Effects of Social Ties in Knowledge Diffusion: case study on PLOS ONE

TL;DR

This study investigates how social ties, specifically co-authorship proximity, influence knowledge diffusion in scientific publications, revealing that closer collaboration networks significantly enhance knowledge flow more than geographic closeness.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that co-authorship network proximity strongly impacts knowledge diffusion, surpassing geographic factors.

Findings

Closer co-authors have higher likelihood of knowledge flow

Co-authorship proximity is more influential than geographic proximity

Strong social ties facilitate knowledge diffusion in research networks

Abstract

In order to capture the effects of social ties in knowledge diffusion, this paper examines the publication network that emerges from the collaboration of researchers, using citation information as means to estimate knowledge flow. For this purpose, we analyzed the papers published in the PLOS ONE journal finding strong evidence to support that the closer two authors are in the co-authorship network, the larger the probability that knowledge flow will occur between them. Moreover, we also found that when it comes to knowledge diffusion, strong co-authorship proximity is more determinant than geographic proximity.