The objective of this paper is to analyse how the job‐related diversity in academic research teams influences their scientific performance. To achieve that objective, an empirical study of a university's research teams was carried out during the years 2006–2009. The results reflect a non‐significant effect of functional diversity on research teams' performance, whereas status diversity affects in a positive and significant way. However, educational diversity has a significant negative impact when a certain threshold is exceeded. The effect of institutional diversity presents an inverted U‐shaped relation with the number of published articles by the research teams. The results reveal that the relationship between diversity and research performance may not be a simple and direct one because its effect could depend on the organisational context and the type of diversity attributes.

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This article aims to analyse the influence of team members’ motivation and leaders’ behaviour on knowledge sharing among the academics of a research project team. To that end, a study of 678 academic researchers belonging to project teams linked to several Spanish universities was conducted. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyse the data, and the results reveal that leaders with a knowledge-oriented style have a positive influence on the knowledge shared among the members of their research team. Nevertheless, and contrary to expectations, the results also show that academics’ extrinsic motivation has a negative effect on knowledge sharing, while intrinsic motivation has no effect. The findings are similar when considering the scientific field. This article makes an important contribution to the knowledge management literature in the particular context of academic research. It reveals the importance of a knowledge-oriented leadership style as a key determinant of knowledge sharing within research teams.

PurposeAlthough several previous studies were focused on examining the determinants of research productivity, the knowledge of the competences and motives that lead researchers to achieve relevant scientific performance remains unclear. This paper is aimed at contributing to this gap in the research by proposing a typology to understand academic researchers' traits and extending the traditional “more is better” approach, which assumes that higher levels of competence and motivation are always preferable.Design/methodology/approachCluster analysis was applied to a sample of 471 Spanish academics to examine diverse combinations of human capital attributes – knowledge, skills, and abilities – and two sources of motivation – intrinsic and extrinsic.FindingsFour researcher profiles were identified: (1) high vocational academics; (2) motivated academics; (3) self-starter academics and (4) reactive academics. Based on these preliminary findings, we present conclusions about the functioning and productivity of academic researchers.Originality/valueThis paper contributes a novel typology of researchers to the extant literature based on the variables of academic human capital and motivation. The findings indicate that a required and specific combination of attributes better fits the reality of research activities.