Abstract
Although international mobility is associated with various positive outcomes, the process of knowledge transfer resulting from working abroad has not yet been sufficiently investigated. The main reason why the relationship between international mobility and knowledge transfer is still underresearched is that there are not yet reliable methods to identify knowledge transfer. The current study aims to close this research gap by introducing a network-based approach that is capable of indicating knowledge flows. Assuming that coauthorship constitutes one instance through which knowledge transfer can take place, the approach relies on coauthorship networks. In the first approach to be presented, the transfer of published knowledge is operationalized as the use of rarely cited publications. In the second approach, the transfer of methodological know-how is operationalized as the occurrence of lexical terms in abstracts of publications. The study focuses on German scientists who were internationally mobile and acted as knowledge transmitters between the country of mobility and Germany. The results show that the network-based approach is well suited to identifying the sources of knowledge, knowledge transmitters, and the recipients of knowledge. Moreover, the findings suggest that knowledge transfer processes are field specific.
Highlights
International mobility describes the movement of scientists between research organizations located in different countries of the world
Despite the important role that scientific mobility plays in research policy, the knowledge transfer of internationally mobile scientists has been insufficiently studied
Previous studies examined why the transfer of knowledge from person to person did not take place, why different types of knowledge are transferred in different ways, and which factors prevent, impede, or modify the knowledge transfer process between the sources and recipients of knowledge
Summary
International mobility describes the movement of scientists between research organizations located in different countries of the world. The experience of being internationally mobile is associated with many positive effects on the career trajectories of scientists (Jonkers & Cruz-Castro, 2013; Kyvik, Karseth, Remme, & Blume, 1999; Leahey, Beckman, & Stanko, 2017). Previous studies have focused mostly on the relationship between mobility and collaboration and the effect on productivity and impact in science (Aksnes, Rorstad, Piro, & Sivertsen, 2013; Gibson & McKenzie, 2014; Halevi, Moed, & Bar-Ilan, 2016; Markova, Shmatko, & Katchanov, 2016; Sandström, 2009; Sugimoto, Robinson-Garcia, et al, 2017).
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