RESEARCH ARTICLE - Am MIT spezialisierte KI-Forschung

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Citation concept analysis (CCA) of Robert K.
Merton’s book Social Theory and Social Structure:
How often are certain concepts from the book
cited in subsequent publications?

Keine offenen Zugänge

Tagebuch

Charles Crothers1

, Lutz Bornmann2

, and Robin Haunschild3

1School of Social Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Neuseeland
2Division for Science and Innovation Studies, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society, Hofgartenstraße 8,
80539 München, Deutschland
3Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Heisenbergstraße 1, 70569 Stuttgart, Deutschland

Schlüsselwörter: bibliometrics, citation concept analysis, citation content analysis, concept, MSA, Robert
K. Merton, Soziologie

ABSTRAKT

Citations can be used in evaluative bibliometrics to measure the impact of papers. Jedoch,
citation analysis can be extended by considering a multidimensional perspective on citation
impact which is intended to receive more specific information about the kind of received
impact. Bornmann, Wray, and Haunschild (2020) introduced the citation concept analysis
(CCA) for capturing the importance and usefulness certain concepts (explained in publications)
have in subsequent research. In diesem Papier, we apply the method by investigating the impact
various concepts introduced in Robert K. Merton’s book Social Theory and Social Structure has
hatte. This book was to lay down a manifesto for sociological analysis in the immediate postwar
Zeitraum, and retains a major impact 70 years later. We found that the most cited concepts are
“self-fulfilling” and “role” (um 20% of the citation contexts are related to one of these
concepts). The concept “self-fulfilling” seems to be important especially in computer sciences
and psychology. For “role,” this seems to be additionally the case for political sciences.
These and further results of the study could demonstrate the high explanatory power of the
CCA method.

EINFÜHRUNG

Traditional citation analyses simply count how often a paper is cited in later citing publica-
tionen. Daher, in traditional citation analyses each citation is counted equally (with a weight of
1). This equally counting approach is based on the premise of the normative theory of citing
that publications are cited to appreciate the contribution of the cited author (or his or her pa-
pro) to research (Merton, 1973). Jedoch, overviews of studies investigating the citation pro-
cess reveal that publications are cited because of many reasons and fulfilling many functions
(Tahamtan, Safipour Afshar, & Ahamdzadeh, 2016). Zum Beispiel, certain reputable authors
can be cited to persuade the reader of a citing document that those authors may confirm
the ideas, concepts, and results in the citing document. The approach of assuming many rea-
sons and functions in the citation process is rooted in the social-constructivist theory of cita-
tionen. It questions the equally counting approach in citation analyses.

Zitat: Crothers, C., Bornmann, L., &
Haunschild, R. (2020). Citation concept
Analyse (CCA) of Robert K. Merton’s
book Social Theory and Social
Structure: How often are certain
concepts from the book cited in
subsequent publications? Quantitative
Science Studies. 1(2), 675–690. https://
doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00029

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00029

Erhalten: 13 September 2019
Akzeptiert: 12 Januar 2020

Korrespondierender Autor:
Charles Crothers
charles.crothers@aut.ac.nz

Handling-Editor:
Ludo Waltman

Urheberrechte ©: © 2020 Charles Crothers,
Lutz Bornmann, and Robin Haunschild.
Veröffentlicht unter Creative Commons
Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Lizenz.

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In the past, many different approaches have been proposed to advance traditional citation
Analysen. Many of these approaches can be subsumed under the headings “citation context”
and “citation content” studies. For citation context studies, the texts around the citations in a
document are analyzed. This approach of studying the citation process can be used—among
other things—to study whether the author of the document is giving credit or is citing for rhe-
torical reasons. Zusätzlich, it can be inspected in which sections most of the citations appear
and how often certain publications are cited in the document. With the other approach—
citation content analysis (which is used in this study)—the content of the text around a citation
is analyzed to characterize the cited document. Mit anderen Worten, one investigates the publica-
tions citing a certain document to learn about the content of the cited document. If one is
interested in learning about the concepts proposed in a focal document and cited (gebraucht) In
various citing publications, Bornmann, Wray, and Haunschild (2020) name this citation con-
tent analysis approach “citation concept analysis” (CCA).

Concepts might refer to ground-breaking ideas, theories, explanations, mechanisms, usw.
published in a citable document. The concepts must have unambiguous labels to be clearly
identifiable in CCAs. Bornmann et al. (2020) introduced the CCA method based on analyses of
classic books by Kuhn (1962) and Popper (1934, 1959, 1962). Both researchers have proposed
various ground-breaking concepts (z.B., “paradigm,” “scientific revolution,” and “falsifica-
tion”). Bornmann et al. (2020) studied what the impact of the various concepts was and
how the impact differs depending on the fields and publication years of the citing papers.
The authors used an approach proposed by Small (2018) and Small, Boyack, and Klavans
(2019) to additionally measure uncertainty associated with concepts based on the presence
or not of hedging words (z.B., “may”).

