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High Educ (2012) 63:701717
DOI 10.1007/s10734-011-9471-6
Giovanni Abramo Tindaro Cicero Ciriaco Andrea DAngelo
Published online: 4 September 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract The potential occurrence of variable returns to size in research activity is a factor to be considered in choices about the size of research organizations and also in the planning of national research assessment exercises, so as to avoid favoring those organizations that would benet from such occurrence. The aim of the current work is to improve on weaknesses in past inquiries concerning returns to size through application of a research productivity measurement methodology that is more accurate and robust. The method involves eld-standardized measurements that are free of the typical distortions of aggregate measurement by discipline or organization. The analysis is conducted for 183 hard science elds in all 77 Italian universities (time period 20042008) and allows detection of potential differences by eld.
Keywords Returns to size Research productivity Returns to scale Universities
Bibliometrics Italy
Introduction
Policy-makers are ever more demanding of production efciency in research activities and this in turn has required and stimulated much analysis of the research production function.
G. Abramo
Institute for System Analysis and Computer Science, National Research Council of Italy IASI-CNR, Viale Manzoni 30, 00185 Rome, Italy
G. Abramo (&) T. Cicero C. A. DAngelo
Department of Management, Laboratory for Studies of Research and Technology Transfer,School of Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]
T. Ciceroe-mail: [email protected]
C. A. DAngeloe-mail: [email protected]
Revisiting size effects in higher education research productivity
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With this, scholars have included examination of the possibility of economies of scale and of links between productivity and size of research groups.
To policy makers and managers, proof of returns to size would be of interest in decisions about sizing the production capacity of research organizations and units. The onset and diffusion of national evaluation exercises also means that the potential of variable returns to size should be considered in planning the actual assessment systems and the interpretation of results. If variable returns to size do occur then the organizations to be evaluated would rst have to be reasonably subdivided by size and then compared within each size class. If...