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Standing on the shoulders of giants

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  • Amjad, Tehmina
  • Ding, Ying
  • Xu, Jian
  • Zhang, Chenwei
  • Daud, Ali
  • Tang, Jie
  • Song, Min

Abstract

Young scholars in academia often seek to work in collaboration with top researchers in their field in pursuit of a successful career. While success in academia can be defined differently, everyone agrees that training with a well-known researcher can help lead to an efficacious career. This study aims to investigate whether collaborating with established scientists does, in fact, improve junior scholars’ chances of success. If not, what makes young scientists soar in their academic careers? We investigate this question by analyzing the effect of collaboration with a known-star on success of a young scholar. The results suggest that working with leading experts can lead to a successful career, but that it is not the only way. Researchers who were not fortunate enough to start their career with an elite researcher could still succeed through hard work and passion. These findings emerged from analyses of two discrete sets of well-known scholars on the career of newcomers, suggesting their strength and validity.

Suggested Citation

  • Amjad, Tehmina & Ding, Ying & Xu, Jian & Zhang, Chenwei & Daud, Ali & Tang, Jie & Song, Min, 2017. "Standing on the shoulders of giants," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 307-323.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:11:y:2017:i:1:p:307-323
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2017.01.004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jianlin Zhou & An Zeng & Ying Fan & Zengru Di, 2018. "Identifying important scholars via directed scientific collaboration networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1327-1343, March.
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    7. Shen, Hongquan & Cheng, Ying & Ju, Xiufang & Xie, Juan, 2022. "Rethinking the effect of inter-gender collaboration on research performance for scholars," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    8. Kong, Xiangjie & Mao, Mengyi & Jiang, Huizhen & Yu, Shuo & Wan, Liangtian, 2019. "How does collaboration affect researchers’ positions in co-authorship networks?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 887-900.
    9. Ali Daud & Min Song & Malik Khizar Hayat & Tehmina Amjad & Rabeeh Ayaz Abbasi & Hassan Dawood & Anwar Ghani, 2020. "Finding rising stars in bibliometric networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 633-661, July.
    10. Jiaying Liu & Tao Tang & Xiangjie Kong & Amr Tolba & Zafer AL-Makhadmeh & Feng Xia, 2018. "Understanding the advisor–advisee relationship via scholarly data analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 161-180, July.
    11. Shuo Xu & Mengjia An & Xin An, 2021. "Do scientific publications by editorial board members have shorter publication delays and then higher influence?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 6697-6713, August.
    12. Xie, Qing & Zhang, Xinyuan & Kim, Giyeong & Song, Min, 2022. "Exploring the influence of coauthorship with top scientists on researchers’ affiliation, research topic, productivity, and impact," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    13. Jun Zhang & Yan Hu & Zhaolong Ning & Amr Tolba & Elsayed Elashkar & Feng Xia, 2018. "AIRank: Author Impact Ranking through Positions in Collaboration Networks," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-16, June.
    14. Wang, Wei & Ren, Jing & Alrashoud, Mubarak & Xia, Feng & Mao, Mengyi & Tolba, Amr, 2020. "Early-stage reciprocity in sustainable scientific collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    15. Muhammad Sajid Qureshi & Ali Daud, 2021. "Fine-grained academic rankings: mapping affiliation of the influential researchers with the top ranked HEIs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8331-8361, October.
    16. Xiomara S. Q. Chacon & Thiago C. Silva & Diego R. Amancio, 2020. "Comparing the impact of subfields in scientific journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 625-639, October.
    17. Mariia Petryk & Michael Rivera & Siddharth Bhattacharya & Liangfei Qiu & Subodha Kumar, 2022. "How Network Embeddedness Affects Real-Time Performance Feedback: An Empirical Investigation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1467-1489, December.
    18. Li, Xin & Tang, Xuli, 2021. "Characterizing interdisciplinarity in drug research: A translational science perspective," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    19. Tehmina Amjad & Javeria Munir, 2021. "Investigating the impact of collaboration with authority authors: a case study of bibliographic data in field of philosophy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4333-4353, May.
    20. Klemiński, Rajmund & Kazienko, Przemyslaw & Kajdanowicz, Tomasz, 2021. "Where should I publish? Heterogeneous, networks-based prediction of paper’s citation success," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    21. Zhiya Zuo & Kang Zhao, 2021. "Understanding and predicting future research impact at different career stages—A social network perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(4), pages 454-472, April.

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