The assortativity of scholars at a research-intensive university in Malaysia

The purpose of this study was to provide quantitative indicators of intra-university assortative mixing patterns of scholars based on five parameters: degree of connections, faculty, professional position, gender and race.

We conducted a case study of business and management scholars of University of Malaya, a research-intensive University in Malaysia, using co-authorship in papers indexed in the Digital Library Indexing System, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database of Web of Science, from 2006 to 2010. Background information of scholars was extracted from bibliometric records, online curriculum vitaes and other online sources. Assortativity coefficients were calculated for all parameters.

The study found a degree assortativity coefficient of 0.195, which corresponds with other studies in the literature. Assortativity due to university faculty was strongly assortative at 0.649, whereas gender (0.28) and race (0.16) were weakly assortative. However, in contrast to the common belief that “similarity breeds connection”, the scholars were highly disassortative by professional position (−0.75).

This study holds significance to policymakers in understanding the socio-academic factors that bring scholars together. It also adds to the body of knowledge in social network studies that are examining the various factors responsible in bringing the actors together.

This is one of the first studies that empirically investigated mixing patterns of researchers at a prominent research-intensive university in Malaysia.