We analyze the role of leadership and scientific collaborative relationships in constituting the disciplinary specialization between countries and its research performance. Authorship order... Show moreWe analyze the role of leadership and scientific collaborative relationships in constituting the disciplinary specialization between countries and its research performance. Authorship order provides critical information for the allocation of reward, while collaboration enables researchers to expand the network of co-authors, institutions, and countries involved in the research. Along with these factors, a country’s profile orientation within the global scientific market become of great importance to the development of countries. As bibliographic data embedded such important information about the changes in the position of authors in the byline of publications and the disciplines involved in the research, we analyze these changes over time—using a Web of Science dataset—to explore the extent to which collaboration relationships impact leadership and specialization on the scientific workforce. Using this data, we discern the importance of domestic and international outputs in determining the disciplinary structure in scientific relationships in terms of publications and citations. We found that different types of leadership translate in different results in terms of relative specialization and citations. Overall results show that non-leading internationally collaborative papers reach higher values than leading international and domestic papers especially remarkable in terms of citations. Although in general, all regions increase their performance when collaborating with leading partners, the largest differences in research performance by leadership are located in countries with the lowest investment in R&D. Countries with the highest research investment are more likely to serve as leaders and garner higher specialization and citations when they lead (domestic and lead authorship). Comparative analyses of the role of specialization between countries can be useful for informing policies and motivating further collaboration relationships in the definitions of research agendas. Show less
Cumulative advantage – commonly known as the Matthew Effect – influences scientific output and careers. Given the challenge and uncertainty of gauging the quality of new scientific research,... Show moreCumulative advantage – commonly known as the Matthew Effect – influences scientific output and careers. Given the challenge and uncertainty of gauging the quality of new scientific research, evaluators and gatekeepers often possess incentives to prefer the work of established scientists. Such preferences breach scientific norms of fairness, and can yield suboptimal research outcomes. This article analyzes repeat authors as an exemplar of the Matthew Effect. Although a scientist publishing in the same journal multiple times is rare within individual careers, the phenomenon is relatively common at the level of scientific journals. Using publication data for 347 economics journals from 1980-2016, we analyze whether articles written by repeat authors tend to fare better or worse than less-experienced authors. Random effects models show a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between repeat authorship and citation impact. In these models, citation impact peaks at the fourth repeat publication, suggesting both liabilities of newness and liabilities of senescence in science. Fixed effects models show that within individual scientific careers, authors tend to be most impactful with their debut publication, then experience declining impact with each subsequent repeat authorship. Implications for innovation incentives for scientists and gatekeepers alike are discussed. Show less
This paper studies the evolution of China’s international collaboration from 1980 to 2016, in terms of collaborating countries, topics, and citations. We also distinguish between papers that are... Show moreThis paper studies the evolution of China’s international collaboration from 1980 to 2016, in terms of collaborating countries, topics, and citations. We also distinguish between papers that are led by a Chinese author (i.e., the first or corresponding author has a Chinese affiliation) and the papers to China contributed (i.e., the first and corresponding authors are not affiliated to a Chinese institution). We find an important increase of international collaboration by Chinese scholars over the period. Chinese authors are also increasingly playing a leadership role in those international collaborations, but this varies by discipline and by country of collaboration. We observe that the papers led by Chinese authors have on average a lower citation impact than the papers to which they participated as non-leaders. Show less
Ghiasi, G.; Mongeon, P.; Sugimoto, C.; Larivière, V. 2018
Citations are one of the key indicators of scientific influence. However, citations are not entirely neutral and are affected by several social factors. This research provides a comprehensive... Show moreCitations are one of the key indicators of scientific influence. However, citations are not entirely neutral and are affected by several social factors. This research provides a comprehensive gendered analysis of citation patterns, considering author contribution, research field, and subject similarity. For this purpose, citation data of 7,011,369 articles published in 2008-2016 and indexed in the Web of Science are analyzed. The findings indicate that gender-based homophily in citations exists in all disciplines and that self-citations impose a considerable contribution to the allure of gender-based homophily in citations. This study suggests that men’s higher propensity to cite the work of their male-peers could render women’s scientific contributions invisible and under-recognized. The results of this study could inform science policy to explore mechanisms to obviate proliferation of the use of citation-based metrics for evaluative purposes and the consequent indirect biases they introduce into the reward system of science. Show less
Sandoval, Romero V.; Mongeon, P.; Larivière, V. 2018
During the 2000s, several changes in the science, technology and innovation (STI) policies guidelines occurred in Latin-American (LA) countries. In this study, we explore the effects of STI... Show moreDuring the 2000s, several changes in the science, technology and innovation (STI) policies guidelines occurred in Latin-American (LA) countries. In this study, we explore the effects of STI policies on the state of research in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico using the scientific output and impact as well as the level of international collaboration indicators. Show less
Whereas articles about the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity abound, empirical evidence substantiating the value of its practices remains limited, at best conflicting. While most studies have focused... Show moreWhereas articles about the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity abound, empirical evidence substantiating the value of its practices remains limited, at best conflicting. While most studies have focused on the natural and medical sciences, very few studies have focused on the social sciences and humanities. To better understand interdisciplinarity patterns observed in those disciplines, this paper explores how research objects can serve as a bridge between disciplines and specialties in the social sciences and humanities. Our results shows that certain social sciences disciplines, such as economics and management, and, to a lesser extent, education and literature, have objects, concepts and their own methods, that are not shared with other disciplines. In contrast, sociology and history have few specific objects, and are positioned at the heart of the network of undisciplined objects. On the whole, our results suggest that disciplines of the social sciences and humanities are not monolithic blocks and a strong interdisciplinarity is expressed through a wide selection of objects. Show less
Bibliographic Coupling is one of the earliest statistical methods used to analyze scientific production and map scientific structure at different granularity levels. While many authors consider it... Show moreBibliographic Coupling is one of the earliest statistical methods used to analyze scientific production and map scientific structure at different granularity levels. While many authors consider it a measure of semantic similarity, the questions as to “when and to what extent bibliographic coupling can be considered a measure of semantic similarity has not still needs to be established theoretically. Based on an analysis of the correlation between coupling strength and semantic distances of all 2015 economics articles included in the Web of Science database, the present paper shows that the semantic scope of these articles is very limited, thus putting into question the use of bibliographic coupling as a semantic similarity measure. Show less
Zahedi, Z.; Haustein, S.; Larivière, V.; Costas Comesana, R. 2016
