The importance of being ‘wordy’: willingness to write and publication productivity among accounting academics

Recent attention to institutional variables that underlie the publication productivity levels of academic accountants threatens to obscure the fact that research is conducted by individuals who bring differing levels of ability, motivation and interest to scholarship. This study introduces willingness to write as a new correlate of productivity. Using the population of PhDs in accounting from US universities with conferred degrees between 1986 and 1996 as a sample, the results show that willingness to write is significant in the explanation of publication productivity when this is measured in a variety of ways. In turn, willingness to write is explained by institutional status. However, the direction of these relationships needs to differentiate the type of publishing that the individual undertakes.     

An exploration of student failure on an undergraduate accounting programme of study

Academic failure creates financial and emotional issues for students, with associated resource and performance implications for higher education institutions. The literature reveals that much of the work on student performance is quantitative, restricting understanding of the deeper feelings and perceptions of students towards their studies. This paper explores undergraduate student performance from an experiential perspective, recognising the complexity and subjectivity of academic performance. Findings appear to highlight: the negative focus of reasoning underlying the choice of study; the impact of affect; the importance of the role of the tutor; the tutor expectations gap; levels of control and personal responsibility for learning; and patterns of participation as possible significant and important factors in understanding academic performance. Finally, the implications of the findings are discussed and further research outlined in terms of developing a predictive model that could offer early identification of students who are susceptible to academic failure and establishing appropriate, proactive support strategies for such students.     

An assessment of patterns of co-authorship for academic accountants within premier journals: Evidence from 1979-2004

This study examines several important aspects of co-authorship by accounting researchers in premier journals for the years 1979-2004. Logistic regression analysis reveals that collaboration is growing significantly. This increasing trend of co-authorship is substantially greater in premier non-accounting journals than premier accounting journals. The extent of co-authorship within taxation research is notably less than financial, managerial, or auditing research. On the other hand, non-specialized articles have significantly higher co-authorship ratios. Meanwhile, trends of co-authorship are not statistically different between U.S. academic researchers and their international academic cohorts. However, co-authorship rates for non-academic researchers are significantly less than academic researchers which may indicate that the ‘publish or perish’ phenomena for academic researchers is a more significant factor of increased co-authorship rates than other universal factors, e.g., decreased cost of sophisticated communication technology. Also, we find no evidence of university tier level or doctoral granting status effects on the co-authorship ratios of researchers.     

Opportunity recognition in technology transfer organizations

The task of recognizing valuable technological opportunities is crucial for the organizations in charge of transferring technology from universities and publicly funded research institutes to the market. Difficulties in understanding the true commercial potential of an application result in failed subsequent commercialization and excess costs of technology transfer. This paper describes how the task of opportunity recognition is performed in five Technology Transfer Organizations (TTOs). The analyzed TTOs had different degree of independence to the structure of the parent and make use of information and competencies acquired through their formal and informal network ties.

科研不端行为特征与治理对策——国家自然科学基金披露科研不端行为的实证分析

世界著名学术出版商斯普林格（Springer）将刊载于旗下《肿瘤生物学》期刊（Tumor Biology）涉嫌伪造同行评议的中国学者的107篇论文撤稿,引发了社会各界对中国科研不端行为的关注与反思。以2013-2016年国家自然科学基金委员会披露的两批《科研不端行为典型案例及处理决定》中77件科研不端行为的88名涉事人员为样本,发现科研不端行为源于激励诱惑与制度要求、科学家角色冲突与角色序列冲突以及奖励制度与评价制度不对称的共谋。基于此,提出应建立健全科研数据公开机制,加快学术诚信体系建设,深化绩效考核制度改革,平衡奖励制度与处罚制度等政策建议,以维护学术诚信、改善科研生态、预防学术不端。     

聘任制改革下高校科研团队青年教师学术产出研究

当前,我国高校正在推行聘任制改革,为高校优秀人才选拔和高水平师资队伍建设带来机遇,但同时也加重了青年教师学术压力,对于合作任务较多的科研团队青年教师尤其如此。以高校国家重点青年教师为对象,研究实施长聘和续聘考核对教师论文与专利数量及质量的影响。结果发现,实行长聘制度对团队青年教师学术产出的激励效果尚不显著,而续聘考核下青年教师学术产出质量则有显著提升。此外,在工科实行较严格的续聘考核对论文发表的促进作用弱于非工科专业。基于研究结果,建议在聘任制改革中重点考察科研组织模式,并且关注不同学科实施效果的差异性,科研团队中青年教师更适合采取较温和的续聘考核方式,而非严格的“非升即走”考核模式。     

政府主导、思想诱致与金融学术创新——转轨以来中国金融改革的回顾与展望

中国金融经过近30年的改革和发展,取得了一些重要的成就,但中国金融改革的成败却尚无定论.迄今为止的金融改革一直都受政府行为的深刻主导,但已越来越受到金融思想、价值体系甚至意识形态等因素的促进或者阻碍,从而面临发展的"节点".中国金融进一步发展的动力需要依靠包括政府在内的全社会的思维和观念更加民主、理性、务实,要依靠更广泛、更深刻的金融学术创新.     

Job congruence, academic achievement, and earnings

This study combines a widely held view of how earnings are related to education and job tenure (The Mincer model¹) with the notion that earnings are associated with the quality of an employer–employee job match. The quality of an individual's occupational choice is measured using job congruence, a commonly-used construct in the psychometric literature. Better-matched individuals should be more productive and, as a result, have higher earnings. Previous studies were unable to address the importance of job preferences to earnings because available data do not include both job congruence and individual earnings. The Alumni Outcomes Survey, recently produced by ACT Inc., is among the first data sets to include both variables. We use these data to estimate the importance of job congruence on earnings after controlling both for job tenure and for academic achievement, measured by an individual's ACT score. Results indicate that job congruence is positively correlated with earnings, and has effects on earnings that are of almost equal magnitude with years of education.     

Threshold concepts in teaching Leisure Studies

Recent debates about the decline of Leisure Studies have turned to considerations of pedagogy as a means to attract more recruits. However, the curriculum is also important according to recent work on ‘powerful knowledge’. Work on ‘threshold concepts’ provides a way to identify powerful and valuable knowledge. This work also predicts disorientation and liminality for some students. The political and ethical issues involved are considered via Boler and Zembylas on ‘discomforting pedagogy’. Personal reflections on teaching Leisure Studies were stimulated by some research on these topics and problems, and these are critically assessed. A case is made for using journal articles in pedagogy and assessment to provide threshold experiences, and some emergent paradoxes are discussed. The reactions of Leisure Studies students can be interpreted as showing particular emotional resilience and effective coping strategies to deal with challenging, liminal and disorienting experiences. Coping strategies can transfer from experience back to academic argument particularly well in this field, as well as the other way around. Leisure Studies can thus stake a claim for particular relevance in attempts to teach powerful knowledge with minimal disorientation.