Time to Go? (Inter)National Mobility and Appointment Success of Young Academics

Abstract

We analyze whether and how young researchers' (inter)national mobility affects their later appointment success. We use data on 330 researchers from business and economics in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland and measure appointment success by (a) the time it takes a young researcher to get tenure and by (b) whether the researcher succeeded in getting tenure at a highly ranked institution. We find that international mobility is positively related to the likelihood of getting tenure at a highly ranked institution whereas pre-tenure national mobility is negatively related to both measures of appointment success. The latter effect stems from the period when post-doctoral pre-tenure national mobility was uncommon and created a negative stigma -an effect that vanishes after the introduction of Juniorprofessorships. ABSTRACTWe analyze whether and how young researchers' (inter)national mobility affects their later appointment success. We use data on 330 researchers from business and economics in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland and measure appointment success by (a) the time it takes a young researcher to get tenure and by (b) whether the researcher succeeded in getting tenure at a highly ranked institution. We find that international mobility is positively related to the likelihood of getting tenure at a highly ranked institution whereas pre-tenure national mobility is negatively related to both measures of appointment success. The latter effect stems from the period when postdoctoral pre-tenure national mobility was uncommon and created a negative stigma --an effect that vanishes after the introduction of Juniorprofessorships.JEL Classification: I23, J24, J6.

A cross-country configurational approach to international academic mobility: exploring mobility effects on academics’ career progression in EU countries

“…Most of previous studies approach the individual level of analysis and indicate that international mobility influences academics' career progression both directly and indirectly. Career progression has been measured employing different proxies such as time to tenure (Cruz-Castro & Sanz-Menéndez, 2010), getting tenure at a highly ranked institution (Bäker et al, 2016), time to promotion (Lawson & Shibayama, 2015) or publication productivity (Bäker et al, 2021). Regarding the direct effects on career progression, international mobility in itself can involve career progression when academics migrate for a better professional development opportunity (Stephan, 2015).…”

“…Furthermore, international mobility can sometimes be regarded as a positive criterion for career promotion at their home institution (Netz et al, 2020), since it can be interpreted as a positive signal of researchers' desirable (unobservable) traits-such as open-mindedness or flexibility- (Bäker et al, 2016), or even a necessary condition of a script compliance scheme for getting a particular academic position .…”

“…Overall, current explanations of how international mobility can indirectly support career progression point to the different types of resources academics can acquire through international mobility. International experience is expected to increase academics' human and social capital (Bäker et al, 2016). Human capital refers to the creation of new idiosyncratic knowledge and skills that could be obtained through access to new ideas, methods, experiences, training and courses (Azoulay et al, 2017;Bäker et al, 2016;Franzoni et al, 2015).…”

“…International experience is expected to increase academics' human and social capital (Bäker et al, 2016). Human capital refers to the creation of new idiosyncratic knowledge and skills that could be obtained through access to new ideas, methods, experiences, training and courses (Azoulay et al, 2017;Bäker et al, 2016;Franzoni et al, 2015). Academics might also increase and strengthen their social capital through their international experience, developing new relationships and accessing new networks (Bäker et al, 2016;Scellato et al, 2015;Melin, 2004).…”

The Opportunity Costs of Becoming a Dean: Does Leadership in Academia Crowd Out Research?

“…cle(Ayaita, Backes-Gellner and Pull 2017;Backes-Gellner and Schlinghoff 2010;Rauber and Ursprung 2008,), we control for researchers' career age (years since doctorate). We further control for year of birth, gender, field (business administration vs. economics), and we include two variables that might indicate a researcher's research ability: age at doctorate and pre-doctorate publication points (see e.g Bäker 2015, Bäker et al 2016…”