The Effect of Service on Research Performance: A Study on Italian Academics in Management

Academics all over the world are feeling the increasing pressure to attain satisfactory research performance. Since research is not the only activity required of academics, though, the debate on how it may be coupled with other knowledge transfer activities like teaching, patenting, and dissemination has been captivating scholars interested in higher education. Literature is surprisingly silent about the interplay between research performance and other roles and tasks that faculty are expected to carry out, namely academic citizenship, intended as the service that they provide to their institution, to the scientific community, and to the larger society. Through a negative binomial regression conducted on 692 Italian academics in management, this paper investigates both the direct and moderating effect exerted by academic citizenship on the relationship between research performance in two subsequent evaluation exercises, thus advancing our knowledge of the relationship between research and service. Findings show that institutional service acts as a pure moderator, discipline-based service is a quasi-moderator, while public service exerts only a direct negative effect on research performance. In light of the emergent interplay between research and service, the necessity to boost reflection on academic citizenship is discussed and suggestions for its acknowledgement and advancement are formulated

PIs as boundary spanners, science and market shapers

The research program organization has been generalized to implement research policies in OECD countries. Principal investigators are the linchpin of the program based organization as they are developing research project to fit within programs. However, principal investigators are not only project managers but they also enact their environment, shape organization, heterogenous networks, research avenues, research communities and transepistemic arenas. Principal investigators are not only researchers they are also boundary spanners amongst academic and private sectors and amongst subfields and disciplines. Principal investigators, especially serial Principal investigators act as scientific entrepreneurs who enact their environment. It questions the relationship between principal investigators and their organization. It also questions the efficiency and effectiveness of program based research policy

Forget R&D – pay my coach: young innovative companies and their relations with universities

32 p., 8 tables and referencesYoung innovative companies (YICs) are attracting attention in their role of industry regenerators. However, we have little information about their relations with universities as sources of information. This paper explores university-industry interaction involving YIC in the Valencian Community, using YIC founders’ personal attributes and motivations as explanatory variables. The Valencian Community has a relatively high degree of university-industry interaction, but surprisingly little technological innovation. A survey of YICs in the region shows that, in their case, firm size does not affect the probability of contracting with universities, and that R&D intensity is not significant if we consider firm founders’ personal characteristics and motivations. YIC founders exploiting market opportunities recognized in previous business activities, and necessity entrepreneurs, are the least likely to interact with universities. We highlight the role of external advisory services to highlight the benefits of universities.Peer reviewe

Participation and commitment in third-party research funding: evidence from Italian Universities

The paper examines data on third party research of Italian departments and develops a two stage model in which the first stage examines the binary decision to engage into third party research, the second the intensity of third party research as a share of department research budget