers and brokers - and the likelihood of citation relationship formation in citation networks.