An integrated examination of collaboration coauthorship networks through structural cohesion, holes, hierarchy, and percolating clusters

Structural cohesion, hierarchy, holes, and percolating clusters share a complementary existence in many social networks. Although the individual influences of these attributes on the structure and function of a network have been analyzed in detail, a more accurate picture emerges in proper perspective and context only when research methods are employed to integrate their collective impacts on the network. In a major research project, we have undertaken this examination. This paper presents an extract from this project, using a global network assessment of these characteristics. We apply our methods to analyze the collaboration networks of a subset of researchers in India through their coauthored papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings in management science, including related areas of information technology and economics. We find the Indian networks to be currently suffering from a high degree of fragmentation, which severely restricts researchers' long-rage connectivities in the networks. Comparisons are made with networks of a similar sample of researchers working in the United States.