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Identifying the Research Trend of Asian Port Competition using
Social Network Analysis
Yung Ai Fung
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gobithaasan Rudrusamy
Bachelor of Science (Computational Mathematics)
School of Informatics and Applied Mathematics
This study analysed research trends in port competition using a Social Network Analysis
(SNA) approach. In particular to identify the changes and evolution trends related to port
competition by exploring academic journals with keyword “port competition” limiting to
Asian ports. 51 papers from 1990 to 2017 were collected from Scopus database and the
network is constructed using UCINET software by visualizing divisions into three
generations. In this study, the nodes represented ‘keywords’ and edges represented
‘correlation’ which mean a mutual relationship or connection between two or more
keywords in a research paper. The results were found that first period (1990-1999) mainly
focused on “port competition”, “economic policy”, “policy choice” and “port authority”.
Both “port competition” and “port operation” are two essential keywords for the second
period (2000-2009). Finally for the third period (2010-2017), “port operation” had the
highest degree and betweenness centrality which indicate that it is the most referred
keyword thus roleplaying as the main driving factor of port competition for the upcoming
years.
1012 | UMT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY 2018