The Intellectual Structure of Empirical Network Research in Public Administration

The rapid growth of network research in public administration calls for a systematic review of existing network scholarship. We performed bibliometric analysis and content analysis to identify the research that has had impact on empirical network research in public administration. We examined the key theoretical foundations of existing network research with a focus on empirical network articles that used social network analysis in their methods. We examined the evolution of network scholarship in public administration, identified key network concepts, and analyzed the research clusters. We further identified research gaps in existing empirical network literature and proposed some ideas or topics for future research.