Page 74 - Global Project Management Handbook

THE FUTURE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT 3-9

Network Comparison. In coword-analysis studies, several subnetworks (clusters)
can be constructed concurrently, even though each network changes over time. To
detect the difference among subnetworks simultaneously or subnetworks at different
times has been a long-standing research issue. The transformation of networks and their
intersections with other networks across time periods provides insights into theme
emergence. The similarity of networks in different time periods also has been studied
by Coulter et al. (1998). In this study, the authors employ the similarity index (SI), which
comes from Callon’s dissimilarity (or transformation) index (T) (Callon et al., 1991).
Index of Influence and Provenance. Another comparative analysis is done by
Law and Whittaker (1992) to highlight the overlap between themes on similar subjects
in succeeding time periods. Two indexes, the index of influence (I ) and the index of
provenance (P), are employed to measure the degree of continuity between themes in
generations. The index [I.ij] shows the proportion of the words within a theme in one
generation attached to any given theme in the next generation. A high [I.ij] means that
the “influence” of a first-generation theme on one of the second-generation themes is
high. The [P.ij] index shows the proportion of words within a second-generation
theme that come from any given theme in the preceding generation. A high [P.ij]
means that the “provenance” of a second-generation theme primarily lies in a single
theme of the first generation.

Some Key Issues in Coword Analysis. The maps obtained by coword analysis gen-
erally are considered very difficult to understand in isolation. They have to be inter-
preted with caution. It is suggested that the interpretation must be active and based on
the comparison of maps (Callon et al., 1986a). Given that the goal of coword analysis
is not just to photograph a field of knowledge but to reveal the strategies by which
actors mutually define one another, Callon et al. (1991) suggest that the maps cannot
be considered in statistical isolation; they must be interpreted dynamically.
The choice of the words (keywords, descriptors) is another issue to be considered
carefully and has led to many discussions (Leydesdorff, 1997; Whittaker, 1989). A litera-
ture review shows that the words used in coword analysis are expanding from keywords
in a lexicon to words in the full text (Bauin, 1986; Callon et al., 1991; Rotto and Morgan,
1997; Kostoff et al., 1997). The “normalization” of words must be considered as well
(e.g., many words for which British and American spellings differ have been standardized
to the American spelling by the Institute for Scientific Information when they are put into
the citation-index databases). This has been addressed in several studies (Turner et al.,

1988; Courtial et al., 1993; Nederhof and van Wijk, 1997).
Questions of meaning or change of word meaning at different levels (e.g., during a
period of time or from one author to another) also are addressed (Leydesdorff, 1997,
1998). Words are not used as linguistic items to mean something in coword analysis but
are used as indicators of links between texts, whatever they mean. They are chain indexes,
allowing one to compute translation networks. What is important for coword analysis is
not the exact meaning or definition of a word but the fact that this word is linked to word
x in one case and word y in another case (Courtial, 1998).

Research Process

Figure 3.3 describes the research process. Three key aspects of this process are (1) the
use of the keywords project management and program management to extract from the
ABI Inform database the articles we wish to analyse as reflecting the project manage-
ment scientific field, (2) the combination of different glossaries (Max Wideman,
PMBoK Guide, IPMA Competence Baseline, OPM3 TM , PRINCE2 TM , and P2M) to