The psychological effects of academic labeling: The case of class tracks

This paper studies the psychological effects of academic labeling. Exploiting the class tracking policy in a Chinese university, we identify the psychological impacts of the academic labels associated with class tracks on the students via a regression discontinuity design in the track assignment rule. We establish causal evidence of positive effects of a better academic label on the academic self-concept and self-expectation of students as well as their academic interest. Our setup ensures that the identified effects of the labels are through the mechanism of student responses, not teachers and schools, suggesting that previous literature focusing on the mechanism of teachers and schools may have neglected an important channel through which academic labels may impact students.     

产学合作数量与学术创新绩效关系

采用面板分位数回归方法,基于《2016中国大学评价报告》中前100所大学2011-2015年数据,对产学合作数量与学术创新绩效关系进行研究。结果显示：①产学合作数量与学术创新绩效之间存在明显的倒U型关系,表明存在最优的产学合作数量使高校获得最佳学术创新绩效;②不同分位点处存在异质效应,表明产学合作数量对学术创新绩效高低分位的影响具有差异,因此,不能搞“一刀切”的产学合作治理结构;③合作广度、知识能力对产学合作数量与学术创新绩效的关系产生了正向调节效应。     

DISAGGREGATING FIRMS IN ANALYSING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF THE UNIVERSITY–INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIP: BASED ON AN ANALYTICAL AND EMPIRICAL STUDY FROM SCOTLAND

It has been acknowledged that universities are key institutions in national and regional systems of innovation. This recognition has led to a rich stream of literature analysing the university–industry relationship. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to disaggregating the ‘industry’ side of this relationship and examining the costs and benefits to the disaggregated parties involved. In the present article, which draws on an analytical and empirical study from Scotland, it is suggested that it makes sense to distinguish between three kinds of firms in analysing the university–industry relationship: large national and international R&D-intensive firms, university spin-out firms, and established small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have had little interaction with universities. The different costs and benefits facing these firms in their interactions with universities are analysed. It is concluded that the established SMEs confront relatively high costs in relating to universities. Finally, the policy implications are explored.     

Managing Organizational Change in Higher Education: Lessons From the University of Botswana

ABSTRACT

Utilizing data collected from a randomly selected sample of 360 academic and managerial staff, regression analysis was performed to identify the determinants of acceptance of change among employees at the University of Botswana. The results showed moderate levels of employee acceptance of innovations and revealed that, of the four categories of substantive factors analyzed, managerial features were the most important determinants of acceptance of organizational change. It was concluded that management action is needed to boost the levels of acceptance of change and that a more participative approach to the management of the change process is necessary to guarantee the involvement of all stakeholders from the decision-making to the implementation and administration stages of the process.     

Academic Performance in Introductory Accounting: Do Learning Styles Matter?

Abstract

This study examines the impact of learning styles on academic performance using major assessment methods (examinations and assignments including multiple-choice and constructed response questions (CRQs)) in an introductory accounting course. Students' learning styles were assessed using Kolb's Learning Style Inventory Version 3.1. The results indicate that students' learning styles, after controlling for other variables, are associated with academic performance, particularly, in the final examination including both formats, multiple-choice questions and CRQs. Students who exhibit the ‘assimilating’ learning style appear to perform better in some of the assessments than students with ‘diverging’ or ‘accommodating’ learning styles. The findings have implications for designing assessments to ensure that they are not biased towards particular learning styles which would improve their validity and fairness.     

Publish or Perish? The Increasing Importance of Publications for Prospective Economics Professors in Austria,Germany and Switzerland

Abstract. Tenure decisions depend, among other factors, on a candidate's career age and publication record. We associate publications with journal articles indexed in EconLit and measure publication output in equivalents of both top‐five journal articles and European Economic Review (EER) articles. We find that the average age of a professor in the year of his/her first appointment is 38, i.e. he or she is appointed approximately eight years after completing the PhD. Between 1970 and 2006, the average publication record at the time of the first appointment is equivalent to 1.5 standardized top‐five articles or 2.3 standardized EER articles. Publication records vary across subfields and have become more substantial over time. We predict that someone aspiring to a tenured position after 2011 should aim at an equivalent of four standardized top‐five articles or six standardized EER articles.     

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTIONS ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT STUDENTS IN SECOND‐YEAR MICROECONOMICS

This paper analyses the impact of educational interventions made in the first‐ and second‐year microeconomics courses on academic development students' final mark in the second‐year course. It also addresses issues of methodology, specification, and statistical analysis with respect to other studies in the field. The results suggest that the educational interventions in the first‐year had a positive impact on the academic performance of the academic development cohort, relative to the mainstream cohort for the first period (2000‐2002). The results also suggest that the educational interventions introduced in the second period (2003‐2005), in the form of voluntary workshops, improved the academic performance of the academic development and mainstream cohorts.     

善事与利器——2008年中国广告学术研究方法批评

2008年适逢中国广告产业发展30年,广告教育与学科研究发展25年。在这样一个关节点上,我们以中国广告三大学术期刊在2008年所发表的学术研究文章为版本,对作为工具的中国广告研究方法进行梳理,以图在对中国广告研究方法的现状描述中,推进中国广告研究的学术化进程。     

Academic entrepreneurial hybrids: Accounting and accountability in the case of MegaRide

The current paper focuses on how multiple values shape accounting and accountability practices in hybrid organizations. It concentrates on the complex domain of academic spin-offs, more fully described as hybrid knowledge-intensive organizations, aiming to understand how accounting and accountability practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurial logics and identities and how these, in turn, favor the development of accounting and accountability practices. The study employs a theoretically informed in-depth single case study of the academic spin-off MegaRide of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) for the period January to May 2021. The findings show how, in MegaRide, hybrid academic entrepreneurial identities emerged at both the individual and organizational levels, leading to successful technology transfer, with an undeniable impact on the local context and society.     

Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) with publications in the area of academic efficiency studies: what are the historical roots of this research topic?

In this study, we explore the historical roots of the relatively new topic in scientometrics of academic efficiency assessments. We are interested in the contributions of researchers from the past which have been revealed as important for the topic in the long run. The technique of Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) has been recently introduced which is based on the analysis of the frequency with which references are cited in the publications of a specific research field (here: academic efficiency assessments). The study is based on papers conducted for a systematic review of empirical articles on technical efficiency in academic research production: 60 papers (published between 1992 and 2012) and 1314 cited references. Results indicated that 5 peaks are clearly identifiable until 2000. They correspond, respectively, to the years 1957 (The founding article of Farrell), 1978 (Proposition of a new promising approach: the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) by Charnes et al.), 1988 (Research-teaching multi-output model and integration of quality indicators), 1990 (DEA in the service of Research Assessment Exercise) and 1997 (Introduction of weight restrictions in DEA). The peaks are described with the underlying publications and recent developments (since 2000) in the area of academic efficiency studies are outlined.