L’articolo analizza la struttura intellettuale del fi lone di ricerca sulle Public Private Partnership (PPP)attraverso l’impiego di strumenti bibliometrici. L’analisi si sviluppa a partire da un database di pubblicazioni estratte dal Social Science Citation Index nel periodo temporale 1990-2007. L’analisi delle citazioni e delle co-citazioni consente: (i) di defi nire gli autori e i lavori maggiormente citati nel panorama delle PPP; (ii) di individuare i cluster che costituiscono l’attuale struttura intellettuale del fi lone di analisi; (ii) di determinare le relazioni e i legami concettuali tra i diversi cluster, evi-denziando gli autori maggiormente infl uenti; (iv) di visualizzare grafi camente tramite una mappa bidimensionale le “distanze concettuali” tra singoli autori/cluster del fi lone di ricerca sulle PPP.
This paper investigates the intellectual structure of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) fi eld through bibliometric analysis. By using authors as units of analysis and incorporating all the citations that are included in the Social Science Citation Index, the intellectual roots of the PPPs research during the period 1990–2007 are drawn. The use of a co-citation analysis enabled to (1) delineate the subfi elds that constitute the intellectual structure of the fi eld; (2) determine the relationships between the subfi elds; (3) identify authors who play a pivotal role in bridging two or more conceptual domains of research; and (4) graphically map the intellectual structure in a bidimensional space in order to visualize spatial distances between intellectual themes.
This paper investigates the intellectual structure of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) fi eld through bibliometric analysis. By using authors as units of analysis and incorporating all the citations that are included in the Social Science Citation Index, the intellectual roots of the PPPs research during the period 1990–2007 are drawn. The use of a co-citation analysis enabled to (1) delineate the subfi elds that constitute the intellectual structure of the fi eld; (2) determine the relationships between the subfi elds; (3) identify authors who play a pivotal role in bridging two or more conceptual domains of research; and (4) graphically map the intellectual structure in a bidimensional space in order to visualize spatial distances between intellectual themes.
