The roots of social informatics through tri-citation analysis of Rob Kling's oeuvre

Abstract

We build on an earlier analysis of the academic career of Rob Kling, the founder of the field of social informatics (SI) (Cronin & Shaw, 2007), through a two-time-period author tri-citation analysis. The two time periods-1972-1995 and 1996-2008-represent distinct parts of Rob Kling's career. Our analysis of Kling's career and influence through the lens of tri-citation analysis allows for the understanding of SI's roots and evolution. In particular we show how early SI concepts evolved and grew in influence as they moved beyond the fields of management information systems (MIS) and organizational research where the concepts were initially established.