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
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
