Inverted U-Shaped relationship between team size and citation impact: Mediating role of responsibility diffusion

This study, therefore, quantified responsibility diffusion based on author contribution information and explored its mediating role in the relationship between collaboration size and citation impact (citation count in a four-year window). The results show the following: (1) An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between team size and citation count. (2) Responsibility diffusion plays a partial mediating role between team size and citation count. (3) As team size increases, the degree of responsibility diffusion increases. Lastly, (4) responsibility diffusion has an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with citation count (e.g., a moderate degree of responsibility diffusion has the highest impact). These findings offer a new understanding of the mechanism by which collaboration size influences research performance. This study also has practical implications for solving research collaboration dilemmas based on a group-cognition perspective.PMID:38164053 | DOI:10.1080/08989621.2023.2300255

Source: Accountability in Research - January 2, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Yetong Gan Jialin Liu Yixuan Zhao Mengxiao Zhu Gaofeng Wang Source Type: research