Coauthorship Networks in Public Service Motivation Scholarship: Implications for the Evolution of a Field

• Date: 01 September 2017
• Author: Amy E. Smith,Sanjay K. Pandey,Deneen M. Hatmaker,Sushmita Subedi
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17701545
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X17701545

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2017, Vol. 37(3) 295 –322

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X17701545

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Article

Coauthorship Networks in

Public Service Motivation

Scholarship: Implications for

the Evolution of a Field

Deneen M. Hatmaker1, Amy E. Smith2,

Sanjay K. Pandey3, and Sushmita Subedi2

Abstract

How does a body of scholarship emerge, develop, and evolve? Research is the product

of a community of scholars and their collaboration over time builds and disseminates

knowledge. One way to examine a scholarly community and scholarship evolution

is to consider patterns of collaboration through coauthorship networks. This article

conducts a social network analysis of coauthorship between public service motivation

(PSM) scholars from 1990 to 2016. This analysis depicts the social structure of the

field as it evolved and offers implications both for its theoretical progress and for

individual scholars. In general, we find that the PSM coauthorship network has grown

increasingly since 1990 but it is not a cohesive network of scholars. It consists of

many disconnected subgroups that actually represent opportunities for individual

scholars to build social capital and influence. We conclude with implications of our

findings and we offer suggestions for further analysis.

Keywords

coauthorship, coauthorship networks, research collaboration, public service

motivation, collaboration

How does a body of scholarship emerge, develop, and evolve? Research is the product

of a community of scholars and their collaboration over time builds and disseminates

knowledge. One way to examine a scholarly community and scholarship evolution is

1University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

2University of Massachusetts Boston, MA, USA

3The George Washington University, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Deneen M. Hatmaker, University of Connecticut, 1800 Asylum Avenue, 4th Floor, West Hartford, CT

06117, USA.

Email: deneen.hatmaker@uconn.edu

701545ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X17701545Review of Public Personnel AdministrationHatmaker et al.

research-article2017

296 Review of Public Personnel Administration 37(3)

to consider patterns of collaboration. Research collaboration is a mechanism through

which varied perspectives and competencies may be connected to develop knowledge

(Kumar, 2015). Examining patterns of collaboration can reveal the underlying social

structures of a research community that can affect both the production and diffusion of

knowledge (Acedo, Barroso, Casanueva, & Galan, 2006; Piette & Ross, 1992).

Coauthorship is one way to identify collaboration among scholars and coauthorship

patterns are one way to measure collaboration (Corley & Sabharwal, 2010; Katz &

Martin, 1997; Newman, 2004). The coauthorship relationships between scholars rep-

resent instances of collaboration and together form a coauthorship network. Such net-

works provide us with a view of the social structure of a research community that can

be analyzed over time.

This article examines collaboration among scholars in the development and disper-

sion of a particular area of scholarship, public service motivation (PSM). We do so by

conducting a social network analysis of coauthorship between PSM scholars from

1990 to 2016. Coauthorship networks have been studied in several disciplines to

understand phenomena such as the evolution and the social structure of the discipline,

research impact, and the influence of individual scholars (e.g., Acedo et al., 2006; Li,

Liao, & Yen, 2013; Newman, 2004; Stokes & Hartley, 1989). Our analysis differs from

analyses of citation networks in public administration scholarship (e.g., Hu, Khosa, &

Kapucu, 2016; Hwang & Moon, 2009; Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016; Vogel, 2014)

in that by considering coauthorship networks we can map the relationships between

scholars and the underlying social structure of a research field or discipline. These

relationships represent not only collaboration but also resource exchange—that is,

through these connections ideas, knowledge, and data are shared among scholars.

These flows contribute to the growth of the field and the expansion of knowledge in a

particular area.

To the best of our knowledge, the public administration and public management

literature has not reflected extensively on the sociology of the field’s development or

the social structure of the research community. This study contributes toward filling

this gap by considering the social structural development of the PSM research stream.

By analyzing coauthorship networks over time, as we have for this study, we can

depict the field’s evolution in terms of the active research groups and connections

between scholars (Barabàsi et al., 2002; Gonzàlez-Alcaide, Park, Huamani, Belinchón,

& Ramos, 2015). Because we can identify when authors (network nodes) and links

between authors (network ties) are added, we are able to offer implications based on

the “dynamic and structural mechanisms” that guide the field’s evolution (Barabàsi

et al., 2002). We can also offer implications for individual scholars’ social capital,

influence, and productivity (Klenk, Hickey, & MacLellan, 2010; Li et al., 2013; Stokes

& Hartley, 1989).

In the next sections, we discuss relevant literature and PSM as a case in particular.

We then explain the data collection and analysis and present our findings. This analy-

sis considers several factors related to collaboration within the PSM community to

understand how PSM knowledge was developed and distributed. We divide the time

span into epochs based on significant events in the history of the PSM scholarship and