The association between academic collaboration and mobility from the perspective of the accumulation of human and social capital

Abstract

Entering the era of “Big Science”, the solution of complex scientific problems requires scientists’ collaborative efforts that provide a wider range of skills, knowledge and techniques. Scientists’ mobility is perceived as an important driver of scientific progress and innovation success since it improves knowledge transfer, collaboration, scientists’ productivity, knowledge spillover and so forth. Scientific and technical human capital (STHC) theory documents that through collaboration, scientists’ human and social capital are accumulated that are considered important in the academic job market, which facilitates mobility. After moving to a new institution, scientists gain more human and social capital in turn by constructing new connections and absorbing knowledge from new colleagues. This thesis investigates how the accumulation of human and social capital influence scientific mobility, and how scientists’ human and social capital change after they move. Especially, this study disentangles the relationship between collaboration and mobility by exploring (1) whether academic past collaboration influence scientists’ mobility and (2) whether and how scientists’ mobility impacts scientists’ productivity and collaboration. Building on STHC theory, signaling theory and weak ties theory, this study proposes a theoretical connection between academic collaboration and mobility where the accumulation of human and social capital plays a key role. Empirical evidence regarding the relationship between collaboration and mobility is provided based on the data on 15,968 Chinese academics at universities who published at least one publication in Computer Science from 2000 to 2012. To probe the first research question, a Generalized Propensity Score analysis (GPS) is conducted and a novel application of the Dose-Response Function model is applied to deal with treatment endogeneity. The difference in differences strategy and propensity score matching approaches (PSM) are used to examine the second research question. This study finds that the numbers of domestic and overseas collaborators are positively associated with scientists’ mobility and upward mobility (i.e., moving to a higher-tier university), while the magnitude of the effect of overseas collaborators is far smaller than that of domestic collaborators. Domestic collaborators’ productivity is positively related to scientists’ move and upward mobility. There is a stronger effect of collaborators from higher-tier universities on scientists’ upward mobility. In contrast to the existing literature that documents a short-term negative effect due to adaption costs or disruption of routines and social capital, this study does not present an initial detrimental impact following moves, even for non-upward mobility (i.e., moving to a lower university or a university of the same tier). The positive effect of mobility on scientists’ research quantity is strengthened for scientists who possess more higher-quality collaboration in the past. This study further finds that mobility leads to increased collaboration with new partners without dampening scientists’ collaboration with previous collaborators. These results deepen our understanding of the outcome collaboration brings, the driving factors of mobility, and how mobility shapes the accumulation of scientists’ human and social capital measured by their productivity and collaboration ties. This study provides suggestions for scientists regarding their career development and has implications for recruitment policies. The results in this study show that with great potential to capture causality, GPS and PSM facilitate research in informetrics, scientometrics and science policy, and enriches the policy relevance of the findings.