The Role of Social Media in Scholarly Collaboration: An Enabler of International Research Team’s Activation?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social media (SM) in supporting international research. The study is based on a sample of 797 scholars who published their papers in the Financial Times Top 45 management journals in the years 2013–2015. Data were collected through observations conducted mainly on SM and university sites and analyzed by using negative binomial regression. It was found that the international collaboration of the research team is positively associated with the presence of the first author on Academic Social Networking Sites (ASNSs) as ResearchGate and Academia.edu. Despite the fact that juniors are more likely to be present in SM platforms, the senior position of the first author was positively associated with the international collaboration, which can be explained by the fact that senior academics have accumulated more extensive bridging social capital. The identified relationship indicates that professional SM serves as a tool to establish a digital footprint not only in business but also in academia. As well as the need for further investigation of the role and potential of ASNSs to foster newer and more efficient forms of international research collaboration.