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Determinants of Success in Academic Careers

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Abstract

The competition for top positions in university rankings has put a stronger emphasis on the quality of university staff. Recruitment of excellent scholars is a core activity for university HRM. In this study, we compare the careers of pairs of similar researchers that were considered as very talented in their early careers. Of every pair, one has a continued academic career, whereas the other does not. We investigate to what extent success in academic career is determined by cultural, social and intellectual capital, and organisational and contextual factors.

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Notes

  1. Germany consists of states, in German Bundesland.

  2. This sample is not representative for all research careers, as we focus here on the top talents only.

  3. http://www.vsnu.nl/Universiteiten/Feiten-Cijfers/Personeel.htm.

  4. http://cf.bc.uva.nl/download/instellingsplan_2007-2010.pdf; http://www.uu.nl/university/utrecht/nl/profielenmissie/hoofdlijnenstrategie/Pages/default.aspx; http://www.tue.nl/universiteit/over-de-universiteit/profiel-en-missie.

  5. Next to these Dutch universities have the category ‘external doctoral students’, Ph.D. students not employed by the University. They generally work in other (public) research organisations, in educational jobs or in companies.

  6. Ph.D. students are employed by the university, which in practice creates expectations that an academic career is the normal road.

  7. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/talent; http://www.vandale.nl/vandale/zoekService.do?selectedDictionary=nn&selectedDictionnaryName=Nederlands&searchQuery=talent; http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/talent, last accessed 14 September 2011.

  8. For example, http://www.american.edu/provost/academicaffairs/upload/Sociology-Tenure-and-Promotion-Guidelines-FINAL-2-7-2011.pdf.

  9. High grades are defined as ‘cum laude’ or a comparable level.

  10. That is first tenured position, promotion and departure.

  11. For several reasons a straightforward performance match was not possible for all 21 pairs, for example, when the person that left did so in an early career phase when academic performance is still modest. For one third of the pairs, a performance comparison turned out to be possible.

  12. In both cases, we had to clean the data in order to have the right persons included. Especially in PoP, we unified the publications that appeared in the list in different versions.

  13. In a study comparing successful grant applicants with good rejected applicants, we also found that past performance did not differ between the two groups (van den Besselaar and Leydesdorff, 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. QANU (Quality Assurance Netherlands Universities), Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Barbara van Balen

  2. Department of Science System Assessment, Rathenau Instituut, Den Haag, The Netherlands

    Pleun van Arensbergen

  3. Centre for Science and Technology Studies CWTS, Leiden University, The Netherlands

    Inge van der Weijden

  4. Department of Organization Science and the Network Institute, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Peter van den Besselaar

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  1. Barbara van Balen
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  2. Pleun van Arensbergen
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  3. Inge van der Weijden
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  4. Peter van den Besselaar
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van Balen, B., van Arensbergen, P., van der Weijden, I. et al. Determinants of Success in Academic Careers. High Educ Policy 25, 313–334 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2012.14

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