This paper explores the link between the composition and the performance of junior research groups. We argue that the heterogeneity-performance link depends on the type of heterogeneity (cultural vs. study field) and on the disciplinary area. We test our hypotheses on a data set of 45 junior research groups and find a U-shaped relation between cultural heterogeneity and performance in the humanities and social sciences, but no link between the two in the natural sciences. The link between study field heterogeneity and performance in the natural sciences is negative, in the humanities and social sciences study field heterogeneity and performance are not related. Interaction within the group helps reap the benefits of heterogeneity. Our results are derived in the context of junior research groups in Germany, but are generalizable to other countries and contexts where PhD education is taking part in groups. Keywordsresearch groups × disciplinary areas × study field heterogeneity × cultural heterogeneity × performance × group interaction
This paper explores the link between the composition and the performance of junior research groups. We argue that the heterogeneity-performance link depends on the type of heterogeneity (cultural vs. study field) and on the disciplinary area. We test our hypotheses on a data set of 45 junior research groups and find a U-shaped relation between cultural heterogeneity and performance in the humanities and social sciences, but no link between the two in the natural sciences. The link between study field heterogeneity and performance in the natural sciences is negative, in the humanities and social sciences study field heterogeneity and performance are not related. Interaction within the group helps reap the benefits of heterogeneity. Our results are derived in the context of junior research groups in Germany, but are generalizable to other countries and contexts where PhD education is taking part in groups. Keywordsresearch groups × disciplinary areas × study field heterogeneity × cultural heterogeneity × performance × group interaction
In light of the trend towards the Anglo-Saxon model of structured PhD education we analyze whether the positive relation between supervisor research productivity and young researcher productivity does persist in research groups where several PhD and postdoctoral students are supervised by a team of cooperating senior researchers. Our empirical analysis is based on a data set of 86 research training groups from different disciplinary fields funded by the German Research Foundation. We find that the positive relation between supervisor and student productivity also holds on group level. Controlling for group composition with respect to students' study background and demographics (age, gender and cultural background), we find evidence for age and gender diversity effects. Our results prove to be robust to a whole set of additional control variables such as group size, disciplinary field and advisor-student ratio.
This chapter analyzes how one particular governance mechanism affects the performance of research teams. We look at an external requirement for interdisciplinarity and internationality of Research Training Groups (RTGs) and study how their performance is affected. We expect to observe two countervailing effects with changes in interdisciplinarity and/or internatio-nality: first, increased performance due to an increase in productive resources and a second, decreased performance due to increased team problems (communication, conflicts etc). Since both effects are expected to vary with the disciplinary field of research, we separate our analysis for the Humanities & Social Sciences in comparison to the Natural & Life Sciences and indeed find different effects in the different disciplinary fields. Furthermore, we separately analyze the effects of interdisciplinarity on the one hand and internationality on the other hand. We conclude that the effectiveness of a particular governance mechanism varies substantially between the disciplinary fields and for the type of heterogeneity under consideration. Therefore governance of research should be either precisely engineered to a particular disciplinary field and a given type of heterogeneity or it should offer a menu of options that allows research teams to choose from according to their specific needs.Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1808232 Composition and Performance of Research Training GroupsBirgit Unger, Kerstin Pull and Uschi Backes-Gellner July 2010Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1808232Composition and Performance of Research Training Groups * Birgit Unger ** Kerstin Pull ** Uschi Backes-Gellner*** Abstract:This chapter analyzes how one particular governance mechanism affects the performance of research teams. We look at an external requirement for interdisciplinarity and internationality of Research Training Groups (RTGs) and study how their performance is affected. We expect to observe two countervailing effects with changes in interdisciplinarity and/or internationality: first, increased performance due to an increase in productive resources and a second, separately analyze the effects of interdisciplinarity on the one hand and internationality on the other hand. We conclude that the effectiveness of a particular governance mechanism varies substantially between the disciplinary fields and for the type of heterogeneity under consideration. Therefore governance of research should be either precisely engineered to a particular disciplinary field and a given type of heterogeneity or it should offer a menu of options that allows research teams to choose from according to their specific needs.
In this paper, we analyze whether structured PhD programs operate at optimal size and whether there are differences between different disciplinary fields. Theoretically, we postulate that the relation between the size of a PhD program and program performance is hump shaped. For our empirical analysis, we use hand-collected data on 86 Research Training Groups (RTGs) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). As performance indicators, we use (a) the number of completed PhDs and (b) the number of publications by RTG students (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers). Applying DEA with constant and variable returns to scale, we find that the optimal team size varies between 10 and 16 RTG students in the humanities and social sciences. In contrast, our empirical analysis does not uncover a systematic relation between size and performance for RTGs in the natural and life sciences.
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