Do Academics Actually Collaborate in the Study of Interdisciplinary Phenomena? A Look at Half a Century of Research on Mergers and Acquisitions

• Author: Audrey Rouzies,Satu Teerikangas,Nicola Mirc
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• Date: 01 September 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12110

Do Academics Actually Collaborate in the

Study of Interdisciplinary Phenomena? A

Look at Half a Century of Research on

Mergers and Acquisitions

NICOLA MIRC,

1,2

AUDREY ROUZIES

1

and SATU TEERIKANGAS

3,4

*

1

TSM-Research, University Toulouse Capitole, Toulouse, France

2

i3-CRG, Ecole polytechnique, CNRS, Paris, France

3

Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland

4

University College London, London, UK

The roleof scientific collaborationin academic researchhas rocketed across thenatural and social sciences. While

the causes, consequences, and social interaction patterns of scientific collaboration have been well-established,

extant empirical work focuses on entire disciplines. In this paper, we study patterns of interdisciplinary scientific

collaborationusing the example of research on mergersand acquisitions(M&A), a phenomenon which callsfor input

from numerous disciplines. We base our findings on a social network analysis of co-authorship practices in 687

co-authored papers written by 1,158 authors, published in 30 leading journalsand a book series in the 1951–2014

period. We find that scientific collaborationhas increased in the M&A scholarly communitysince the 1990s, and that

one third of co-authorships areinterdisciplinary. Collaboration is however not equally spread, but led by a minority

of active scholarsand certain disciplines. Recently, sub-groups of authors have becomemutually connected, pointing

towards the emergence of an interdisciplinary meta-level community. Our findings contribute to appreciating

interdisciplinary collaboration practices in academic research and document the evolution of M&A research.

Keywords: scientific collaboration; co-authorship; social network analysis; interdisciplinary; mergers and

acquisitions

Introduction

The practice of contemporary science is international,

interdisciplinary and increasingly collaborative (Posner,

2001). The shift to collaboration emerged at the end of

the 18th century in response to the increasing

professionalization of academia (Beaver and Rosen,

1978). Since the middle of the 20th century, scientific

collaboration has rocketed (Moody, 2004; Newman,

2004). Initially, this was led by the complexity of

scientific work in the natural sciences (Glänzel, 2002).

Gradually, this trend has come to affect authorship

practices across the social sciences (Endersby, 1996;

Cronin et al., 2003; Moody, 2004), including economics

(Barnett et al., 1988; Hollis, 2001), accounting (Beattie

and Goodacre, 2004), sports management (Quatman and

Chelladurai, 2008), and management (Acedo et al.,

2006; Rupp et al., 2014).

Notwithstanding, a research domain analyzing the

shifting patterns of scientific collaboration has emerged.

This body of work has established the reasons

underlying scientific collaboration (Hollis, 2001;

Glänzel, 2002) and the resulting positive performance

effects (Durden and Perri, 1995; Endersby, 1996;

Naband and Tollison, 2000) to the extent that the future

of solitary publishing has been scrutinized (Gordon,

1980). In parallel, the sociology of knowledge has

established a relationship between patterns of social

interaction amid academics and the knowledge and

ideas subsequently produced (Cappell and Guterbock,

1992; Ennis, 1992; Moody, 2004). Social interaction,

including the degree of scientific collaboration, affects

a discipline’s idea structure.

Correspondence: Nicola Mirc, TSM-Research, University Toulouse

Capitole,2, rue du Doyen Gabriel Marty France,31000 Toulouse, France.

E-mail nicola.mirc@iae-toulouse.fr

*

All authorshave equally contributedto this paper.

European Management Review, Vol. 14, 333–357, (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12110

©2017 European Academy of Management

Extant literature focuses on analyzing patterns of

collaboration amid single disciplines. Recently, attention

has shifted to studying collaboration among the sub-

disciplines of a larger discipline (Piette and Ross, 1992;

Moody, 2004). All the while, the contemporary world is

plagued by global and complex problems. Solving such

problems calls for collaboration across academic

disciplines (König et al., 2013; van Rijnsoever and

Hessels, 2011). Despite the need for interdisciplinary

collaboration in the practice of academic work, the

question remains–how do academics actually collaborate

across scientific disciplines? This is the theoretical gap

that motivates the paper.