In this study, we follow the approach of Bornmann et al. (2020), undertaking a CCA of
another classic book in social sciences: Social Theory and Social Structure (ST&SS) von
Robert K. Merton (RKM) (Merton, 1968). This book was to lay down a manifesto for socio-
logical analysis in the immediate postwar period, and retains a major impact seventy years
später. We were interested in the influential concepts in the book (z.B., “self-fulfilling” or
“anomie”) which are cited in subsequent publications and how often these concepts are
cited.

2. CITATION CONTENT ANALYSES—A SHORT LITERATURE OVERVIEW

The CCA introduced by Bornmann et al. (2020) has been developed based on some precursor
studies investigating the influence of authors, single publications, or other entities on citing
publications. These citation content analyses investigated the context of citations in citing pub-
lications to characterize the cited author, Veröffentlichung, usw. Since these analyses were time con-
suming (the analyses were mostly done manually), the number of available studies is relatively
small. The studies are described rather briefly in the following, since more detailed summaries
of the papers can be found in the recent literature overview published by Tahamtan and
Bornmann (2019).

One of the first citation content studies is Anderson (2006). Hier, the influence of Karl
Weick’s book The Social Psychology of Organizing on its citing publications is investigated.
The set of citing publications was restricted to journals in organization studies (z.B., Die
Academy of Management Review). The most frequently cited concepts from the book were
“enactment,” “equivocality,” and “refutational.” Anderson (2006) also found that the concepts
are differently cited in US-based journals than in European-based journals:

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Erste, while Organizing [The Social Psychology of Organizing] has been highly cited in jour-
nals from both regions, there appear to be substantial differences in terms of the specific
content it has been cited for. The finding that OS [the journal Organization Studies] authors
cite the difference between “organizing” versus “organization” much more frequently than
do the American journal authors supports the contention that European scholars are more
concerned about process and interpretive perspectives than their North American counter-
Teile (P. 1686).

In a later study, the same author (in collaboration with a coauthor) investigated the impact
that a highly cited paper ( James P. Walsh’s and Gerardo Rivera Ungson’s paper “Organizational
memory”) in the field of organizational memory received (Anderson & Sun, 2010). This paper
consolidated various existing directions of thinking about organizational memory. The authors
found that the paper was mainly cited from “management discipline” and the area of “infor-
mation technology.” The paper has been cited for “one of four reasons: (1) for their notion of
six organizational memory ‘storage bins’, (2) for a general reference to organizational memory,
(3) for the issue of the use, misuse, and abuse of organizational memory, Und (4) for their def-
inition of organizational memory” (Anderson & Sun, 2010, P. 142).

McCain and Salvucci (2006) focused in their citation content study on the publications cit-
ing Frederick P. Brooks’s book The Mythical Man-Month. Essays on Software Engineering.
Useful concepts—especially for areas such as “software engineering” and “computer sci-
ence”—were “project management issues” and “building the system.” In another study,
Danell (2012) analyzed not only the citation content of publications citing one paper, but three
(highly cited) Papiere (in the area of complementary and alternative medicine). The author re-
vealed that many citations came from the Web of Science subject categories “Rehabilitation,”
“Medicine, Allgemein & Internal,” “Orthopedics,” “Integrative & Complementary Medicine,”
“Substance Abuse,” and “Psychology Clinical.” Bornmann, Haunschild, and Hug (2018) com-
pared keywords of citing papers and keywords of cited papers with terms in the citation context
of the citing papers using the impressive oeuvre of Eugene Garfield (EG, who conceptualized
the scientific citation index). The comparison suggests that “papers of EG and citation contexts
of papers citing EG are semantically more closely related to each other than to titles and ab-
stracts of papers citing EG” (P. 427). Chang (2013) did not investigate several publications, Aber
several editions of the same book: de Solla Price’s book Little Science, Big Science and
Beyond—a classic book in scientometrics. The analysis of the content surrounding citation
anchors shows that the book is most frequently cited for three concepts: “science growth
patterns,” “scientific communication,” and “scientific productivity.”

As the study by Sieweke (2014) reveals, not only single publications can be the basis for
citation content studies, but also the oeuvre of a certain researcher. The author studied the
impact of the well-known French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu on citing papers from leading
journals in management and organization studies. Sieweke (2014) identified as most influen-
tial concepts “capital,” “habitus,” and “field,” whereby within the “capital” concept “social
capital” seems to be most important. Liu, Ding, et al. (2015) conducted a citation content anal-
ysis of Nobel Prize laureate John O’Keefe’s work about the discovery of cell placement.
Frequent terms in citing sentences were “cell placement,” “hippocampus,” and “environ-
ment.” In the most recent study, Gonzalez-Teruel and Abad-Garcia (2018) analyzed the im-
pact of Elfreda Chatman’s theories (“information poverty theory,” “life in the round theory,”
and “normative behavior theory”) on citing papers. The results show that the theories were
most important in “social sciences,” “computer science,” and “medicine” (but not in “arts
and humanities”).

