Identifying Knowledge Structures in Construction Innovation Research Using the Mapping Knowledge Domain Method

Prior literature reviews on construction innovation always adopt the conventional qualitative method to investigate knowledge structure, critical points of current knowledge and substantive findings, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions. The Mapping Knowledge Domain is the latest development of a generic quantitative and objective approach to detect and visualize emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature. The paper adopts co-keyword analysis, co-citation document analysis and co-citation journal analysis of the Mapping Knowledge Domain to identify the frontiers and evolutionary trend of construction innovation. Relevant data are fetched from 16 primary journals on construction engineering management during 2000 to 2013 and are processed by CiteSpaceIII software. The paper reveals the topics during each period and knowledge structure of construction innovation domain and visualizes the relationships between different topics by co-word analysis. Key journals that greatly contribute to the evolution of discipline are identified by the co-citation journal analysis. Finally, the emerging trends and transient patterns of construction innovation are pointed out.