Agency and Small Worlds Networks: A Multilevel Analysis of Academic Productivity

Abstract

This paper aimed to evaluate empirically the capacity of the agency of researchers in the field of strategy and management research in Brazil while embed in small worlds networks. Therefore, first we evaluated the effect generated by agents in terms of productivity. Then, referring to the structural dimension of context of action, we proposed that, in co-authorship networks, both the privileged position of the researchers in terms of structural holes as the factions of the network configuration in the form of small worlds can be one of the elements that enable the agency. The analysis of how social structure influences the behavior and performance of individuals is primarily based on studies of social network analysis, in that even if acknowledging the limitations, it is as fruitful and coherent methodological framework. However, in parallel, multilevel statistical models have been employed. Commonly knowing as hierarchical linear models or HLM models, they seek to evaluate how context affects social action. Given these two possibilities, this study sought to reconcile the network analysis with hierarchical models to assess the agency as socially immersed in networks of relationships. Thus, the scientific field is taken as a type of social system, whose networks of co-authoring relationships are evaluated as structural dimension in terms of position - practice. That's because there is evidence that the relationship structure interfere both in the process of institutionalization of the shares, as the capacity for agency researchers. We found that the small worlds networks affects the academic productivity both collectively and individually, as well as the presence of structural holes at the individual level. These results point to the importance of assessing the capacity of agency while embed in social networks, since different mechanisms of social capital conditioning the actions.