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3. ROBERT K. MERTON’S SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE

In the late 1940s, Columbia professor RKM, then in his late 30s, assembled much of his then
published material into ST&SS. At that stage his oeuvre included “a masterful dissertation that
became a foundation work in the sociology of science, ein zusätzliches 15 well-received articles
and book-chapters, Plus 50 or so book reviews” (Sica, 1998, P. 113).

ST&SS was first published in 1949, with subsequent editions in 1957 Und 1968. Each edi-

tion retains a four part structure:

(cid:129) on theoretical sociology (on relations between theory and research, und funktional

Analyse),

(cid:129) studies in social and cultural structure (anomie, bureaucracy, and reference groups),
(cid:129) sociology of knowledge and mass communications, Und
(cid:129) sociology of science.

Der 1957 “revised” edition includes four extra essays (two of which are “continuities” that
attempt to update analyses included in the first edition), which expand its volume by one third,
and it also incorporates some revisions. Der 1968 “expanded” edition differs from its prede-
cessor only in a considerable expansion of its introduction into two chapters, with the whole
Teil 1 “on theoretical sociology” being published separately in 1967. The first edition was
subtitled “towards the codification of theory and research,” but this was dropped for later
editions.

Seen more analytically, ST&SS is a tri-partite book:

(cid:129) methodologically, it sketches a program about how sociology might best advance;
(cid:129) theoretically, it provides a theoretical orientation and also a wealth of concepts that can

be used in sociological explanations; Und

(cid:129) substantively, it provides a glittering array of particular insights and specific studies that

illuminate approach and concepts.

Each of the three editions emphasizes one or other of these three major contributions. Der
first edition indicates the approach and the theoretical orientation, but places greatest weight
on substantive applications. The second broadens considerably the theoretical apparatus. Der
third revisits the broader methodological or metatheoretical concerns.

Since most of the chapters in ST&SS were published previously, we considered not only
ST&SS in this study but also the following previous publications: “social structure and ano-
mie,” “the self-fulfilling prophecy,” “bureaucratic structure and personality,” “science and
the social order,” “role of the intellectual in public bureaucracy,” “the bearing of empirical
research upon the development of social theory,” and “the machine, the worker, and the en-
gineer.” However, the key essay in ST&SS on functional analysis was not previously pub-
lished. Außerdem, considerable fresh editorial material was included in the book, nicht
only in the introduction but also as introductions to each of the four parts. Later editions in-
cluded more material that was previously unpublished: the two long essays on “continuities.”
Some of the writing (z.B., the essays on the “self-fulfilling prophecy” and the “machine, Die
worker, and the engineer) was aimed at a lay audience (Merton, 1949, P. 120). Coauthors
of chapters include Paul Lazarsfeld (on media research) and Alice Rossi (on reference group
theory; Merton, 1957). Interessant, the chapters tend to be included from newest to oldest.

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Not all of his previously published material was included. The most surprising omission is his
essay on the “unanticipated consequences of purposive action” (Merton, 1936) which would
have strengthened the theoretical core of the book. The exclusion of this essay is likely related
to the shift in sociological thinking in this period away from the interests in the social psychology
of “social action,” which had been more influential over the previous decade, to a more systems-
interest in functional analysis in which the place of social psychology was more problematic.

ST&SS famously begins with a masthead quotation culled from scattered (and unidentified)
pages from Whitehead’s (1917) “the organisation of thought” which leads to discussion in
which RKM steers a complex path between natural sciences and humanities.

Although the introduction eschews the task of integrating the book as a whole, the introduc-
tion to each part spells out the connections that its material has to the remainder of the book.

On page 11, Merton (1949) brings in the main character in his plot. The main thrust of
ST&SS undoubtedly was seen by RKM as an enunciation of a program of work to extend func-
tional analysis. This task is seen as being as much methodological as theoretical, thus sitting
easily alongside the two clearly methodological essays in ST&SS, which address the mutual
interrelations of theory and research.

While RKM argues for a structural-and-functional analysis approach to understanding cul-
tural and social structures, this approach is extended in the book by a more thorough structural
treatment and the deployment of a considerable array of social structural concepts, welche sind
offered to his sociological colleagues to invite further conceptual development and empirical
exploration. Endlich, in the substantive material gathered in the book, RKM draws attention to
the sociological need to study the various institutions and social forms of modern societies,
including bureaucrats, Wissenschaftler, and social science experts.

