Page 195 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

194 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol. 7, 2015

with Anthropology, and its follow-up study, document 374, was published in 2002. However, the
study of the structural holes theory is not active in Anthropology. Referring to these two literatures,
it can be seen that Burt used some theories of Social Anthropology to expand and enrich the theory
of structural holes.
4) Vertex 385, published by Burt in 2000,receives the second largest traversal weight. This
literature comprehensively summarized the previous studies conducted by Burt, and took an in-
depth study in social capital using structural holes theory. It is the pilot study of the rapid spread of
the structural holes theory in the field of Business & Economics.
5) In the field of Business & Economics, two documents 379 and 349 play a pivotal role. Both
of them studied enterprise innovation. Literature 379 was published in 2000, and followed the
study by Burt and Walker in Sociology and Business & Economics on structural holes theory. It
has been cited by Business & Economics literatures, including literature 349. But the paper plays
a primary role in only one stage in the diffusion main path, and its position is then replaced by
literature 349 published in 2005. With the arrival of take-off stage of innovation diffusion in 2007,
literature 349 was widely cited and inspired literature 223 which had an important influence on the
field in recent years.
6) Operations Research & Management Science (Document 347), Mathematics (Document
323), and Document 319 from Psychology, adopted the theory of structural holes because of the
direct influence by literature 354 published by Burt in 2004. The document has the third largest
traversal weight (0.363 0). It is a comprehensive synthesis of his previous studies, which is a
study of how brokerage contributed to the operating mechanism of the social capital formation.
Obviously, the solution and improvement of the key issues will motivate more areas adopt the
innovation.
7) The Interdisciplinary studies applying the structural holes theory in Psychology and Business
& Economics stated by document 319 in 2007, and then followed by literature 172. They all study
on the organizational performance, and their references about the structural holes theory cite more
from Business & Economics rather than Sociology. This phenomenon indicates that the diffusion
of the innovation in one field will produce a re-innovation, which may effectively promote further
spread of the innovation, and increase the diffusion breadth.
8) In 2013, Document 42 introduced structural holes theory into Physics. Literature 42, 17
(Public Administration) and 3 (Computer Science and LIS) were published in the same year,
and they all cited the literature 117, which was also included in the main path component. The
document 117 belongs to the field of Sociology, and studied on the brokerage, which is an
important issue of structural holes theory. Document 42 provided some new analytical methods to
deal with the problems in the study of social capital. Document 17 studied the social networks of
inventors. Document 3 studied the journal impact using the citation network. It can be seen that
theory studies provide theoretical support for the study of methods and applications.