Determinants of Research Productivity in Spanish Academia

Abstract

This article aims to widen the empirical evidence about the determinants of Spanish academics’ publication productivity across fields of study. We use the Spanish Survey on Human Resources in Science and Technology addressed to Spanish resident PhDs employed in Spanish universities as academics. Productivity is measured as the total number of publications in a three‐year period. We show how personal and academic variables explain differences in productivity within universities and fields of studies and across fields of research. Female workers report lower productivity than their male counterparts, but family responsibilities do not explain this gender gap. The type of contract and tenure or rank do not seem to have any influence on productivity. Researchers seeking professional promotion rather than altruism or personal satisfaction are more productive and young scholars publish more than their older counterparts. Additionally, we find a certain research‐teaching trade‐off and some nuances in the predictors of publication productivity across birth cohorts and fields of study. Finally, international cooperation is one of the most relevant determinants of the number of publications, regardless of the birth cohort. The institutional context in the Spanish research system as regards requirements for promotion and the assessment of research outcomes may contribute to the understanding and interpretation of our results.

Examining the Personal and Institutional Determinants of Research Productivity in Hospitality and Tourism Management

“…For every additional hour of research assistance per week, faculty productivity increased by .140 publications per year. This result is consistent with Dundar and Lewis (1998) who found that employing more graduate students as research assistants had a positive impact on faculty research productivity across all fields within the university.…”

“…From an institutional standpoint, a variable such as the size of the faculty in the department, which would be indicative of the individual's potential for direct collaboration, may have been significant in the present study (Dundar and Lewis, 1998). However, from a pragmatic standpoint, it would be impossible for any study to capture all the potential determinants of (Lee and Bozeman, 2005) or individual motivation (Bland, Center, Finstad, Risbey, & Staples, 2005).…”

“…These factors include culture, size of the organization, diversity, supervision of doctoral students, teaching load, reward systems, funding support, tenure, service/outside consulting, mentorship, among others (Buchheit, Collins, & Collins, 2001;Dundar & Lewis, 1998;Kyvik & Smeby, 1994;McGill & Settle, 2012;Weber & Ladkin, 2008;Zivney & Bertin, 1992).…”

“…res_inst Number of years in research institutions Sharobeam and Howard (2002) teach_inst Number of years in teaching institutions Sharobeam and Howard (2002) priv_inst Number of years in private institutions Dundar and Lewis (1998) pub_inst Number of years in public institutions Dundar and Lewis (1998) secondary Proportion of publications which used secondary data sources (previously collected/published data) Smith et al (2011) quantitative Proportion of publications Svensson et al (2009); Tsang and Hsu…”

Conference Presentations and Academic Publishing

“…The difference between female and male economists in research productivity and career advancement has been documented in a number of studies (see, e.g., Albert et al, 2016;Ginther and Hayes, 2003;Ginther and Kahn, 2004;Kahn, 1993;Maske et al, 2002). Contributing to the existing literature, in this section, we aim to examine the extent to which the benefit of conference presentation on publishing for female authors is different from that for male…”