RKM tended to eschew the classic “research report” format for his papers and he admits that
his book is a compilation of essays, yet is “reluctant to believe that the book lacks altogether the
logical, and not merely literary, graces of coherence, unity and emphasis” (Merton, 1949, P. 3).

Although in this period it was not always easy to get sociological books published, RKM (Und
some other sociologists) had the active interest of Jeremy Kaplan, who had recently founded the
Free Press and was keen to purvey sociological books (Lipset, 1993). Not that this was a straight-
forward offer: Kaplan needed RKM’s work more than RKM needed him. Indeed to help launch
Kaplan’s enterprise ST&SS was published on faith and a prayer, and with no hard promise of
royalties.”… Merton, whose book sold well over 100,000 copies, never received more than
A 10 percent royalty” (Lipset, 1993, P. 7). The title is evocative, with a catchy symmetry: zwei
two-word terms/phrases, “social theory” and “social structure” are joined together, and with
repetition of “social.” The title broadly indicates RKM’s concern with an approach and a subject
matter. His purpose is further indicated by the subtitle.

Translations were not mere carbon copies of the American original, but several differed in
content. Sztompka (1996) notes that “for many of the multiple foreign translations of STSS,
RKM adduces special introductions which relate to the sociological tradition of the given coun-
try” (P. 265). In der Tat, some of the later translations have given rise to more debate than earlier
versions—such as the review symposium on the German edition in the Berliner Journal für
Soziologie (aus 1996), which included the point, derived from RKM’s own middle-range doc-
trine of the transitoriness of theories, that the translation was decades late.

The range of published reviews of the original texts is limited, at least as far as mainstream
sociology journals are concerned. No review of the original volume appeared in either the
American Journal of Sociology or the American Sociological Review, although Social Forces

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and the British Journal of Sociology reviewed the first edition and the American Sociological
Review reviewed both the second and third editions. The book was clearly welcomed in these
Bewertungen, with fervor rising over time: But some critical comments are also included.

Nor are RKM’s own comments on his work much help. When ST&SS was declared a citation
classic, Merton (1980) merely enumerated some of the areas of work it contains—reference
groups; local and cosmopolitan influentials; the self-fulfilling prophecy; unanticipated conse-
quences; the paradigm of the sociology of knowledge; and sociology of science—without
reference to any underlying theme.

In a chapter on RKM’s work, Sica (1998) provides an argument that the material in ST&SS
tends to sound dated and reflects rather an earlier era where social life was more ordered and
with less social change, although it would be reasonable to suggest that the prose retains a
considerable freshness and does not read as a fusty classic.

These reactions can be extended through citation studies. ST&SS has been recorded as one
of the most cited sociological books of all times. Darüber hinaus, what is particularly interesting
about its pattern of use is that it has been taken up not merely by sociologists, and more
broadly social scientists, but also by humanists and natural scientists. RKM has received
39,000 citations in those social science journals covered by the Social Science Citation
Index (SSCI) Und 35,000 (obviously overlapping) in natural science journals, as measured
by the Science Citation Index (SCI). Of these, 12,000 (30%) of those in the SSCI are to
ST&SS. As Clark, Modgil, and Modgil (1990) remark in reflecting on a much earlier biblio-
graphical analysis:

this staggering figure is even more remarkable when it is remembered (A) that the citation
index excludes citations in books (although it does include citations to books) Und (B) es ist
now well established that the vast majority of citations of a paper normally appear in the
first few years immediately after publication. The period under discussion (1969–1989) War
between twenty and forty years after the publication of RKM’s most cited work, ST&SS, Und
between thirty and fifty years after the publication of his celebrated papers on “unanticipated
consequences and anomie” (Clark, Modgil, & Modgil, 1990, P. 23).

At the turn of the century, the International Sociological Association organized a limited
email exercise to nominate the best work of the 20th century (an exercise flawed, Unter anderem,
by the difficulty that many classical authors span the divide to the 19th century). In this “com-
petition,” RKM (and ST&SS) was “voted” as the third most significant author and third most
significant book: especially among men rather than women, and among the older generation
of sociologists. Another indicator of the book’s continuing popularity was its placement at rank
42 among the top 50 sociology bestsellers on the amazon.co.uk website (Oktober 1999)—
even though it was at that time out of stock.

4. METHODEN

4.1. Concepts Used from Social Theory and Social Structure

As noted above ST&SS is a tri-partite book:

(cid:129) methodologically, it sketches a program about how sociology might best advance;
(cid:129) theoretically, it provides a theoretical orientation and also a wealth of concepts that can

be used in sociological explanations; Und

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(cid:129) substantively, it provides a glittering array of particular insights and specific studies that

illuminate approach and concepts.

