Research Thriving in the Era of Tenure?
In a significant study, researchers from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University have delved into the impact of tenure on the research trajectories of academic faculty across various disciplines. The study, led by Dashun Wang (Kellogg Professor of Management and Organizations and the Kellogg Chair of Technology), Benjamin Jones (Kellogg Professor of Strategy), and Giorgio Tripodi (a postdoctoral research fellow at the Kellogg School), provides an empirical basis for understanding how tenure shapes research output, novelty, and impact.
The researchers analysed over 12,000 U.S. faculty members across 15 disciplines, drawing from several large-scale data sets. Their findings reveal a nuanced pattern in the long-term effects of tenure.
Research Output
Productivity increases steadily during the tenure track, peaking the year before tenure. Post-tenure productivity patterns vary by discipline: in lab-based fields like biology and chemistry, output remains relatively high after tenure; in non-lab-based fields like mathematics and sociology, output tends to decline significantly.
Novelty and Creativity
After obtaining tenure, faculty more frequently engage in novel, high-risk research endeavors. This creative shift suggests that tenure encourages exploration beyond safe, incremental work.
Impact
Despite increased novelty, post-tenure publications tend to have fewer highly cited papers, indicating a trade-off between risk-taking and immediate scholarly impact.
No General Decline in Average Output
Contrary to concerns that tenure might lead to complacency, the data indicate that sharp declines in effort are rare, and average research output does not significantly slow post-tenure across the board.
Implications
The study offers insights that may apply to different kinds of organizations seeking to balance output and risk-taking. Organizations that want to boost innovation might benefit from the finding that the security of tenure may promote novelty and risk-taking.
Key findings include:
- Professors almost always published their single most novel or innovative research article after they received tenure.
- Professors typically published their single most-cited research article before they received tenure, after controlling for age.
- After tenure, professors were much more likely to be involved in research that was new to science as a whole.
- The dip in research impact after tenure coincided with an increase in novelty.
- This pre- versus post-tenure pattern occurred regardless of the number of years it took a professor to obtain tenure.
The study's results reflect general patterns and not causal relationships. However, they provide valuable insights into the role of tenure in academic research and its potential implications for various fields and organisations.
[1] Tripodi, G., Wang, D., & Jones, B. (2022). Tenure and the Dynamics of Scientific Research. National Bureau of Economic Research. [3] Tripodi, G., Wang, D., & Jones, B. (2022). Tenure and the Dynamics of Scientific Research. arXiv:2205.01844 [q-bio.GN].
Education and self-development play a crucial role in the study's findings, as tenure seemingly encourages personal growth through increased engagement in novel, high-risk research ventures. Learning from the study's results, organizations may consider how the security of tenure could foster innovations in various fields, promoting a dynamic and creative work environment.
