The Knowledge Transfer and Sharing Patterns of Co-Authorship Collaboration in Malaysian Research Universities Using Social Network Analysis

Abstract

Throughout the globe, knowledge transfers and sharing activities are a concern of policymakers as the countries transform into knowledge based economy. While Malaysia has no exception in this regard, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) put the concern on knowledge transfer and sharing on Malaysia research universities (RUs) as the research, development and commercialization initiatives and collaborations have been the key activities of Malaysia RU. However, the knowledge transfers and sharing through research collaboration and publication co-authorship may occur in different circumstances involving different level of authors and co-authors and inter-universities and intra-universities. The complexity of the circumstances makes it difficult to determine the knowledge transfer level through the co-authorship collaborations. This research examines the co-authorship collaboration pattern as it is believed that co- authorship collaboration directly portraying the knowledge transfer and sharing activities in Malaysia RUs. This study applies the social network analysis (SNA) as a tool for a proper understanding on how academicians in Malaysia RUs transfer and sharing the research’s knowledge and collaboratively publish their research’ works with each other. The SNA’s structural dimension results in the form of visualizations and tabulations shows that the knowledge transfers and sharing activities through co-authorship collaboration extensively practiced by researchers affiliated with Malaysian RUs. This directly implies that knowledge management has been widely regarded and promoted in research works in Malaysia.