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You get what you 'pay' for: Academic attention, career incentives and changes in publication portfolios of business and economics researchers

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Ayaita

    (University of Tuebingen)

  • Kerstin Pull

    (University of Tuebingen)

  • Uschi Backes-Gellner

    (University of Zurich)

Abstract

Since the 1990s, research on publication outputs in business and economics has almost exclusively focused on journal articles. While earlier work has shown that journal articles and other publications were indeed complements in the 70s and 80s, we find that this is no longer the case when we include the most recent decades. Apparently, the notable shift in the scientific community's attention in the 90s on journal articles and the corresponding incentives towards publications in internationally highly ranked journals on average led researchers to focus one-sidedly on journal publications at the expense of other publication forms. To see whether the aggregate result also holds for individual researchers, we perform a cluster analysis and find four different types of individual researchers: "Journal Specialists", "Book-Based Publishers", a small group of "Highly Productive All-round Publishers" and a large group of what we call "Inconspicuous" researchers, with a very modest publication productivity in all forms. In addition, we find that researchers' age matters for their publication patterns: in our sample, more experienced researchers are less productive with respect to journal articles, but more productive with respect to other publication forms. This, however, is not the result of an individual career effect. Rather, it can be attributed to a cohort effect: among today's active researchers, the younger cohorts are more productive in journal articles than the older ones. Our explanation is as follows: the younger cohorts were still in their socialization and hiring phase and were more strongly affected by the newly introduced incentives towards international journal publications - and have thus reacted more strongly to the "regime change" resulting from the scientific community's one-sided attention to publications in internationally highly ranked journals.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Ayaita & Kerstin Pull & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2017. "You get what you 'pay' for: Academic attention, career incentives and changes in publication portfolios of business and economics researchers," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0133, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Sep 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:iso:educat:0133
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Uschi Backes-Gellner & Agnes Bäker & Kerstin Pull, 2018. "The Opportunity Costs of Becoming a Dean: Does Leadership in Academia Crowd Out Research?," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 70(2), pages 189-208, May.
    2. Ting Zhou & Rob Law & Patrick C. Lee, 2021. "Exploring Sustainable Measurements of Academic Research: How Do Faculty Members in Teaching-Oriented Universities of China Evaluate Good Research in Tourism and Hospitality?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-20, October.
    3. Mario Fernandes & Andreas Walter, 2023. "The times they are a-changin’: profiling newly tenured business economics professors in Germany over the past thirty years," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(5), pages 929-971, July.
    4. Philipp Schreck, 2020. "Volume or value? How relative performance information affects task strategy and performance," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(5), pages 733-755, June.
    5. Mario Fernandes & Andreas Walter, 2022. "Publication Behavior in Different Fields of Business Administration: From Anecdotal to Empirical Evidence," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 265-306, September.
    6. David J. Rapp & Michael Olbrich & Florian Follert, 2019. "Zur Internationalisierung der Rechnungswesenforschung im deutschen Sprachraum – eine Analyse von AAA- und EAA-Jahreskonferenzen 1998–2015 [On the Internationalization of Accounting Research in the German-speaking World—an Analysis of AAA and EAA A," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 79-105, March.
    7. Milan Frederik Klus & Alexander Dilger, 2020. "Success factors of academic journals in the digital age," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 1115-1143, November.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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