A Questão da Agência em Redes Acadêmicas de Pesquisa: Centralidade, Produtividade e Escolha Preferencial.

Abstract

In this article, we examine the role of the agency in the construction of scientific knowledge under the assumptions of structurationism. For this purpose, the notion of agency has been empirically treated from the social network analysis, with the indicators being the centrality, productivity and preferential attachment of researchers in the field of organizational studies and strategy in Brazil. We analyzed 2,072 researchers, in that we highlight the role of some of them, classified as continuants, in order to evaluate structural indicators in more detail, in addition to the trajectory of their academic production. Our findings allow us to affirm that it is not only the social structure that shows duality, conditioning and enabling the action, but also the capacity of agency itself. Currently viewed in the literature as a transforming capacity, it also conditions the action of agents because their projective capacities tend to be guided by past conduct in that they link their actions to the social and intellectual trajectory they have experienced in the field, bringing greater conformity and habitualness to research. We have addressed this phenomenon into a cognitive realm and have called it as paradox of agency capability.

Keywords

• agency
• social network analysis
• Centrality
• scientific knowledge
• preferential attachment