Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93308 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7903
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Much of human knowledge is produced in the world's university departments. There is little scientific evidence, however, about how those hundreds of thousands of departments are best organized and led. This study hand-collects longitudinal data on departmental chairpersons in 58 US universities over a 15-year period. There is one robust predictor of a department's future research output. After adjustment for a range of personal and institutional characteristics, departmental research productivity improves when the incoming department Chair's publications are highly cited. A one SD increase in citations is associated with a 0.5 SD later rise in departmental productivity. By contrast, the quality-weighted publication record per se of the incoming Chair has no predictive power.
Subjects: 
scientific productivity
department chairs
expert leaders
JEL: 
I12
I23
M51
M54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
228.3 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.