IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v6y2017i2p57-d100402.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Departmental Structure, Cooperative Scholarship, and Productivity: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative-Comparative Analysis of Selected Sociology Departments

Author

Listed:
  • Ali Madanipour

    (Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Simpson College 701 N C St, Indianola, IA 50125, USA)

  • James Williams

    (Department of Sociology and Social Work, Texas Woman’s University, PO Box 425884, Denton, TX 76204, USA)

  • Mahmoud Sadri

    (Department of Sociology and Social Work, Texas Woman’s University, PO Box 425884, Denton, TX 76204, USA)

Abstract

Previous studies of scholarly productivity have neglected the impact of departmental and institutional structure on the outcome. This study examines the relationships between departmental and institutional structure, cooperative scholarship, and individualistic scholarship with productivity in 31 highly ranked sociology departments in the United States. We measure scholarly productivity by the number of peer reviewed articles that were published either jointly or individually by faculty members during 2009–2010. By applying fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, we conclude that a combination of four conditions are associated with higher levels of scholarly productivity. These are: type of institution (public vs. private), proportion of tenured professors, individualistic scholarship, and cooperative scholarship. The results reveal that the conditions (independent variables) combine in different ways (pathways) to be sufficient for the outcome. Further, we conclude that cooperative scholarship and productivity are more complex constructs than suggested by previous literature and that there are multiple pathways by which departments may facilitate scholarly productivity. We address implications and recommendations for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali Madanipour & James Williams & Mahmoud Sadri, 2017. "Departmental Structure, Cooperative Scholarship, and Productivity: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative-Comparative Analysis of Selected Sociology Departments," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-12, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:2:p:57-:d:100402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/2/57/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/2/57/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ragin, Charles C., 2000. "Fuzzy-Set Social Science," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226702773, September.
    2. van Rijnsoever, Frank J. & Hessels, Laurens K., 2011. "Factors associated with disciplinary and interdisciplinary research collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 463-472, April.
    3. Dean Karlan & Markus M. Möbius & Tanya S. Rosenblat & Adam Szeidl & Hunt Allcott, 2007. "Community Size and Network Closure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 80-85, May.
    4. Katz, J. Sylvan & Martin, Ben R., 1997. "What is research collaboration?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-18, March.
    5. Francis Bloch & Garance Genicot & Debraj Ray, 2007. "Reciprocity in Groups and the Limits to Social Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 65-69, May.
    6. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226702766 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrej Kastrin & Jelena Klisara & Borut Lužar & Janez Povh, 2017. "Analysis of Slovenian research community through bibliographic networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 791-813, February.
    2. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2012. "Identifying interdisciplinarity through the disciplinary classification of coauthors of scientific publications," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2206-2222, November.
    3. Zuo, Zhiya & Zhao, Kang, 2018. "The more multidisciplinary the better? – The prevalence and interdisciplinarity of research collaborations in multidisciplinary institutions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 736-756.
    4. Rafols, Ismael & Leydesdorff, Loet & O’Hare, Alice & Nightingale, Paul & Stirling, Andy, 2012. "How journal rankings can suppress interdisciplinary research: A comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1262-1282.
    5. Jung, Jiwon & Bozeman, Barry & Gaughan, Monica, 2017. "Impact of research collaboration cosmopolitanism on job satisfaction," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1863-1872.
    6. Ho Fai Chan & Ali Sina Önder & Benno Torgler, 2015. "Do Nobel laureates change their patterns of collaboration following prize reception?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2215-2235, December.
    7. Li, Feng & Miao, Yajun & Yang, Chenchen, 2015. "How do alumni faculty behave in research collaboration? An analysis of Chang Jiang Scholars in China," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 438-450.
    8. Shen, Hongquan & Cheng, Ying & Ju, Xiufang & Xie, Juan, 2022. "Rethinking the effect of inter-gender collaboration on research performance for scholars," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    9. Sinnewe, Elisabeth & Charles, Michael B. & Keast, Robyn, 2016. "Australia's Cooperative Research Centre Program: A transaction cost theory perspective," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 195-204.
    10. Siedlok, Frank & Hibbert, Paul & Sillince, John, 2015. "From practice to collaborative community in interdisciplinary research contexts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 96-107.
    11. Barry Bozeman & Daniel Fay & Catherine Slade, 2013. "Research collaboration in universities and academic entrepreneurship: the-state-of-the-art," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 1-67, February.
    12. Wang, Jian, 2016. "Knowledge creation in collaboration networks: Effects of tie configuration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 68-80.
    13. Casey Helgeson & Robert E. Nicholas & Klaus Keller & Chris E. Forest & Nancy Tuana, 2022. "Attention to values helps shape convergence research," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-19, January.
    14. Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha & Mahshid Abdoli & Emma Stuart & Meiko Makita & Paul Wilson & Jonathan Levitt, 2023. "Why are coauthored academic articles more cited: Higher quality or larger audience?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(7), pages 791-810, July.
    15. Eli Rudinow Saetnan & Richard Philip Kipling, 2016. "Evaluating a European knowledge hub on climate change in agriculture: Are we building a better connected community?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1057-1074, November.
    16. Eisend, Martin & Schmidt, Susanne, 2014. "The influence of knowledge-based resources and business scholars’ internationalization strategies on research performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 48-59.
    17. Joya Misra & Laurel Smith-Doerr & Nilanjana Dasgupta & Gabriela Weaver & Jennifer Normanly, 2017. "Collaboration and Gender Equity among Academic Scientists," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, March.
    18. Hajdeja Iglič & Patrick Doreian & Luka Kronegger & Anuška Ferligoj, 2017. "With whom do researchers collaborate and why?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 153-174, July.
    19. Andrej Kastrin & Jelena Klisara & Borut Lužar & Janez Povh, 2018. "Is science driven by principal investigators?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 1157-1182, November.
    20. Carr, Gemma & Loucks, Daniel P. & Blöschl, Günter, 2018. "Gaining insight into interdisciplinary research and education programmes: A framework for evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 35-48.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:2:p:57-:d:100402. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.