The value of PhD in the changing world of work: Traditional and alternative research careers

Natalia Shmatko, Yurij Katchanov () and Galina Volkova ()

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2020, vol. 152, issue C

Abstract: The paper considers career patterns of researchers and the ways to assess their career achievements on the academic and non-academic labor markets. Taking into account the approaches developed earlier in the framework of the sociology of science, as well as on the basis of recent empirical studies, the authors propose an original approach to the study of a research career, determine the integral indicator of career achievements and assess the research career rank by means of the transition probabilities. The study is based on the data obtained during a survey among Russian researchers involving 828 respondents employed by organizations in the main prospective science and technology areas (academic and non-academic sectors). We suggest the research career achievement (RCA) indicator as an analytical tool for managing highly qualified research personnel. The use of PageRank method enabled to discern an extremely uneven distribution of the research career achievement value in the surveyed sample of researchers. The analysis revealed the main factors determining academic and non-academic research career patterns. The findings attest that the factors affecting career patterns are closely linked with the recognition that the researcher obtains or expects at three levels: individual – professional community – society as a whole.

Keywords: Career; Research and development personal; Labor market; Career achievements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162518317293
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:152:y:2020:i:c:s0040162518317293

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119907

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().