Repeated Collaborations and Creative Outcomes: How Co-authorships Structure the Field of Financial Economics

• In Event: 262 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05.

Abstract

Understanding how creative ideas are produced in intellectual fields presents a difficult set of challenges. Research, creative or not, is a form of work, which is to say, an activity that requires energy, motivation and focus. However, scholars have given limited attention to the ways researchers engage in this complex activity, and even less to the ways they face the day-to-day challenges research presents. In this paper, I draw on interactional and social psychological approaches to creativity, to argue that a well-known aspect of intellectual research—that it is collaborative—provides further insight into the problem of how individuals become motivated to engage in creative work. I use bibliometric data from top journals in the field of financial economics to carefully distinguish between collaboration as a funnel of prestige, versus collaboration as a horizontal motivator. My argument has important implications for the sociology of intellectual fields and creativity.

Author

• Simone Polillo, University of Virginia