AARHUS UNIVERSITY PATTERNS AND REGULARITIES IN THE EUROPEAN

AARHUS UNIVERSITY PATTERNS AND REGULARITIES IN THE EUROPEAN MARKETING ACADEMIC COMMUNITY: A SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE EMAC CONFERENCES 2000 -2010 Katrine Christensen Athanasios Krystallis Robert P. Ormrod issues cam

AIMS AND SCOPE OF OUR PAPER • To investigate the co-authorship structure of the EMAC conference and to determine which factors influence the way in which members of this community choose collaboration partners for joint publications • Focus on structural characteristics of co-authorship, not on the characteristics of individual authors

RESEARCH QUESTIONS • What are the structural characteristics of the EMAC collaboration network in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2010? • Which factors influence the choice of collaboration partners in the EMAC collaboration network in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2010? • We will focus on 2007 and 2010 in the current presentation

SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS • Main component - The largest network where all individuals are connected to each other - Tells us which academics have social relationships and thus are likely to ‘hold the key’ to a larger collaboration network with access to different types of knowledge • Density - The percentage of all possible ties that are actually present in a network - Tells us the ’strength’ of the network, that is, if one actor is removed, how will this affect the structure of the network • Diameter - The number of steps that are necessary to get from one side of a network to the other - Tells us if a network exhibits ’small world’ properties, that is, relatively unobstructed diffusion of theories and ideas and easiness of communication among component members

PREVIOUS RESEARCH • Most research has shown that conference papers tend to be co-authored by individuals within countries or institutions - Geographical/cultural proximity • Social relationships are important in the production of research • Research in the natural sciences shows that inter-institution collaboration produces higher-impact research

OUR DATA • Focus on co-authorship rather than citations emphasises social relationships rather than quality of research • Co-authored, scientific research paper, i. e. all research papers presented at the EMAC conferences in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2010 with two or more authors • Data was retrieved manually from the EMAC conference proceedings • Poster- and special sessions in addition to papers marked ”withdrawn” were excluded from the study • Authors were identified by surname and inconsistencies were corrected

MAIN COMPONENT NETWORK 2007 Van. Birgelen Schepers Hensen Wouters Vissers Posler Van´t. Land Neumannmar Wetzels Pauwels Stokburger. Sauer 2. 0 Bryant De. Ruyter Bauer De. Lancastre Lageslu Beckers Huber Albrecht Lages Queiroga Component size: 24 Diameter: 4 Density: . 08 Hess Kuester Homburg

SO WHAT DOES THIS TELL US ABOUT 2007? • One central actor with four papers in four different tracks, collaborating with 11 other academics spread across six institutions • However, only two of the other academics were based outside of the Dutchspeaking area (Netherlands and Antwerpen), at two different institutions • Three different languages across the main component: Dutch (4 institutions), German (2) and Portugese (2) (one author had no affiliation) • Wide variety of tracks (nine in total) • Geographical and cultural proximity more important than a focus on subdiscipline

MAIN COMPONENT NETWORK 2010 Schulzecar Braun Paul Erfgen Zenker Kohler 2. 0 Heuke Villeda Schnittka Hennig. Thurau Hemetsberger Sattler Rudolph 2. 0 Knubben Füller Urban Papies Pichler Egger Völckner Hofmann Emrich Matzler Hoppe Mühlbacher Gensler Clement Component size: 37 Diameter = 6 Density =. 054 Ringle Schoder Fischbach Melnyk Kleinkri Sarstedt Beckermi Wuste Hautz Burmester

SO WHAT DOES THIS TELL US ABOUT 2010? • One central actor with six papers at EMAC 2010 in three different tracks, collaborating with 16 other academics spread across five institutions • However, only two of the other academics were based outside of Germany, at different institutions • Three languages across the main component: German (6 institutions), Dutch (2) and English (1) • Wide variety of tracks (nine in total) • Once again, geographical and cultural proximity is more important than a focus on sub-discipline

EFFECT OF REMOVING ONE ACTOR Schulzecar Braun Paul Erfgen Pichler Kohler 2. 0 Zenker Heuke Villeda Schnittka Hennig. Thurau Hemetsberger Sattler Rudolph Füller Knubben Urban Völckner Papies Hofmann Emrich Egger Matzler Hoppe Gensler Clement Ringle Fischbach Schoder Melnyk Kleinkri Sarstedt Beckermi Wuste Burmester Mühlbacher Hautz

CONCLUSIONS • Geographical and cultural proximity is the primary driver of collaboration, reflecting previous research. This indicates that: - marketing scholars are moderately risk-averse with regard to collaboration partners - the marketing sub-discipline is not as important as the relationships that exist between scholars • Sub-discipline focus is, however, more important in later years - Anomoly or trend? • So what is interesting for us to understand?

IMPLICATIONS: WHAT CAN WE DO? • Prioritise papers co-authored across national borders? • Will this lead to higher-impact research? Exclude centres of excellence? • Purpose of the paper: publication or participation for social networking? • Limit number of co-authorships of each scholar? • Allows for more participants? Limits the contribution of key scholars? • EMAC travel grants for young scholars, focussed on writing a specific paper for EMAC? • Do we actually want - or need - to do anything?

AARHUS UNIVERSITY PATTERNS AND REGULARITIES IN THE EUROPEAN MARKETING ACADEMIC COMMUNITY: A SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE EMAC CONFERENCES 2000 -2010 Katrine Christensen Athanasios Krystallis Robert P. Ormrod issues cam