Nees Jan van Eck
Econometric Institute, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam
P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Email: nvaneck@few.eur.nl
A new method for visualizing similarities between objects is presented. The method is called VOS, which is an abbreviation for visualization of similarities. The aim of VOS is to provide a low-dimensional visualization in which objects are located in such a way that the distance between any pair of objects reflects the similarity of the objects as accurately as possible. The relationship between VOS and the traditional method of multidimensional scaling is discussed. Furthermore, in order to demonstrate the practical usefulness of VOS, an application of VOS to the construction of bibliometric maps of the field of economics and management is presented. Two types of bibliometric maps are considered: maps visualizing relations between journals in the field and maps visualizing relations between important concepts in the field.