Tie Strength Skewness and Research Performance

Abstract

Literature on the network effect of tie strength typically investigates the overall tie strength of an ego’s network at the aggregated level with little attention paid to the differences between ties in the network, but this paper instead focuses on the heterogeneity of ties in collaboration networks and its effects on research productivity and impact. We argue that weak and strong ties can coexist in unbounded collaboration networks and a composition of weak and strong ties is beneficial to creativity because it allows taking advantage of the respective strengths of weak and strong ties. The Tie Strength Gini indicator is developed to measure the skewness of tie strength distribution in collaboration networks. We analyze co-authorship networks of 589 American scientists across five research fields, and the empirical findings suggest that a collaboration network with some very strong ties and meanwhile a number of weak ties, namely with highly skewed tie strength distribution, is beneficial to both productivity and research impact. Furthermore, strong ties are more important for increasing productivity while weak ties are more important for boosting research impact.