Homophily in co-autorship networks

Abstract The main purpose of this paper is to measure the impact that homophily, structural characteristics of the networks, number of citations of the alters and their Hirsch score have on the number of citations of an ego. I have chosen co-authorship networks as a subject of research because they have a great influence on knowledge and on the diffusion of ideas. The studied populations are represented by full-time academics affiliated to sociology departments in Romania, Poland and Slovenia. Ego-network analysis was used as research design. The data was analyzed using linear hierarchical regression. For all three populations the average number of citations of the alter has a considerable positive impact on the number of citations of the ego. Conversely, the Hirsch score of the alter has a negative impact on the number of citations of the ego. The data analyzed in this article claims that the assumptions about the positive impact of alter citations, network size and the betweenness score on the number of the authors citations are supported empirically.