How Hiring a Star Matters to a Department

Report: “Why Stars Matter” (available to National Bureau of Economic Research subscribers here)

Authors: Ajay Agrawal, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto; John McHale, a professor of economics at the School of Business and Economics at the National University of Ireland; and Alexander Oettl, an assistant professor of strategic management at the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Organization: National Bureau of Economic Research

Summary: The researchers examined 255 evolutionary-biology departments whose members published a total of 149,947 articles from 1980 to 2008 to study the effects of hiring a star scientist on a department’s productivity and on the quality of new recruits to the department.

Findings:

• There is evidence of an overall star effect on productivity. After the arrival in a department of a star scientist, average department-level output increased by 54 percent. After removing the direct contributions of the star, the department-level output still increased by 48 percent.
• The overall effect on the productivity of people who were already in the department when the star joined was neutral, with productivity rising among scientists whose research was related to the star’s and productivity falling among those whose research was unrelated (perhaps, the report says, due to shifting resources).
• The quality of scientists who join a department after a star is present increases significantly. Stars appear to provide recruiting benefits particularly for attracting scientists working in research areas related to the star’s, but stars provide some recruiting benefits for attracting scientists working on unrelated research, too. The star effect is greatest at lower-ranked institutions.

Bottom Line: Star-recruitment strategies, the researchers conclude, may be most effective in departments where a cadre of scientists is already working in areas related to the star’s and where a department expects to be hiring and can take advantage of the star’s effect on the quality of new recruits.