Given RKM’s broad development of concept-terms it is difficult to pin down a set wide
enough to do justice to his work. After consideration of the texts against a wish-list of key
concepts, a dozen were able to be explored empirically given the limitations of the database
gebraucht. Although it is not unproblematic as an indicator, the number of pages listed alongside
each of the terms in the index of ST&SS was used. Since RKM is usually a careful writer, Dort
is a close fit between his concepts and the terms used to name each, and this close fit is often
signaled in his commentary by use of the combination “concept-term.” Each will be briefly
defined and related to the three-thrust model of STSS. The concepts used in this study are
printed in bold.

Middle-range theory is a key (and a particularly strategic) concept in RKM’s promulgated
sociological methodology program. RKM discusses various meanings and formats that theory
might adopt, with middle-range theories providing the key format. There is much discussion
around these, but a synthetic statement provided by RKM summarizes their intent and also
points to examples:

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Middle-range theory is principally used in sociology to guide empirical inquiry. It is inter-
mediate to general theories of social systems which are too remote from particular classes of
social behavior, organization and change to account for what is observed and to those
detailed orderly descriptions of particulars that are not generalized at all. Middle-range the-
ory involves abstractions, Natürlich, but they are close enough to observed data to be in-
corporated in propositions that permit empirical testing. Middle-range theories deal with
delimited aspects of social phenomena, as is indicated by their labels. One speaks of a
theory of reference groups, of social mobility, or role-conflict and of the formation of social
norms just as one speaks of a theory of prices, a germ theory of disease, or a kinetic theory
of gases (Merton, 1968, P. 39).

A second broad concept was that of an analytical paradigm, which for RKM is a framework
for organizing a field of study: The analytical paradigm consists of several questions or issues
that arise in understanding a field of social phenomena, together with a delineation of the
optional positions that might be taken in relation to these issues. He developed several par-
adigms in STSS and also drew attention to their generic characteristics and methodological
importance. Paradigms can be conceptualized as broad frameworks within which a variety
of—partially competing—middle-range theories can be nested. They might also show patterns
through which middle-range theories might be added to each other to cumulate theory cover-
Alter. It is important to remember that RKM’s notion of paradigm long predates the more famous
and broadly similar subsequent usage of the term by Kuhn (1962).

As argued above, two sets of theoretical conceptions are offered. Funktional (later structural-
functional or even structure-and-functional) theory or analysis is the general theme (concept
functions). Several social scientists from the 1930s had developed a formal approach that sug-
gested that society was best studied by considering the functions that social phenomena ful-
filled for wider social units—particular whole societies. While RKM was an early proponent of
the functional approach he also uncovered its assumptions and charted its limitations. In sum,
he advocated a more complex and sophisticated version, which was open-ended and also
pushed toward empirical analysis rather than reliance on observatorial fiat.

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But STSS also developed the structural aspect of the structure-function pairing. This began
with reference group theory, which postulates that people’s behavior is orientated toward key
stakeholders (sometimes formally sometimes more subjectively). A narrower version of this
involves the conception of reference or role model wherein a person’s behavior is guided
by their orientation to the model. But RKM also built more widely on status-role theory which
held that people occupy social positions within social structures (named as status) und das
they orientate their behaviors toward those in other social positions that face them (welche re-
fers more to the outward-facing aspect of statuses). Zum Beispiel, teachers are related to prin-
cipals/headmasters, other teachers, students, students’ parents, usw. RKM’s work revealed how
complex social structures are and provided an ever-expanded set of concepts as tools for their
Analyse.

In his empirical studies, RKM noted that people (in particular thought leaders) either tended
to be orientated toward outside reference groups (cosmopolitans) or were more embedded in
matrices of local belonging (locals). So he coined the matched/paired concepts of locals and
cosmopolitans to capture these alternative orientations. Since then, more complex interweav-
ings of these two orientations have been suggested.

RKM saw social structures as providing or raising barriers to opportunities. Zum Beispiel,
the chances of upward mobility are shaped by possibilities opened up by the existing social
Struktur. Opportunities also refers (ambivalently) to other positions that people might poten-
tially move to, and/or the resources available to a person in his or her social position.

In their everyday life, people’s actions (which are shaped by their positions) in the social
structure have consequences for themselves in the future and also for other people. RKM
pointed out that some of these consequences are intended and some are unintentional. Der
latter are sociologically more interesting.

Another key line of investigation for RKM was reflexivity. This involves, Zum Beispiel, Wie
people’s beliefs guide their behaviors. But such beliefs may be incorrect, although ironically
this can lead to them becoming self-fulfilling, which generates them as true. Zum Beispiel, A
run on a bank can be generated by an original false belief that that bank is unsound.

