The performance of researchers in multidisciplinary research groups: does social capital matter?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the relationship between disciplinary diversity (multidisciplinarity) and the performance of researchers, exploring the moderating role of social capital. The article contributes to the literature explaining the internal processes of multidisciplinary research units and how they affect the scientific performance of researchers. Furthermore, the article explores the potential moderating role of social capital and how relational dynamics can mitigate the potential problems associated with multidisciplinarity. To test the hypotheses proposed, we performed a quantitative study based on a sample of 155 researchers in the field of academic management. Multiple regression analysis was used in the empirical analysis. The findings suggest that a positive relationship between researchers’ performance and multidisciplinarity exists (an inverted U-shaped relationship). Estimations also show that internal social capital moderates this curvilinear relationship, making it possible to achieve higher research performance at higher levels of multidisciplinarity.