Social Capital in Academic Engineers

This paper explores recent trends in the scientific collaboration of the most productive academic engineers in Mexico. First, an analysis of team size, institutional and international collaboration is explored. Then, the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation is examined. For this purpose, knowledge creation is measured by research papers in internationally peer-reviewed publications and social capital is measured through the pattern of connection between actors, where a connection between two researchers is established through co-authorship. The results suggest that the number of direct ties is the most important aspect of social capital. This characteristic enhances the quantity and quality of the productivity of academic engineers. The results also suggest that the strength of those ties affects negatively the productivity. Finally, evidence is found that actors embedded in sparsely connected networks (rich in structural holes) take advantage of the brokerage opportunities to enhance their productivity.