RKM’s concept of anomie is broadly derived from one of sociology’s founding fathers,
Emile Durkheim, although he provides a much tighter version. RKM argues that (insbesondere
in changing societies) lack of adequate access to required resources or means to achieve well-
accepted cultural norms (z.B., for upward mobility or monetary success) can structurally induce
those more stressed by the poor linkage of the values they hold and the inadequate resources
at hand for achieving them toward innovation, deviance, and crime. Daher, these alternative
approaches can be used to achieve success in the goals of that society.

4.2. Dataset Used

In this study, we used citation context data from Microsoft Academic (MSA) (Sinha, Shen,
et al., 2015); siehe https://aka.ms/msracad. We searched for the book title: A single database
entry belongs to the different editions of RKM’s book ST&SS. We also searched for previously
published works that introduced the concepts of the book before the book was published:
“social structure and anomie,” “the self-fulfilling prophecy,” “bureaucratic structure and per-
sonality,” “science and the social order,” “role of the intellectual in public bureaucracy,” “the
bearing of empirical research upon the development of social theory,” and “the machine, Die
worker, and the engineer.” These were cited 14,377 times inside MSA. A total of 1,912 distinct
citances (a set for words around the citation symbol, usually a sentence) are available (Small,

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Boyack, & Klavans, 2019). Für 1,904 distinct citances, a level 0 (the highest hierarchical dis-
ciplinary level) field of study (FOS) is available for the statistical analyses. These numbers show
that for most citing papers, citation context information is missing in MSA. For only 9.9% of the
citing papers is citation context information available to us.

We searched certain terms—derived from key concepts from RKM’s book—in the citances
in the following manner. Punctuation characters (, . ; 🙂 were removed from the citances, Und
all citances were converted to lowercase characters. The concepts and the corresponding
search terms are shown in Table 1. We removed the titles of RKM’s publications from the
citances when any of the search terms is contained in the title to avoid dubious hits.

In this study, we also measured uncertainty associated with concepts. Small et al. (2019)
propose the use of certain hedging words (z.B., “may”) to measure the uncertainty that might
be associated with cited papers. The authors explain that “hedging does not assert that the
paper is wrong, but only suggests that uncertainty surrounds some aspect of the ideas put for-
ward” (P. 1086). Hyland (1996) proposes to distinguish between reader-motivated (z.B., “be-
lieve,” “suggest,” and “analogy”) and content-motivated (z.B., “generally,” “almost,” “might,”
and “probable”) hedging words.

Henry Small provided us with an initial list of hedging words for measuring uncertainty,
which he used in Small et al. (2019). The list is as follows: “not clear,” “no clear,” “appears,”
“possibility,” “seems,” “speculated,” “to some extent,” “impression,” “sometimes,” “perhaps,”
“not known,” “seem,” “apparently,” “tends,” “not necessarily,” “preliminary,” “contingent,”
“could,” “doubt,” “explore,” “feel,” “hope,” “hopeful,” “hopefully,” “likely,” “may,” “might,”
“nevertheless,” “nonetheless,” “not known,” “opportunity,” “plausible,” “possible,” “possi-
bly,” “potential,” “potentially,” “probable,” “probably,” “projected,” “promise,” “promising,”

Tisch 1. Concepts and corresponding search terms

Concept
Consequence

Middle-range theory

Status

Social structure

Self-fulfilling

Role

Anomie

Function

Cosmopolitan

Opportunity

Analytical paradigm

Reference group

Search term(S)

“consequence*”

“middle*range*”

“status*”

“social*structur*”

“selffulfilling*” and “self_fulfilling*”

“role*”

“anomie”

“*function*”

“cosmopolitan*”

“opportunit*”

“paradigm*”

“reference*group*”

Notiz: The asterisk is a truncation symbol. An underscore denotes a single arbitrary character.

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“questions,” “risky,” “speculative,” “suspect,” “uncertain,” “unclear,” “unknown,” “unsolved,”
“whether,” and “yet to be determined.”

Bornmann et al. (2020) checked in the citances of their data set how frequently the terms
occur and how frequently they were used to express uncertainty. The final set with the most
frequent terms they focused on is as follows: “may,” “could,” “questions,” “might,” “potential,”
“seems,” “perhaps,” “likely,” and “sometimes.” This set has also been used in this study to
measure uncertainty. We assume that these terms are frequently used terms in general.

4.3. Statistics

In this study, it was counted how often certain concepts (z.B., “paradigm”) are mentioned in
citances of citing publications. In the statistical analyses, the possibility was considered that
concepts are mentioned multiple times (more than one concept is frequently mentioned in a
citing text). Since there is information in MSA available about the FOS and publication year of
publications, we analyzed differences between fields and time periods in citing certain con-
cepts. The relationships between concepts and fields or concepts and publication years can be
represented in contingency tables. In these tables, citations of concepts are dependent vari-
fähig; fields and time periods are independent variables.

