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Career advancement and scientific performance in universities

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Abramo

    (Laboratory for Studies of Research and Technology Transfer at the Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science (IASI-CNR), National Research Council of Italy)

  • Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

    (Laboratory for Studies of Research and Technology Transfer at the Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science (IASI-CNR), National Research Council of Italy
    University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Francesco Rosati

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

Abstract

Many governments have placed priority on excellence in higher education as part of their policy agendas. Processes for recruitment and career advancement in universities thus have a critical role. The efficiency of faculty selection processes can be evaluated by comparing the subsequent performance of competition winners against that of the losers and the pre-existing staff of equal academic rank. Our study presents an empirical analysis concerning the recruitment procedures for associate professors in the Italian university system. The results of a bibliometric analysis of the hard science areas reveal that new associate professors are on average more productive than the incumbents. However a number of crucial concerns emerge, in particular concerning occurrence of non-winner candidates that are more productive than the winners over the subsequent triennium, and cases of winners that are completely unproductive. Beyond the implications for the Italian case, the analysis offers considerations for all decision-makers regarding the ex post evaluation of the efficiency of the recruitment process and the desirability of providing selection committees with bibliometric indicators in support of evaluation (i.e. informed peer review).

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Francesco Rosati, 2014. "Career advancement and scientific performance in universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 891-907, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:98:y:2014:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-013-1075-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-013-1075-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Reinhilde Veugelers & Frederick Van der Ploeg, 2008. "Reforming European Universities: Scope for an Evidence-Based Process," CESifo Working Paper Series 2298, CESifo.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2012. "The dispersion of research performance within and between universities as a potential indicator of the competitive intensity in higher education systems," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 155-168.
    3. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Marco Solazzi, 2010. "National research assessment exercises: a measure of the distortion of performance rankings when labor input is treated as uniform," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 605-619, September.
    4. Jamil Salmi, 2009. "The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2600, December.
    5. Dunn, Thomas & Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 2000. "Financial Capital, Human Capital, and the Transition to Self-Employment: Evidence from Intergenerational Links," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 282-305, April.
    6. Bernard F. Lentz & David N. Laband, 1989. "Why So Many Children of Doctors Become Doctors: Nepotism vs. Human Capital Transfers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(3), pages 396-413.
    7. Natalia Zinovyeva & Manuel Bagues, 2015. "The Role of Connections in Academic Promotions," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 264-292, April.
    8. Perotti, Roberto & Labartino, Giovanna, 2011. "Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia," CEPR Discussion Papers 8645, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2013. "Individual research performance: A proposal for comparing apples to oranges," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 528-539.
    10. Auranen, Otto & Nieminen, Mika, 2010. "University research funding and publication performance--An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 822-834, July.
    11. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Rosati, Francesco, 2013. "The importance of accounting for the number of co-authors and their order when assessing research performance at the individual level in the life sciences," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 198-208.
    12. Stefano Allesina, 2011. "Measuring Nepotism through Shared Last Names: The Case of Italian Academia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(8), pages 1-6, August.
    13. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2011. "Assessing the varying level of impact measurement accuracy as a function of the citation window length," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 659-667.
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniele Checchi & Gianni De Fraja & Stefano Verzillo, 2014. "Publish or Perish? Incentives and Careers in Italian Academia," CEIS Research Paper 323, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 07 Aug 2014.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Di Costa, Flavia, 2019. "When research assessment exercises leave room for opportunistic behavior by the subjects under evaluation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 830-840.
    3. Daniele Checchi & Gianni De Fraja & Stefano Verzillo, 2014. "Publish or Perish: An Analysis of the Academic Job Market in Italy," Discussion Papers 14/04, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    4. Myrto-Panagiota Zacharof & Anna Charalambidou, 2018. "An Exploration of the Sub-Register of Chemical Engineering Research Papers Published in English," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, July.
    5. Giulio Marini & Viviana Meschitti, 2018. "The trench warfare of gender discrimination: evidence from academic promotions to full professor in Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 989-1006, May.
    6. Wu, Jiang & Ou, Guiyan & Liu, Xiaohui & Dong, Ke, 2022. "How does academic education background affect top researchers’ performance? Evidence from the field of artificial intelligence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    7. Orfa Posada-Arias & Jesenia Avendaño-Ramírez & Jose Arias-Pérez, 2018. "Intellectual Capital Management and University Research Group Performance: Mediating Effects of Machiavellianism and Organisational Narcissism," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 1-23, December.
    8. Tanya Araújo & Elsa Fontainha, 2018. "Are scientific memes inherited differently from gendered authorship?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 953-972, November.
    9. Juan Gorraiz & Christian Gumpenberger, 2015. "A flexible bibliometric approach for the assessment of professorial appointments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1699-1719, December.
    10. Lindahl, Jonas, 2023. "Conscientiousness predicts doctoral students’ research productivity," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    11. Camil Demetrescu & Irene Finocchi & Andrea Ribichini & Marco Schaerf, 2020. "On bibliometrics in academic promotions: a case study in computer science and engineering in Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2207-2228, September.

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