37,308 research outputs found
'Getting out of the closet': Scientific authorship of literary fiction and knowledge transfer
Some scientists write literary fiction books in their spare time. If these
books contain scientific knowledge, literary fiction becomes a mechanism of
knowledge transfer. In this case, we could conceptualize literary fiction as
non-formal knowledge transfer. We model knowledge transfer via literary fiction
as a function of the type of scientist (academic or non-academic) and his/her
scientific field. Academic scientists are those employed in academia and public
research organizations whereas non-academic scientists are those with a
scientific background employed in other sectors. We also distinguish between
direct knowledge transfer (the book includes the scientist's research topics),
indirect knowledge transfer (scientific authors talk about their research with
cultural agents) and reverse knowledge transfer (cultural agents give
scientists ideas for future research). Through mixed-methods research and a
sample from Spain, we find that scientific authorship accounts for a
considerable percentage of all literary fiction authorship. Academic scientists
do not transfer knowledge directly so often as non-academic scientists, but the
former engage into indirect and reverse transfer knowledge more often than the
latter. Scientists from History stand out in direct knowledge transfer. We draw
propositions about the role of the academic logic and scientific field on
knowledge transfer via literary fiction. We advance some tentative conclusions
regarding the consideration of scientific authorship of literary fiction as a
valuable knowledge transfer mechanism.Comment: Paper published in Journal of Technology Transfe
Crossing the hurdle: the determinants of individual scientific performance
An original cross sectional dataset referring to a medium sized Italian
university is implemented in order to analyze the determinants of scientific
research production at individual level. The dataset includes 942 permanent
researchers of various scientific sectors for a three year time span (2008 -
2010). Three different indicators - based on the number of publications or
citations - are considered as response variables. The corresponding
distributions are highly skewed and display an excess of zero - valued
observations. In this setting, the goodness of fit of several Poisson mixture
regression models are explored by assuming an extensive set of explanatory
variables. As to the personal observable characteristics of the researchers,
the results emphasize the age effect and the gender productivity gap, as
previously documented by existing studies. Analogously, the analysis confirm
that productivity is strongly affected by the publication and citation
practices adopted in different scientific disciplines. The empirical evidence
on the connection between teaching and research activities suggests that no
univocal substitution or complementarity thesis can be claimed: a major
teaching load does not affect the odds to be a non-active researcher and does
not significantly reduce the number of publications for active researchers. In
addition, new evidence emerges on the effect of researchers administrative
tasks, which seem to be negatively related with researcher's productivity, and
on the composition of departments. Researchers' productivity is apparently
enhanced by operating in department filled with more administrative and
technical staff, and it is not significantly affected by the composition of the
department in terms of senior or junior researchers.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication by Scientometric
- …