Identifying the Effects of Co-authorship Strategies on the Citation-based Performance of Scholars: A Social Networks Analysis

Research impact is the extent to which the work by a researcher and its citations are utilized by others. The main objective of this research was to determine scientific collaboration strategies (Middle, Independent, Bridging, Complex, Bonding, Dyadic) used by researchers in nuclear science and technology and to investigate the relationship between these strategies and the increase or reduction in the number of received citations with accordance to the utilized strategy. Network analysis method was utilized to provide an understanding of the relations and interactions of co-authors as well as identify their co-authorship strategies. The research population included all authors of the articles published in SCI-EXPANDED in nuclear science and technology field from 2009 to 2011 as well as their citations from 2011 to 2016. After determining measures of individual-centered network (size, constraint and efficiency), a combination of methods introduced by Rumsey-Wairepo and Kuzhabekova was utilized with some modifications to identify co-authorship strategies. Bridging, bonding, independent, isolate and dyadic co-authorship strategies were the most preferred ones by authors in this field, respectively. Those researchers having applied independent strategy had a higher citation performance in comparison with other researchers while those using isolate strategy had a lower citation performance. Finally, a model was presented based on the influence of applying co-authorship strategies on the number of received citations. These findings help researchers increase their number of received citations and improve their research impact with creating and applying co-authorship strategies consciously and strategically. So far, no research has been conducted concerning the influence of applying different coauthorship strategies on citation performance of researchers and this research is the first one.

Keywords: Citation Impact, Co-authorship strategies, Cohesive structure, Nuclear science and technology. Research Collaboration, Research impact, scientific collaboration, social network analysis, Structural holes.