Publication performance of individual scientists in consolidated versus non-consolidated teams with different team status levels : a survey study on publication performance differences among European andAmerican university scientists within the majors Chemistry, Economics and Mechanical engineering

In an effort to examine the publication performance differences between European and American scientists, I conducted an international survey on researchers in the majors Chemistry, Economics and Mechanical Engineering. A questionnaire, which examined variables like team consolidation and team status, was mailed to researchers in the departments Chemistry (300) Economics (340) and Mechanical engineering (230) of universities in the US, UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France. Of these, 129 (15%) usable questionnaires were returned. For my sample, individual researcher’s publication performance was found to be (a) dependent on the consolidation of the team the researcher works in, and (b) positively related to the perceived status of their team and university. The background variables gender (c) and major (d) were also found to be significantly related to the publication performance of the individual researchers. Male researchers show higher production performance rates than their female counterparts and researchers in an engineering field of study showed a higher production performance compared to their colleagues in the flied of Economics. The findings are discussed in relation to earlier publication performance research