Masters Committees and Academic Cooperation in Graduate Studies in Accounting

Resumo

The creation and development of scientific knowledge has, as its basis, the social relations of researchers, (Kuhn, 1978). Such scientific collaboration can be identified through the analysis of social networks (Smith, 1958; Price, 1966; Katz, 1993, Newman, 2001; Barabási, 2003; Godechot e Mariot, 2004). Based on this premise, this paper aims to identify and analyze the structural dynamics of relationships among the masters-level graduate programs in the area of Accounting Sciences in Brazil, from the perspective of the social networks evidenced in the examination committees established for candidates to the Masters degree in this area. To this end, a descriptive study was carried out using Social Network Analysis to identify the structure of the scientific and academic network established by the collaboration of professors of graduate programs in Accounting Sciences in the examination committees of Masters candidates. Two hundred and forty-one (241) professors were identified from eighteen (18) programs who took part in one thousand and two (1002) Masters' examinations from 2002 to 2010. It was found that the creation of new graduate studies programs in the area and the insertion of new teachers was decisive in the increase of collaboration on Masters' examination committees. In light of this evidence, results point to a future scenario of the accounting field characterized by the evolution of scientific and academic collaboration, confirming that scientific knowledge is created and developed by social relations of actors involved in the area.