Ties Strength and Knowledge Transfer: Investigation of Innovation Diffusion in Co-Authorship Networks

Abstract

This study investigates the factors affecting the output of authors' cooperation. This cooperation can have a crucial role in the development of economics and technology in different fields. The investigated factors can create outputs that are more innovative and lead to better performance of intra-alliance and inter-alliance networks. The focus of this study is on transferring or exchanging intra information resources at the ego (small groups embedded in a network) and dyad levels of cooperation (individuals embedded in a group) shaped as an egocentric network using social network theory. The theory explains the effect that the strength of interpersonal ties at the dyad level has on knowledge exchange by considering how redundant information can be when it is received by an ego in networks. The authors of this paper demonstrate differences of information diffusion depending on the strength of interpersonal ties created by first authors. This study considered results of 206 studies in two areas of social science (economics and tourism) through an examination of quantitative data extracted from the Web of Science using the Histcite software. Amos was used for testing mediation effects, and SPSS version 23 was used to analyze the data via Hierarchal Learner Modeling (HLM) methodology.