Chapter 6 The Duality of Knowledge Networks: The Impact of Production and Usage Networks on Academic Citations

This chapter offers a complementary view to the “quality of knowledge” perspective whereby citations to academic articles are a result of efficient market processes. The chapter suggests that any academic research can be seen through the prism of two types of knowledge networks – production and usage. Author(s) of papers are located in these two networks and their absolute and relative position in these networks can help the diffusion of the focal research. The hypotheses are tested on a dataset of 1,085 papers published in the top five management journals between 1993 and 1997. Results suggest that controlling for attributes of a paper, the position occupied by author(s) in the usage networks and production networks contributes substantially to future citations received by a paper in these five journals. However, under conditions of extreme prominence in the usage network, increases in prominence in the production network dampen increase in future citations. Similarly under conditions of extreme prominence in the production network, increases in prominence in the usage network dampen increase in future citations. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of knowledge creation, dissemination, and recognition efforts of authors.