The Uses of Social Network Analysis in the Field of Engineering Construction Management: A Review of the Literature

A bibliometric analysis of related publications on the uses of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management is reported in this study in order to depict existing research activities and to identify future directions in this research field. These publications were retrieved from China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. There is a notable growth associated with the body of knowledge on he uses of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management. From the 513 retrieved literatures, 98 related literatures related to the uses of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management were selected through reading abstracts for research and analysis. Through the comprehensive analysis of key words and related literature, it can be found that the application of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management is mainly studied from the perspectives of stakeholders, construction projects and workers. The content of these publications mainly focuses on relationship among stakeholders, project risk research, information sharing among organizations, multi-agent collaborative management, information sharing and knowledge exchange among workers. These findings help to identify hotspots in the uses of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management research. In addition, this study also puts forward the future research direction of the uses of social network analysis in the field of engineering construction management in order to provide reference for the research in the field of engineering construction management.