IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v117y2020p9284-9291.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Diversity–Innovation Paradox in Science

Author

Listed:
  • Bas Hofstra

    (Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Vivek V. Kulkarni

    (Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Sebastian Munoz-Najar Galvez

    (Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Bryan He

    (Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Dan Jurafsky

    (Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Daniel A. McFarland

    (Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

Abstract

Prior work finds a diversity paradox: Diversity breeds innovation, yet underrepresented groups that diversify organizations have less successful careers within them. Does the diversity paradox hold for scientists as well? We study this by utilizing a near-complete population of ∼1.2 million US doctoral recipients from 1977 to 2015 and following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. We use text analysis and machine learning to answer a series of questions: How do we detect scientific innovations? Are underrepresented groups more likely to generate scientific innovations? And are the innovations of underrepresented groups adopted and rewarded? Our analyses show that underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However, their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: For example, novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups. These results suggest there may be unwarranted reproduction of stratification in academic careers that discounts diversity’s role in innovation and partly explains the underrepresentation of some groups in academia.

Suggested Citation

  • Bas Hofstra & Vivek V. Kulkarni & Sebastian Munoz-Najar Galvez & Bryan He & Dan Jurafsky & Daniel A. McFarland, 2020. "The Diversity–Innovation Paradox in Science," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(17), pages 9284-9291, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:9284-9291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9284.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jayakumar , Uma, 2023. "On "Putting Lipstick on A Pig": Beware "Moderate" Critiques of DEI Statements Dressed as Concern for Academic Freedom," University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education qt95g888hc, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.
    2. Zhang, Ning & He, Guangye & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Zhenyue & Li, Jiang, 2022. "Does a gender-neutral name associate with the research impact of a scientist?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    3. Kim, Lanu & Smith, Daniel Scott & Hofstra, Bas & McFarland, Daniel A., 2022. "Gendered knowledge in fields and academic careers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    4. Nicole A. Cooke & Vanessa L. Kitzie, 2021. "Outsiders‐within‐Library and Information Science: Reprioritizing the marginalized in critical sociocultural work," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(10), pages 1285-1294, October.
    5. Nørskov, Sladjana & Damholdt, Malene F. & Ulhøi, John P. & Jensen, Morten Berg & Mathiasen, Mia Krogager & Ess, Charles M. & Seibt, Johanna, 2022. "Employers’ and applicants’ fairness perceptions in job interviews: using a teleoperated robot as a fair proxy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Lin, Yiling & Evans, James A. & Wu, Lingfei, 2022. "New directions in science emerge from disconnection and discord," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    7. Cao, Dongqin & Peng, Can & Yang, Guanglei & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "How does the pressure of political promotion affect renewable energy technological innovation? Evidence from 30 Chinese provinces," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    8. McGuire, Erin & Rietveld, Anne M. & Crump, Amanda & Leeuwis, Cees, 2022. "Anticipating gender impacts in scaling innovations for agriculture: Insights from the literature," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    9. Martín de Diego, Isaac & González-Fernández, César & Fernández-Isabel, Alberto & Fernández, Rubén R. & Cabezas, Javier, 2021. "System for evaluating the reliability and novelty of medical scientific papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    10. Wu, Lingfei & Kittur, Aniket & Youn, Hyejin & Milojević, Staša & Leahey, Erin & Fiore, Stephen M. & Ahn, Yong-Yeol, 2022. "Metrics and mechanisms: Measuring the unmeasurable in the science of science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    11. Akbaritabar, Aliakbar & Stephen, Dimity & Squazzoni, Flaminio, 2022. "A study of referencing changes in preprint-publication pairs across multiple fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).

    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:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:9284-9291. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    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.