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Do Research Training Groups Operate at Optimal Size?

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Schmalenbach Business Review Aims and scope

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze whether structured PhD programs operate at optimal size and whether there are differences between different disciplinary fields. Theoretically, we postulate that the relation between the size of a PhD program and program performance is hump shaped. For our empirical analysis, we use hand-collected data on 86 Research Training Groups (RTGs) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). As performance indicators, we use (a) the number of completed PhDs and (b) the number of publications by RTG students (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers). Applying DEA with constant and variable returns to scale, we find that the optimal team size varies between 10 and 16 RTG students in the humanities and social sciences. In contrast, our empirical analysis does not uncover a systematic relation between size and performance for RTGs in the natural and life sciences.

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Notes

  1. When including further performance dimensions, the latter, however, do find a significant link between size and performance.

  2. All of the RTGs are based at German universities. Four of them are located at more than one German university (“Gemeinschaftskollegs”), 20 are part of an international cooperation network (“internationale Kollegs”).

  3. It is important to note that we cannot compare the efficiency values of RTGs in the humanities and social sciences with those of RTGs in the natural and life sciences since the number of units included in the analysis influences the efficiency values and since there are more observations from the natural and life sciences in our data set (58 as opposed to 28 from the humanities and social sciences).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

    Kerstin Pull & Birgit Pferdmenges

  2. Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich, Zurich, Germany

    Uschi Backes-Gellner

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  1. Kerstin Pull
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  2. Birgit Pferdmenges
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  3. Uschi Backes-Gellner
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Correspondence to Kerstin Pull.

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Pull, K., Pferdmenges, B. & Backes-Gellner, U. Do Research Training Groups Operate at Optimal Size?. Schmalenbach Bus Rev 18, 129–145 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41464-017-0029-8

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