In this paper, we start exploring this question by

focusing on patterns of interdisciplinary scientific

collaboration using the example of research on mergers

and acquisitions (M&A). This choice bears interest for a

number of reasons. M&A represent a significant

contemporary phenomenon; they have become an

established,and increasing, means of corporate expansion

and renewal, shaping firms, industries and societies

(Larsson and Finkelstein, 1999; Faulkner et al., 2012).

Notwithstanding, M&A are a phenomenon studied across

disciplines, including economics, management, and

psychology. Whi le calls have been m ade for increase d

collaboration across the scholarly disciplines involved in

the study of M&A, to date we actually do not know

whether such interdisciplinary collaboration occurs, and

whether such collaboration bears benefits. Paralleling

recent investigations in sociology (Moody, 2004), in

M&A theorizing the question of whether the inquiry

ought to be led by unifying theories, or whether a host

of competing approaches to the study of M&A can prevail

has been questioned (Larsson and Finkelstein, 1999;

Meglio and Risberg, 2010; Faulkner et al., 2012).

The research question guiding the paper is: What are

the patterns of scientific collaboration within and across

the disciplines involved in the study of M&A? We base

our findings on a social network analysis of co-authorship

patterns amongM&A scholars between 1951 and 2014 in

30 leading academic journals and the book series

Advances in Mergers and Acquisitions. The analysis is

based on 940 papers, with a particular focus on the 687

co-authoredpapers written by 1,158 authors. Thefindings

contribute both to research on M&A and to the study of

scientific collaboration practices.

For the study of M&A, the paper documents the

evolution of collaborative practices within and across the

disciplines involved in the study of M&A over 64 years.

We observe that scientific collaboration in the form of

co-authoring has increased in the M&A scholarly

community since the 1990s. Nevertheless, only a very

small amount of the potential for collaboration is being

utilized. To this end, we observe that collaboration is not

equally spread, butis led by a minority of active scholars.

Also, collaboration is more frequent in certain sub-groups

within the researchnetwork and in certain disciplines. As

these sub-groups have recently become mutually

connected, we posit the emergence of a meta-level

community structure spanning disciplines heralded by

certain authors and author networks. This points to the

potential for a gradually integrated study of M&A.

In parallel, the paper contributes to research on

scientific collaboration. For one, through the example of

M&A, the paper analyzes collaborative practices in the

study of an inherently interdisciplinary phenomenon.

Surprisingly, despite the ongoing calls for the need for

interdisciplinary research, interdisciplinary collaboration

in the study of M&A has retained an increasing, though

relatively speaking static stance over the years. For

another, we identify three patterns of interdisciplinary

collaboration that further mark the disciplines involved

in the study of M&A. Third, in zooming into the micro-

level dynamics of collaborative practices, we frame the

role of individual scholars in terms of their distinct

contributions to scholarly work –be it in terms of

publication numbers, as federators or as interdisciplinary

scholars.

Our paper proceeds as follows. We provide next with

an overview of extant research on the role of scientific

collaboration andco-authorship practices across sciences,

followed by a review of the disciplines involved in the

study of M&A. The third section details our research

methods. In the fourth section, we present and analyze

our findings. The fifth section concludes by discussing

the contributionsof the paper in light of extant theorizing.

Theoretical background

Co-authorship as a lens to study scientific collaboration

The majority of academicresearch takes its interest in the

world outside academia, whether studying its

environmental, physical, organizational or human

characteristics. In parallel, a field of study has emerged

that focuseson the practice of academic research.It is thus

that the sociologyof knowledge reflects upon the conduct

of academic research, focusing in particular on the social

structures of academic communities (Kuhn, 1970;

Granovetter, 1973). The social structure of a research

community has been shown to affect the intellectual

structure of that field of study (Cappell and Guterbock,

1992; Ennis, 1992). Further, social structures affect the

speed at which new ideas evolve and become propagated

amid the wider academic andsocietal communities (Burt,

1987). Moody (2004) observes that sociology, a

theoretically fragmented and pluralistic discipline lacking

unifying theories, has become more socially integrated

through the rise in collaborative practices.

334 N. Mirc et al.

©2017 European Academy of Management