The scholarly influence of Heinz Klein: ideational and social measures of his impact on IS research and IS scholars

[Eugene Garfield]

The scholarly influence of Heinz Klein: ideational and social measures of his 
impact on IS research and IS scholars

Author(s): Truex, D (Truex, Duane); Cuellar, M (Cuellar, Michael); Takeda, H 
(Takeda, Hirotoshi); Vidgen, R (Vidgen, Richard)
Source: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS  Volume: 20  Issue: 4  
Pages: 422-439  DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2011.16  Published: JUL 2011  

Abstract: Heinz Klein was a fine scholar and mentor whose work and life have 
inspired us to explore the notion of 'scholarly influence' which we cast as 
'ideational' and 'social influence'. We adopt a portfolio of measures approach, 
using the Hirsch family of statistics to assess ideational influence and Social 
Network Analysis centrality measures for social influence to profile Heinz Klein's 
contribution to information systems (IS) research. The results show that Heinz 
was highly influential in both ideational terms (a significant body of citations) 
and social terms (he is close to the heart of the IS research community). 
Reflecting on the major research themes and scholarly values espoused by Klein 
we define a 'Kleinian view of IS research', grounded in Habermas' Theory of 
Communicative Action, and use that to frame four affirmative propositions to 
address what we observe to be a distortion and attenuation of the academic 
discourse on the evaluation of scholarly production. This paper argues that 
focus should be shifted from the venue of publication of the research to the 
uptake of the ideas contained in it, thus increasing the openness of the 
discourse, participation in the discourse, truthfulness, and reduction of the 
inequities in power distribution within academia. European Journal of Information 
Systems (2011) 20, 422-439. doi:10.1057/ejis.2011.16; published online 10 
May 2011

Language: English
Document Type: Article
Author Keywords: Heinz Klein; scholarly influence; Hirsch statistics; social 
network analysis; lexical analysis; critical social theory; ideational influence; 
social influence
KeyWords Plus: INFORMATION-SYSTEMS; MANAGEMENT JOURNALS; QUALITY; 
INDEX; PRINCIPLES; DISCOURSE; NETWORKS; FACTS; SET

Addresses: [Truex, D; Takeda, H] Georgia State Univ, CIS Dept, J Mack 
Robinson Coll Business, Atlanta, GA 30303 USA
[Truex, D] Mid Sweden Univ, Dept Informat Technol & Media, Sundsvall, 
Sweden
[Cuellar, M; Takeda, H] N Carolina Cent Univ, Sch Business, Durham, NC USA
[Takeda, H] Univ Paris 09, Ctr Rech Management & Org, Ctr Rech Econ, Paris, 
France
[Vidgen, R] Univ New S Wales, Sch Informat Syst Technol & Management, 
Australian Sch Business, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Reprint Address: Truex, D (reprint author), Georgia State Univ, CIS Dept, J 
Mack Robinson Coll Business, 33 Broad St, Atlanta, GA 30303 USA

ISSN: 0960-085X
URL: http://www.palgrave-
journals.com/ejis/journal/v20/n4/abs/ejis201116a.html