Institutional interactions: Exploring social, cognitive, and geographic relationships between institutions as demonstrated through citation networks

The objective of this research is to examine the interaction of institutions, based on their citation and collaboration networks. The domain of library and information science is examined, using data from 1965–2010. A linear model is formulated to explore the factors that are associated with institutional citation behaviors, using the number of citations as the dependent variable, and the number of collaborations, physical distance, and topical distance as independent variables. It is found that institutional citation behaviors are associated with social, topical, and geographical factors. Dynamically, the number of citations is becoming more associated with collaboration intensity and less dependent on the country boundary and/or physical distance. This research is informative for scientometricians and policy makers.