Authorship structures and collaboration networks in tourism journals

Abstract

This study examines structures of authorship and author collaborative networks across the tourism scholarly domain. To this end, the informal social structure of tourism knowledge was analyzed using data from 12,896 articles published in 13 leading tourism journals. The results show that collaborations typically consist of dual authorships. It is also noted that there are relatively few international collaborations. Based on the identified co-authorship networks, it was found that the informal social structure of the tourism knowledge domain is broad in scope, has a diversity of actors, and is characterized by a powerful elite group. The present researchers have ranked the contributors according to centralities of degree and of betweenness and the formulation of cliques consisting of ten or more authors. The paper draws upon the analysis of networks to propose potential opportunities for future research.