Investigating Knowledge Structure and Future Directions in IT-Based Business Methods Using Hierarchical Main Path Approach

Business method (BM) has been recognized as a key factor for business innovation. BM patents are widely used to analyze and understand BM domains. However, previous studies have not considered the significant characteristics of the BM domain and patents, such as relative weight for knowledge flows and various knowledge interrelations among sub-domains. This study employed a hierarchical main path analysis that considered the relative difference in knowledge inheritances and identified the knowledge structure in the BM domain. In addition, the knowledge unconventionality metric was adopted to optimize knowledge diffusion in the last layer for forecasting further developmental directions. The empirical analysis showed that the BM domain consists of eight sub-domains, and each sub-domain has a high interrelationship with other sub-domains. Most dominant knowledge was invented based on different types of knowledge in different sub-domains. In particular, the overall trajectories and future directions were analyzed according to the changes in relative importance of sub-domains. The dominant patents, trajectories, and future directions for each sub-domain were analyzed based on the high knowledge persistence and end-node information of the main paths.