Contract employment policy and research productivity of knowledge workers: an analysis of Spanish universities

Abstract

Abstract:This article investigates how contract employment practices adopted by universitiesfixed-term contracts and permanent contracts-impact research productivity measured in terms of publications in scholarly journals. The empirical application considers the Spanish public higher education system for the period 2002-2008. We report an inverse U-shaped relationship between the rate fixed-term contracts and the research productivity of Spanish universities. That is, contract policies based on fixed-term contracts are conducive to research productivity; however, beyond a critical threshold value increases in the proportion of fixed-term contracts are associated with declining research productivity. These findings reveal that contract employment policies shape research productivity, and that flexible and balanced contract practices are critical for enhancing universities' research productivity. The results suggest that the excessive use of fixed-term contracts might create an unstable working environment that limits the universities' capacity to capitalize on their knowledge workers. Policy implications and future research avenues are discussed.

Assessing the productivity of technology transfer offices: an analysis of the relevance of aspiration performance and portfolio complexity

“…For young academics and professors in a weaker contractual position, their academic career will be greatly determined by their capacity to publish their research. They have strong incentives to publish in order to create reputational signals that will likely increase their probability of being internally promoted (Lafuente and Berbegal-Mirabent 2017). To the contrary, full professors have no exogenous incentives to publish, and their only motivation is endogenously determined by their own interest in conducting research in their knowledge fields.…”

“…Universities often evaluate faculty on the basis of systems that link a successful academic career to valuable research accomplishments, which sways scholars to produce academically rigorous research and develop research networks (Lafuente and Berbegal-Mirabent 2017). Thus, many scientists lack the skills and abilities both to engage in commercial activities and create or develop universityindustry collaborations (Perkmann and Walsh 2009), and may explain the highly skewed distribution of successful commercialization among universities (Vinig and Lips 2015).…”

“…With the new regulatory frame governing universities in place, universities' research orientation is further emphasized, and the parameterization of technology transfer outputs facilitates the evaluation of both universities and academics (Berbegal-Mirabent et al 2013;Lafuente and Berbegal-Mirabent 2017). The primary objective of this evaluation process is to ensure that candidates for academic positions have an appropriate level of academic merit.…”

“…This setting is attractive because, similar to other European countries, Spain has undergone significant reforms in the university's regulatory framework seeking to parameterize technology transfer outcomes and enhance publicly funded technology transfer activities (Caldera and Debande 2010;Lafuente and Berbegal-Mirabent 2017). This implies drastic modifications in the universities' strategic model in which TTOs play a key role.…”

Defining the term knowledge worker: Toward improved ontology and operationalization

“…Twelve of these articles collected data exclusively from scientists and researchers. Lafuente and Berbegal‐Mirabent (2019, p. 2363) highlighted the importance of this group of professionals as exemplary KW: “Recently, a stream of research has emphasized that research scientists are archetypal knowledge workers”; Operational employees—47 of the 124 articles (37.9%) considered typically operational employees as KW, similar to those labeled by Švarc (2016) as “low‐skilled/wage occupations”. As an example of articles that considered operational employees as KW, we have: administrative staff from a small technical college (Mansi & Levy, 2013); sales representatives of a pharmaceutical firm (Ko & Dennis, 2011); realtors (Nelson, Jarrahi, & Thomson, 2017); home care workers (Nishikawa, 2011) and; bank clerks and salespersons (Albertsen, Rugulies, Garde, & Burr, 2010).…”