TY - UNPB
T1 - Does Coauthorship matter for Scientific Productivity? Evidence from Geography's Top Journals
AU - Togni, Lara
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between scientific productivity and
collaborative behaviours (formal and informal). Despite the different approaches available in the
literature, we will focus on what we call the “relational trend”: our goal is to detect some of the
factors which might affect researchers’ productivity, considering “relational variables”. In
particular, the tendency to write papers in co-authorship will be used as a proxy of formal scientific
collaboration amongst scientists, while the number of acknowledgements will be assumed as a
proxy of the scientist’s ability to build informal collaboration networks. Both co-authorships and
acknowledgments indices are interpreted as two of the main forces which could affect and drive
scientific production, apart from individual talent. Using the dataset developed by Togni (2009)
which collects data about geographers’ publications on the Top Journals in the years 2000-2007, an
econometric analysis using two-stage least squares has been performed, in order to regress
productivity on a series of other indices, including (amongst the others) a typical SNA index of
centrality (betweenness centrality). Three results clearly emerged from the analysis: co-authorships
networks affect productivity in a negative way, but a variety of co-authors may increase
geographers’ productivity; on the contrary, informal influence (acknowledgments network) on
productivity seems not to have any effect on productivity. Finally, a trade-off between the
transaction costs from the collaboration and the need to mutual exchange of skills and knowledge
complementarities which boost scientists to vary their co-authors.
AB - The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between scientific productivity and
collaborative behaviours (formal and informal). Despite the different approaches available in the
literature, we will focus on what we call the “relational trend”: our goal is to detect some of the
factors which might affect researchers’ productivity, considering “relational variables”. In
particular, the tendency to write papers in co-authorship will be used as a proxy of formal scientific
collaboration amongst scientists, while the number of acknowledgements will be assumed as a
proxy of the scientist’s ability to build informal collaboration networks. Both co-authorships and
acknowledgments indices are interpreted as two of the main forces which could affect and drive
scientific production, apart from individual talent. Using the dataset developed by Togni (2009)
which collects data about geographers’ publications on the Top Journals in the years 2000-2007, an
econometric analysis using two-stage least squares has been performed, in order to regress
productivity on a series of other indices, including (amongst the others) a typical SNA index of
centrality (betweenness centrality). Three results clearly emerged from the analysis: co-authorships
networks affect productivity in a negative way, but a variety of co-authors may increase
geographers’ productivity; on the contrary, informal influence (acknowledgments network) on
productivity seems not to have any effect on productivity. Finally, a trade-off between the
transaction costs from the collaboration and the need to mutual exchange of skills and knowledge
complementarities which boost scientists to vary their co-authors.
KW - Coauthorships
KW - Econometric analysis
KW - Impact Factor
KW - Scientific productivity
KW - Social Network Analysis
KW - Coauthorships
KW - Econometric analysis
KW - Impact Factor
KW - Scientific productivity
KW - Social Network Analysis
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/3037
M3 - Working paper
BT - Does Coauthorship matter for Scientific Productivity? Evidence from Geography's Top Journals
ER -