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Careers in Academia: How to Succeed in the U.S.

Careers in Academia: How to Succeed in the U.S. Timothy A. Judge University of Florida Postgraduate and Early Career Event (PECE) IWP International Conference Wednesday, 18 June 2008. My Comments Today. My experience of career Career paths in the U.S.

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Careers in Academia: How to Succeed in the U.S.

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  1. Careers in Academia:How to Succeed in the U.S. Timothy A. Judge University of Florida Postgraduate and Early Career Event (PECE) IWP International Conference Wednesday, 18 June 2008

  2. My Comments Today • My experience of career • Career paths in the U.S. • Opportunities for European researchers to work in the U.S. • How to succeed in U.S. • I’m keeping my remarks brief to allow plenty of time for Q&A

  3. My Experience of Career • Luck matters • I entered job market with no publications, no papers under review, and received only 2 job talks (Notre Dame and Cornell) • However, that was then • Increasingly, publication success is expected; it might be argued it is the sole metric of real importance

  4. Career Paths • Former Harvard President Derek Bok: • “The vita is the carrying card of academe” • Upshot:Publish (how: in a moment) • Foot in the door… • I am not a big networking person, but I do believe in “ports of entry” – try to initiate research with those who have had recent success in top journals • Bring something to the table

  5. Opportunities • If you can, find a way to visit a place, ideally post-doc, to work with a productive researcher in your area of interest • Funding of course is an issue • Be creative about what you bring to the table, and flexible (if you can) about funding

  6. How to Succeed • Getting published • What causes article to be published? • Is there anti-international bias? • Getting cited • What determines impact once published? • Succeeding • What determines career success in academe?

  7. Getting PublishedPublication Process • Generating an Idea • Designing a Study • Getting Data • Writing a Paper • Submitting a Paper • Revising a Paper • Publishing a Paper Focus Today

  8. Getting PublishedWhat Causes Article to be Published? • What’s a good idea? A mix of: • Methodological quality (independent data sources, reliable measures, eliminates confounds, adheres to measurement principles) • Interestingness (novel, thought-provoking, controversial) • Hole in the literature (“little or no research has looked at X, Y, and Z”) • Note that this can’t compensate for a lack of 1 or 2 (e.g., no one in OB has studied the length of managers’ toenails) • Drawing from outside area

  9. Getting PublishedInterestingness—Davis (1971) • Interesting theories deny certain assumptions of their audience • All interesting theories…attack the taken-for-granted worlds of their audiences • Interesting propositions involve the radical distinction between seeming and being, between the subject of phenomenology and the subject of ontology • An audience finds a proposition interesting not because it tells them some truth they did not already know, but instead because it tells them some truth they thought they already knew was wrong

  10. Getting PublishedIs There Pro U.S. Bias? • Bias is difficult to prove; I don’t even try • Analyzed the 5,273 articles published in the top four I-O journals 1980 – 2006 • Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP); Personnel Psychology (PPsych); Journal of Organizational Behavior (JOB); Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP) • Classified articles based on host country of authors (and grouped those by region)

  11. Getting PublishedIs There Pro U.S. Bias? % Published by Americans JAP=Journal of Applied Psychology. PPsych=Personnel Psychology. JOB=Journal of Organizational Behavior. JOOP=Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Source: Judge & Simon, Psychology of Human Resources, 2007

  12. Getting PublishedIs There Pro U.S. Bias? Percent of Articles Published Source: Judge & Simon, Psychology of Human Resources, 2007

  13. Getting PublishedConclusion • Luck is biggest but least important factor • When do you stop trying to publish a paper and move on? • There is no definitive answer, but generally if something is rejected twice I “downshift” • How can we from our failures? • With whom do we work? • Journals are becoming more international

  14. Getting CitedProcess Is Imperfect • Contribution often unrecognized • 41st chair (Descartes) • Recognition to the recognized • Matthew effect (Robert Merton) • We analyzed various author and article attributes as predictors of impact (cites) • Universalistic: article attributes (idea, writing, methods) • Particularistic: prestige, reputation (affiliation, TT pubs) • Mixed: journal (subjective prestige, journal impact factor) Source: Judge, Colbert, Cable, & Rynes, Academy of Management Journal, 2007

  15. Getting CitedUniversalism vs. Particularism Primary Review/ Empirical Theory All Articles Articles Articles Combined (N=342) (N=272) (N=614) Article attributes: Controls .058*** .048** .053*** Universalistic attributes .089*** .058*** .037*** Mixed universalism and particularism .103*** .138*** .110*** Particularistic attributes .005 .030** .016** Full model Multiple R .684*** .686*** .645*** Overall Adjusted R2 .428*** .433*** .399*** Notes: Except for Full Model R and adjusted R2, statistics are unique R2 for variable set. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001. Source: Judge, Colbert, Cable, & Rynes, Academy of Management Journal, 2007

  16. Getting CitedConclusion • Universalism and particularism matter • Good news – quality of idea and writing appear to matter (what is good idea?) • Bad news – authors at prestigious schools are more cited • Methodological trade-off • Methodological rigor may get an article accepted but it does not affect its impact • Both journal IF and subj. prestige matter

  17. SucceedingWhat Determines Career Success? • Conducted study to determine predictors of career success of 154 SIOP members • Used survey and archival methodology Publications pre-PhD Advisor publications Publications post-PhD Prestige of first job Citations in career Career success Other variables: Prestige of PhD Gender Committee publications Experience Source: Judge, Kammeyer-Mueller, & Bretz, Personnel Psychology, 2004

  18. SucceedingWhat Determines Career Success? Publications of PhD advisor Prestige of first job post-PhD Extrinsic career success .32** .59** .24** .47** .36** .61** Publications as PhD student Total publications in career Total citations in career .57** .53** Note: For simplicity’s sake, these are zero-order correlations, not path coefficients. Source: Judge, Kammeyer-Mueller, & Bretz, Personnel Psychology, 2004

  19. In Closing Focus on publishing in top journals Focus on “ports of entry” – which can contribute to #1

  20. I, and I know Fred, will be happy to entertain any questions – nor matter how large or (seemingly) small

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