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We applied the Stata command mrtab (Jann, 2005) to analyze multiple mentions of con-
cepts depending on publication year and FOS. In the interpretation of the results, we focused
on two statistics: (A) as indications of effect sizes (Cumming & Calin-Jageman, 2016), we an-
alyzed differences in percentages of concept mentions between different FOSs and publication
Jahre; Und (B) we calculated statistical significance tests in r × c tables. To investigate the over-
all relationship between concepts and FOSs (or publication years), we performed an overall
chi-square test. Jedoch, the results of the test could not be used when the following assump-
tions for chi-square tests on contingency tables were not fulfilled: “no more than 20% of the
expected counts are less than 5 and all individual expected counts are 1 or greater” (Yates,
Moore, & McCabe, 1999, P. 734). Zusätzlich, we performed a series of separate chi-square
tests for each concept. For these tests, the p values were adjusted correspondingly to account
for simultaneous calculations of many tests.

5. ERGEBNISSE
In section 5.1, we report our results on the citation impact received by the concepts—overall
and in various FOSs and time periods. In section 5.2, the results relating to the perceived un-
certainty of the concepts are presented.

5.1. First Empirical Part: Citations of Concepts in Various Fields of Study and Time Periods

Tisch 2 shows how frequently the concepts have been cited in various FOSs. The row “total”
refers to the total numbers of concept mentions in the citing papers’ citances (broken down by
FOS). The row “cases” includes the total numbers of the citing papers’ citances (broken down
by FOS). For many citing papers of the book (and the previously published papers), Zitat
context information is available; Jedoch, it does not contain any concept mentions consid-
ered here. The table reports column percentages based on all citances of the FOS (containing
concept mentions or not). Daher, we assume that the concept mentions are dependent on the
FOS.

The most cited concept in Table 2 is “self-fulfilling.” About 20% of the citances are related
to this concept. The concept “role” follows with about 17%. The concepts “cosmopolitan”

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Tisch 2. Citation concept analysis of Social Theory and Social Structure by Robert K. Merton and his related publications. How frequently have concepts (the concepts
are decreasingly sorted by the column “total”) been cited in various fields of study?

Concept

Art Biology Business Chemistry

Computer
sciences Economics Engineering Geography History Mathematics Medicine Philosophy

Political
sciences Psychology Sociology Total

Self-fulfilling

179

% 20

0.00

14.89 100.00

30.36

18.18

14.29

33.33

0.00

13.89

0.00

16.67

36.15

7.56

21.75

Role

137

% 20 50.00

14.89

0.00

26.79

8.08

14.29

0.00

50.00

5.56

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24.17

20.38

9.88

16.65

117

% 20

0.00

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0.00

23.21

19.19

7.14

33.33

0.00

16.67

100.00

14.17

3.85

18.02

14.22

Middle-range
theory

Function

Anomie

Social structure

Status

% 0

Opportunity

% 0

Consequence

% 0

Reference group

% 0

Cosmopolitan

% 20

% 0

Analytical

paradigm

Total

Cases

% 0

14.89

2.13

% 20 50

8.51

6.38

4.26

2.13

12.5

17.17

28.57

7.14

11.11

8.93

6.06

3.57

10.1

6.06

7.14

1.79

3.03

14.29

7.07

1.79

2.02

14.29

1.01

108

33.33

13.89

30.56

5.56

8.33

5.56

2.78

109

10.83

9.23

18.02

13.24

13.33

6.92

18.02

11.3

10.83

7.69

11.05

8.75

7.31

9.3

7.9

7.31

8.14

6.2

6.67

6.92

7.56

5.95

6.54

4.07

4.74

1.67

1.54

3.49

2.43

3.33

0.77

2.33

1.46

146

298

202

943

% 100 100

110.64

100

116.07

109.09

100

125

105.56

100

121.67

114.62

117.44 114.58

120

260

172

823

Notes. Results of chi-square tests for single concepts (rows): self-fulfilling: χ2 = 66.74, p = 0.000; role: χ2 = 32.36, p = 0.043; middle-range theory: χ2 = 55.73, p = 0.000; Funktion: χ2 = 14.79, p = 1; anomie: χ2 = 36.73, p = 0.01; sozial
Struktur: χ2 = 12.00, p = 1; Status: χ2 = 6.41, p = 1; opportunity: χ2 = 6.97, p = 1; consequence: χ2 = 10.75, p = 1; reference group: χ2 = 15.60, p = 1; cosmopolitan: χ2 = 30.23, p = 0.085; analytical paradigm: χ2 = 6.83, p = 1. Der
result of the overall chi-square test is not presented because the assumptions are not fulfilled.

