Computational and Visual Analysis of the Development Stage of Theories in the Social Sciences: A Case in the Entrepreneurship Field

The aim of this article is to develop a method combining calculation, visualization and intuitive analysis, which will help social scientists to study the history of a theory in a particular discipline. Considering that the typical type of knowledge-domain map is too complicated and cumbersome for social scientists who possess little knowledge about scientometrics, a new and simplified 3D knowledge- mapping method is designed and illustrated using examples from the entrepreneurship field. The major difference between the orthodox knowledge mapping method and the method we introduce is that co-citation network is not marked, but only co-citation analysis results. Using an alternative method, our map shows the three prominent researchers in the entrepreneurship field as well as three stages: the first from approximately 1920 to 1960, the second from 1960 to 2000, and the third beginning in 2000.