Departmental networks—An empirical analysis of career patterns among junior faculty in Germany

Abstract

By using recruitment data from 60 German departments of business administration, networks are constructed in which the nodes are departments, and two departments are connected if they have either sent or received a scientist from one another. Different concepts of social network analysis are applied to answer a series of questions, such as the number of scientists the business departments produce, to whom they send and from whom they receive their scientists, and which role academic networks play in the career of young scientists in business administration. Regression analysis revealed that network centrality is a robust predictor of departmental reputation. The social network approach can be used to assess reputational differences among business departments, thereby providing an alternative to existing opinion surveys and research rankings.