Outstanding and ordinary scientists’ co-authorship networks in the early career phase

Main Article Content

Chaoying Tang
Linna Ye
Stefanie Naumann
Xiaoyang Lu

Abstract

How do scientists’ ego-centered co-authorship networks affect their research productivity and impact during the early career phase? Do co-authorship networks evolve differently for outstanding scientists vs. ordinary scientists? Our study responded to these questions by demonstrating that scientists’ co-authorship network size and betweenness centrality of their co-authorship network positively affected both their research productivity and research impact. Scientists’ tie strength diversity of their co-authorship network moderated the relationship between their ego-network size and their research performance. Their co-authorship network’s degree centralization moderated the relationship between their betweenness centrality and research performance. Further, the size and betweenness centrality of the co-authorship network were significantly different between the two groups of scientists since their fourth working year. Outstanding scientists had a larger co-authorship network and their positions in the co-authorship network were more central than those of ordinary scientists. Implications for scientists and policy makers in science and higher education are discussed

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How to Cite
Tang, C., Ye, L., Naumann, S., & Lu, X. (2021). Outstanding and ordinary scientists’ co-authorship networks in the early career phase. Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, 26(1), 39–61. https://doi.org/10.22452/mjlis.vol26no1.3
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