<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>On some fundamental level, we can think of scholars as actors possessing, or controlling, various types of resources. Collaboration in science is understood here as a process of pooling and exchanging such resources. We show how diversity of resources engaged in scientific collaboration is related to the structure of collaboration networks. We demonstrate that scholars within their personal networks simultaneously (1) diversify resources in collaboration ties surrounded by structural holes and (2) specialize resources in collaboration ties embedded in dense collaboration groups. These complementary mechanisms decrease individual efforts required to maintain effective collaborations in complex social settings. To this end, we develop a concept of “pairwise redundancy” capturing structural redundancy of ego’s neighbors <italic>vis-à-vis</italic> each other.</p>
</abstract>

On some fundamental level, we can think of scholars as actors possessing, or controlling, various types of resources. Collaboration in science is understood here as a process of pooling and exchanging such resources. We show how diversity of resources engaged in scientific collaboration is related to the structure of collaboration networks. We demonstrate that scholars within their personal networks simultaneously (1) diversify resources in collaboration ties surrounded by structural holes and (2) specialize resources in collaboration ties embedded in dense collaboration groups. These complementary mechanisms decrease individual efforts required to maintain effective collaborations in complex social settings. To this end, we develop a concept of “pairwise redundancy” capturing structural redundancy of ego’s neighbors vis-à-vis each other.

Reaching for Unique Resources: Structural Holes and Specialization in Scientific Collaboration Networks

Journal of Social Structure

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

On some fundamental level, we can think of scholars as actors possessing, or controlling, various types of resources. Collaboration in science is understood...

Reaching for Unique Resources: Structural Holes and Specialization in Scientific Collaboration Networks

Article Category: research_article

Published Online: Jul 30, 2020

Page range: 1 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2020-001

Keywords
Collaboration networks, Structural holes, Specialization, Sociology of science

© 2019 Michał Bojanowski; et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Reaching for Unique Resources: Structural Holes and Specialization in Scientific Collaboration Networks

Article Category: research_article

Published Online: Jul 30, 2020

Page range: 1 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/joss-2020-001

KeywordsCollaboration networks, Structural holes, Specialization, Sociology of science

© 2019 Michał Bojanowski; et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Collaboration networks, Structural holes, Specialization, Sociology of science