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(2.4%) and “analytical paradigm” (1.5%) are those with only a few mentions (compared to the
other concepts) in our data set. The results of the chi-square tests for the single concepts reveal
three statistically significant results: “self-fulfilling,” “role,” “anomie,” and “middle-range the-
ory” seem to be differently used in the various FOSs. The concept “role” seems to be important
especially in computer sciences (26.79%), Politikwissenschaften (24.17%), and psychology
(20.38%) (considering the low case numbers in certain FOSs such as biology). For “self-
fulfilling,” this seems to be the case in psychology (36.15%) and for “middle-range theory”
in business (34.04%).

The heightened use in psychology may be because of an increasing movement from large
sections of psychology toward more social psychological and sociological concerns. Eher
than studying only psychological and even physiological processes, many psychologists are
more interested in locating their study among interacting groups of people and hence find the
analytical tool of “role” useful. Over recent decades the field of business studies has been
concerned to establish itself as a more “scientific” discipline and hence has indulged in var-
ious methodological discussions designed to establish scientific credentials and to outline sci-
entific ways of proceeding, hence drawing on RKM’s concept of middle-range theories.
In der Tat, management scientists have published a considerable number of publications devoted
to middle-range theory (Moore & Pinder, 1980).

Tisch 3 shows the results for concept mentions depending on time. The results point out
scarcely any time-dependent patterns; the chi-square tests for all concepts except one are sta-
tistically not significant. The exception is “anomie,” which has been increasingly mentioned in
citances over time. Presumably, since ST&SS has long been available for scholars to read, Sie
seem to draw broadly on its offerings and no particular aspect is emphasized.

5.2. Second Empirical Part: Uncertainty Associated with Concepts

Tisch 4 focuses on the uncertainty which might be associated with concepts. The results re-
veal that “self-fulfilling” seems to be the most “uncertain” concept: 34.51% of the uncertainty
responses account for this concept and 27.37% of the concept mentions reflect some kind of
uncertainty. One reason why this concept is used in a precautionary way is that it is subjective
and it is not always clear what actors have in mind that might cause this effect.

6. DISKUSSION

Citations can be used in evaluative bibliometrics to measure the impact of papers (Narin,
1976). Jedoch, citation analysis can be extended by considering a multidimensional per-
spective on citation impact (Bu, Waltman, & Huang, 2019) which is intended to receive more
specific information about the kind of received impact. Bornmann et al. (2020) introduced the
CCA method for capturing the importance and usefulness of certain concepts (introduced in
specific publications) for subsequent research. The authors introduced the method based on
measuring the impact of certain concepts in the classic books by Kuhn (1962) and Popper
(1934, 1959, 1962). In this study, we investigated the impact that various concepts published
in ST&SS have.

ST&SS captured much of RKM’s work up to 1949, some of his additional work through the
1950S, and a small sliver of extended work in the 1960s, but his oeuvre is much wider. Als
other studies show (see above), ST&SS remains the prime source of RKM’s work, but it has
been extended by an array of other articles and indeed books. Darüber hinaus, seit (as with several
other books) RKM assembled these from already published pieces, citers have a choice of al-
ternative sources to draw on (which we considered in this study). And of course, other scholars

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Tisch 3. Citation concept analysis of Social Theory and Social Structure by Robert K. Merton and his related publications: How frequently have
concepts (the concepts are decreasingly sorted by the column “total”) been cited in various time periods (publication years)?

Concept
Self-fulfilling

Role

Middle-range theory

Function

Anomie

Social structure

Status

Opportunity

Consequence

Reference group

Cosmopolitan

Analytical paradigm

Total

Cases

<2000 25 21.74 24 20.87 14 12.17 23 20 3 2.61 6 5.22 8 6.96 7 6.09 8 6.96 8 6.96 3 2.61 2 1.74 131 113.91 115 2000–2005 26 2006–2010 50 2011–2017 78 25 19 18.27 11 10.58 10 9.62 7 6.73 8 7.69 8 7.69 11 10.58 9 8.65 5 4.81 2 1.92 1 0.96 117 112.5 104 19.53 46 17.97 42 16.41 38 14.84 27 10.55 30 11.72 13 5.08 18 7.03 16 6.25 11 4.3 8 3.13 5 1.95 304 118.75 256 22.41 48 13.79 50 14.37 38 10.92 56 16.09 28 8.05 36 10.34 15 4.31 16 4.6 15 4.31 7 2.01 4 1.15 391 112.36 348 Total 179 21.75 137 16.65 117 14.22 109 13.24 93 11.3 72 8.75 65 7.9 51 6.2 49 5.95 39 4.74 20 2.43 12 1.46 943 114.58 823 Notes. Results of chi-square tests for single concepts (rows): self-fulfilling: χ2 = 0.91, p = 1. role: middle-range theory: function: χ2 =7.97, anomie: social structure: status: opportunity: consequence: reference group: cosmopolitan: analytical paradigm: The result the overall test is not presented because assumptions are not fulfilled. Quantitative Science Studies 687 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : >
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