On the drivers of international collaboration: The impact of informal communication, motivation, and research resources

A two‐sided medal: On the complexity of international comparative and collaborative team research

“…Furthermore, international research teams have to cope with their team members' diversity, which is conceptualised here ‘as the dispersion of group members' positions on a given dimension of diversity’ (van Knippenberg & Schippers, , p. 522). One of such dimensions is that geographically dispersed multi‐location research teams are culturally diverse and consist of team members speaking different languages and coming from countries with differing academic styles, cultural norms and practices (Jeong et al, ; Rambur, ; Wagner, ). Another dimension is that (international) research teams also cope with team members in different career stages, from doctoral students to senior professors, with diverse goals and needs (e.g., publications vs. reputation) and differing requirements and practices of PhD training and education (Anderson et al, ).…”

“…Such a research collaboration can be defined as a temporary social process in which scholars pool their complementary skills and expertise and become functionally interdependent in order to produce knowledge they could not have generated on their own (definition based on Bozeman, Fay, & Slade, ; Hagstrom, ; Patel, ; Schrage, ). In a broad sense, it incorporates various activities such as the division of labour and integration of knowledge, service collaboration, transmission of know‐how, provision of access to research requirements, and bilateral stimulation and critique (Jeong, Choi, & Kim, ; Katz & Martin, ; Laudel, ; Lewis et al, ) . Collaborative research teams are defined as largely voluntary, substantially autonomous, self‐governed social entities or systems based on mutual interest of multiple individuals (that see themselves and are seen by others as a team) (Wang & Hicks, ; Weiss & Hoegl, ).…”

“…Additionally, it provides very valuable insights on the influence of national and supranational policies on international collaborative research (e.g., Slipersæter & Aksnes, ; Smeby & Gornitzka, ; Smeby & Trondal, ) as well as insights on causal relationships and explanatory factors that influence research collaboration on the individual, institutional and national level (e.g., Kwiek, ; Kyvik & Aksnes, ; Rostan & Ceravolo, ; Rostan et al, ). What is mostly missing in both fields are analyses that systematically provide insight into the micro‐level and collaborative research practice of international research teams—whether comparative or non‐comparative (for exceptions, see, e.g., Jeong et al, ; Rambur, ; Shore & Groen, ; Ulnicane, ).…”

Do central country authors of international co-authored publication networks obtain a high research impact?

“…However, the value of the central position depends on an actor's motivation of knowledge sharing (Anderson 2008;Moran and Ghoshal 1996). Individuals with a greater motivation to share knowledge would be expected to engage in more communication, which should result in mutual understanding and trust in international collaborations (Jeong, Choi and Kim 2014). Thus, we expect that a country's amount of scientific publications, as a proxy for its domestic knowledge and resources, may affect its motivation for knowledge sharing and accessing when collaborating with other counties.…”

“…First, the number of publications a country has would likely be associated with the status it brings to international collaborations, which may affect its knowledge sharing motivations. A number of scholars have suggested that status, as reflected by academic position, is a key factor in research collaboration (Acedo et al 2006;Jeong, Choi and Kim 2014). Researchers at lower academic levels are often required to produce more academic output than their more senior colleagues (Holley 1977).…”