Evolutionary analysis of collaboration networks in the field of information systems

In recent years, collaborations between scholars have drastically increased in all fields. Using individual and country collaboration data from the past 30 years, this paper studies the evolution and trend of collaboration networks in the field of information systems. Our research shows that individual scholars and all countries display the “long tail” phenomenon in article publishing. Average collaboration degree and co-authorship ratio of articles over time are on the rise overall. Evolutionary analysis of collaboration networks manifest that the network development is basically mature although it has not yet reached a stable status. International collaborations have shown a gradual increase, with the increase in participating countries distributed mainly in Europe and Asia and increase in collaborations mainly in North America and Europe, especially the United States, England and Canada.