In this chapter, the relation between stays abroad and researchers’ productivity is investigated. Supporting the basic hypothesis, both with OLS regression and matching analysis a positive impact of stays abroad on researchers’ productivity after having obtained the doctorate is found. Thus, as academic success is based on researchers’ productivity, stays abroad seem to be an important and desirable factor in researchers’ academic careers. The chapter extends the former literature by including researchers’ “ability” (productivity before having obtained the doctorate) as a further control variable, which also extends the set of variables the researchers are matched on and by using a quality-assessed measure of productivity as dependent variable. Further, concerning the sub-hypotheses it is shown that there is a positive significant relation between the number of stays abroad and researchers’ productivity after their last stay abroad (support for sub-hypothesis 1), the same applies to the number of different host institutions (support for sub-hypothesis 3) and the number of stays abroad before having obtained the doctorate (support for sub-hypothesis 5).
Additionally a significant concave relation between the number of stays abroad spent in the United States and productivity after the last stay abroad is found (support for sub-hypothesis 4). On the contrary, no significant relation between the overall length of stays abroad and researchers’ productivity after their last stay abroad is found (no support for sub-hypothesis 2). These results contribute to the existing literature, as the configuration of stays abroad in terms of length, visiting different host institutions, visiting the United States, and being abroad before having obtained the doctorate and the respective impact on researchers’ productivity is investigated for the first time.
Firstly, the study is limited by the fact that the matching analysis, which was used for investigating the basic hypothesis, only relies on observables. Indeed, there might be other variables or characteristics influencing the decision to go abroad which are unobservable and can therefore not be considered in the matching analysis. Secondly, regarding the investigation of the sub-hypotheses, it was not possible to investigate all explanatory variables in one regression for reasons of reduced explanation power.
Therefore, the results of the separate OLS regressions can only provide first tentative
evidence for the investigated sub-hypotheses as not all relevant variables could be controlled for simultaneously.
Further, as to future research, one may also have a closer look at age cohorts in order to investigate if there are changes over time concerning the impact of stays abroad on productivity. A more comprehensive dataset would also enable to investigate if the different stays abroad in a researcher’s career each have different impacts on productivity. Future research efforts should also include a more comprehensive set of disciplines in order to compare the respective impact of stays abroad on researchers’
productivity between the disciplines. Lastly, one could think of investigating the impact of stays abroad on further measures of researchers’ success, such as the raising of external funds or appointment success.
The following chapter captures the latter aspect and investigates if and how researchers’ national and international mobility influences their appointment success.
4 Time to go? (Inter)National mobility and appointment success of young academics
In this chapter it is analyzed whether and how young researchers’ (inter)national mobility affects their later appointment success. From a human and social capital perspective, (inter)national mobility might increase a researcher’s human and social capital and hence be valued by appointment committees. From a signaling perspective, international mobility might represent a positive signal, whereas national mobility might represent a negative one. Data on 330 researchers from business and economics in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland is used in order to measure appointment success by (a) the time it takes a young researcher to get tenure and by (b) whether the researcher succeeded in getting tenure at a highly ranked institution. Applying Cox proportional hazard and Logit regressions, it is found that international mobility does not affect the time it takes to get tenure, but it does affect the likelihood of getting tenure at a highly ranked institution. To the contrary, national mobility is associated with a decrease in the likelihood of receiving tenure and a decrease in the chances to get tenure at a top-ranked institution.
Comparing cohorts of researchers who obtained their doctorate before 2000 with those after 2000, indications for a “regime change” having taken place are found:
Apparently, the introduction of Juniorprofessorships rendered national academic mobility more common and reduced its negative stigma.18
18 This chapter is a slightly modified version of the paper “Time to go? (Inter)National mobility and appointment success of young academics” by AGNES BÄKER, SUSANNE BREUNINGER, JULIA MUSCHALLIK, KERSTIN PULL and USCHI BACKES-GELLNER. This paper has been published in Schmalenbach Business Review 17(2016)3-4: 401-421.
4.1 Introduction
Based on a survey of business professors in German-speaking countries, FIEDLER/WELPE (2008) find a researcher’s international experience to be of considerable importance in appointment decisions – in addition to a candidate’s job fit and his or her publication record. But why should appointment committees appreciate a candidate’s international experience? Why should international experience be judged to have a value in itself?
With this study we try to shed light on this question by analyzing whether and how international experience actually influences appointment decisions – over and above potentially boosting an applicant’s publication record (see FRANZONI/SCELLATO/STEPHAN 2012 for the latter effect). While there is first tentative evidence by SCHULZE/WARNING/WIERMANN (2008) that a researcher’s international experience may in fact reduce the time it takes him or her to get tenure, there is no study that comprehensively analyzes the relation between an upcoming researcher’s international mobility and his or her appointment success. We go beyond the existing literature and (a) distinguish between different durations of a researcher’s stay abroad, and (b) do not only look at the time it takes an upcoming researcher to get tenure but also at whether (s)he succeeds in being appointed to a highly reputable institution or not. The latter is an attempt to add a quality dimension to the outcome variable “appointment success”. Further, we (c) analyze different
“appointment regimes” and separately study the situation before and after the Fifth Amendment to the Framework Act on Higher Education (Fünfte Novelle des Hochschulrahmengesetzes). Last not least, we (d) explicitly compare the effects of international mobility with those of national mobility, i.e. with the effects of a researcher’s change of affiliation within one country – in an attempt to find out more about the underlying mechanisms that make appointment committees appreciate international mobility in comparison to national mobility. In so doing, we are the first to analyze a potential direct link between a researcher’s national mobility and his or her appointment success – over and above the effect national mobility might have on a researcher’s publication record (for the latter see, e.g., BÄKER 2015;
BOLLI/SCHLÄPFER 2013; FERNÁNDEZ-ZUBIETA/GEUNA/LAWSON 2013).
With our study, which is largely explorative in nature, we seek to address the
following research questions:
1. Do appointment committees value international experience in itself? I.e., does