2020/08/24 by Mary Frank Fox, Irina Nikivincze · 66 citations
Decision Sciences · Health Professions · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Biology #Career Development and Diversity #Constellation #Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions #Higher education #Political science #Psychology #Public relations #Rank (graph theory) #Social science #Social stratification #Sociology #Stratification (seeds) #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10734-020-00609-z
published in Higher Education 81(6), 1237-1255 (Springer Science+Business Media)
openalex publication_date 2020/08/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Abstract The prolific (exceptionally high producers of scholarly publications) are strategic to the study of academic science. The highly prolific have been drivers of research activity and impact and are a window into the stratification that exists. For these reasons, we address key characteristics associated with being highly prolific. Doing this, we take a social-organizational approach and use distinctive survey data on both social characteristics of scientists and features of their departments, reported by US faculty in computer science, engineering, and sciences within eight US research universities. The findings point to a telling constellation of hierarchical advantages: rank, collaborative span, and favorable work climate. Notably, once we take rank into account, gender is not associated with being prolific. These findings have implications for understandings of being prolific, systems of stratification, and practices and policies in higher education.