Coauthorship Trends in the Field of Management: Facts and Perceptions

Abstract

This paper explores the perceptions, preferences, and motivations that contribute to a widely recognized phenomenon: the continuous rise of co-authorship within the field of management.Using data from Web of Science, we first confirm that the average number of authors on published papers has steadily and continuously increased over the last four decades, and compare this trend across subfields and journals. We also conducted a survey, asking management researchers about their perceptions of co-authorship trends and their reactions to specific authorship scenarios. Comparing the "facts" and the "perceptions" of co-authorship, we suggest that increasing co-authorship in management reflects not only quality considerations and the need for collaborations but also instrumental motivations. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the processes of peer evaluation and education in management.

More than a quarter century of Creativity and Innovation Management: The journal's characteristics, evolution, and a look ahead

“…In line with the trend towards team‐based authorship in management and organization studies (Acedo, Barroso, Casanueva, & Galán, ) and all other academic disciplines (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, ), the ratio of co‐authored articles at CIM increased over time. Liu, Olivola, and Kovacs () outline three potential explanations to engage in co‐authorship collaborations: reasons of productivity (due to increasing research complexity), networking (ease of digitally‐enabled collaboration), or strategic explanations which are unrelated to research quality, but are driven by career‐related considerations.…”

“…Displayed are 32 countries and 110 links between them. This visualized network shows that authors based in the UK and US engage most frequently in co‐authorships which could be partially explained by institutional incentives prevalent in both countries (e.g., tenure systems) to publish with international co‐authors (Liu et al, ).…”

“…In line with the trend towards team-based authorship in management and organization studies (Acedo, Barroso, Casanueva, & Galán, 2006) and all other academic disciplines (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007), the ratio of co-authored articles at CIM increased over time. Liu, Olivola, and Kovacs (2016)…”

“…If themes are parenting identically named concepts, the latter are not labeled [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] author-supplied keyword co-occurrences, which would have provided a more comprehensive picture of the journal. Lastly, citations, coauthorships and lexical co-occurrences are context-sensitive, e.g., citation behaviour and collaboration decisions can be motivated by non-science-related factors (Bornmann & Daniel, 2008;Liu et al, 2016;Tahamtan et al, 2016;Tahamtan & Bornmann, 2018), and lexical features of article abstracts can vary substantially (e.g., Hartley & Betts, 2009).…”

Network centrality analysis in management and accounting sciences

“…Nikzad, Jamali, and Hariri (2011) found that the average number of authors per article has increased in all disciplines in the social sciences. In the management field, the growing number of co-authors was attributed not only to the need for complementary skills but also to the expectation of increasing the chances of the manuscript's acceptance and of being reciprocated by the favor later (Liu, Olivola, & Kovács, 2017).…”