On the Sustainability of Co-Authoring Behaviors in Vietnamese Social Sciences: A Preliminary Analysis of Network Data

Tung Ho, Hong Kong Nguyen (), Thu-Trang Vuong and Quan-Hoang Vuong
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Quan-Hoang Vuong: Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Western University Hanoi (ĐH Thành Tây), Hanoi 100000, Vietnam
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Quan-Hoang Vuong

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: The topic of sustainability has mostly been tied to economic development and environmental protection, yet not much attention has been paid to the need for high problem-solving capacity as this underlines both issues. One of the most straightforward ways to improve problem-solving capacity is to nurture ‘productive and enduring’, i.e., sustainable, scientific communities. The study examines the co-authoring behaviors of 412 Vietnamese social scientists over the 2008–2017 period via social network analysis to determine if these researchers have formed sustainable scientific communities, using Scopus data. The dataset provides an insightful look into the predominant form of collaboration, i.e., co-authorship, within the Vietnamese social science research communities. Through basic network metrics such as density and clustering coefficient, the study hypothesizes that the socially sustainable research communities are those with low clustering and high density. As any scholar's position in a network can be specified by three quantities: the number of publications, connections, and years in research, the distance metrics from the most productive to the rest are computed and compared. The study hypothesizes that if the distance is too large; it reflects the socially unsustainable situation in the network. The results indicate that certain level of social unsustainability exists in social sciences groups in Vietnam. Though the results are only indicative, it has opened up a fertile space for future inquiry into this matter.

Keywords: publishing behavior; co-authoring behavior; sustainable scientific communities; social sustainability distance; social network analysis; Vietnam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: On the sustainability of co-authoring behaviors in vietnamese social sciences: A preliminary analysis of network data (2017)
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