Research groups' social capital: a clustering approach

Petra Ziherl (Avtor), Hajdeja Iglič (Avtor), Anuška Ferligoj (Avtor)

Povzetek

Our purpose in this article is to study the characteristics of a research group's social capital. We proceed from the theoretical distinctions made in the literature on social capital, such as weak against strong ties, structural holes against cohesion and homogeneity against heterogeneity of a group. We assume that research groups differ systematically with respect to the kind of social capital they possess, which has an impact on the scientific performance of the members of these groups. Social capital of research groups is conceptualized in terms of complete networks. We use the data from the Slovenian study of academic research groups conducted in 2003/2004. Research groups include Ph.D. students, their supervisors, and other researchers. They are representative of the Slovenian research groups, which include Ph.D. students under the "junior researchers" program financed by the Slovenian Ministry of Technology and Higher Education. We explore the variation in research groupsć social capital by using a clustering approach. The analysis reveals three types of research group's social capital: weak social capital, strong social capital of a bonding kind, and strong social capital of a bridging type. Research groups with weak social capital are small, and cooperation ties among group members are weak. Bonding social capital is characteristic for small research groups with strong cooperation ties, which are embedded in a dense network structure. Bridging social capitalis found in research groups which consist of a larger number of researchers from different institutions connected with one another with ties of a moderate strength. The network structure in the latter case shows structural holes. In the last part of the paper, we ask whether scientific performance of Ph.D. students varies according to the social capital of their research groups. We found that students who are involved in research groups with bridging social capital show significantly better performance than students who are members of the groups with either bonding or weak social capital. The relationship between the strength of ties and performance seems to be non-linear: it is the moderate strength of social ties and moderate group cohesiveness, which comes along the cooperation across different institutions and disciplines, that is the most beneficial for the performance of Ph.D. students.

Ključne besede

Raziskovalci;Družbena omrežja;

Podatki

Jezik:	Angleški jezik
Leto izida:	2006
Tipologija:	1.01 - Izvirni znanstveni članek
Organizacija:	UL FDV - Fakulteta za družbene vede
Založnik:	Fakulteta za družbene vede
UDK:	303
COBISS:	25332573
ISSN:	1854-0023
Št. ogledov:	779
Št. prenosov:	184
Ocena:	0 (0 glasov)
Metapodatki:

Ostali podatki

Sekundarni jezik:	Neznan jezik
Sekundarne ključne besede:	Researchers;Social networks;
URN:	URN:NBN:SI
Vrsta dela (COBISS):	Delo ni kategorizirano
Strani:	str. 217-237
Letnik:	ǂVol. ǂ3
Zvezek:	ǂno. ǂ2
Čas izdaje:	2006
Ključne besede (UDK):	social sciences;družbene vede;methods of the social sciences;metode družbenih ved;
ID:	1468243