Overview
This paper, presented with Seung Won Yoon and Seung Jun Jo, looks at who writes with whom in human resource development (HRD) research. We asked three things: what the co-authorship network looks like structurally, how the idea of social capital helps to read it, and which network configurations drive the formation of new co-authorship ties.
The data were author lists, publication years, and journal titles of articles in Academy of Human Resource Development journals. Out of 2,808 items, 1,094 co-authored articles remained after single-author articles, editorials, and book reviews were removed. Ties were coded as directed from the first author to co-authors. The analysis combined descriptive network measures, a small-world simulation, and exponential random graph models (ERGM), with R, UCINET, and Gephi for analysis and visualization.
Key points
- The first-author-mediated network showed small-world characteristics, as hypothesized.
- Mutual ties had the strongest effect on tie formation; reciprocity works as a building block of the network.
- Transitivity through two-paths and closure through edgewise shared partners were supported, while the “active star” first-author effect and cyclic transitivity were not.
- Few authors span boundaries between clusters, which keeps groups of authors in separate silos.
- Only the structural dimension of social capital was modeled; actor attributes were not available in the data.
Event
2015 Academy of Human Resource Development International Research Conference in the Americas, St. Louis, Missouri, February 2015.
Citation
Chae, C., Yoon, S., & Jo, S. (2015, February). Structural determinants of human resource development research collaboration networks: Social network perspectives. Paper presented at the meeting of 2015 Academy of Human Resource Development International Research Conference in the Americas, St. Louis, Missouri.