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The “collaboratory” concept has recently entered the vernacular of the scientific community to reflect new modes of scientific communication, cooperation and collaboration made possible by information technology. The collaboratory represents a scientific research center “without walls” for accessing and sharing data, information, instrumentation and computational resources. The principal applications of the collaboratory concept have been in the physical and biological sciences, including space physics, oceanography and molecular biology. Discusses the attributes of the collaboratory, and applies the concept developed by computer and physical scientists to the design and operation of the SIPPACCESS prototype information system for complex data to be used through the Internet by sociologists, demographers and economists. Examines obstacles to collaboratory development for the social sciences. Concludes that four major obstacles will inhibit the development of collaboratories in the social sciences.

Negotiation is important for career success. Therefore, this study draws from social expectancy and self-regulation theories to develop a model proposing that social class background (SCB) influences the ease with which achievement striving translates into propensity to negotiate. Specifically, the authors examine how SCB moderates the relationship between achievement striving and negotiation propensity via a key mediator—status-based identity uncertainty—reflective of one's (un)certainty about their societal standing.

The authors collected data across three surveys over a four-week period from 460 participants. The authors assessed negotiation propensity by asking participants to rank-order behavioral reactions, representative of different degrees of negotiation engagement, in response to three scenarios.

The positive effects of achievement striving on negotiation propensity are attenuated for individuals with lower SCBs, in part, because achievement-oriented individuals with lower SCBs experience a heightened sense of status-based identity uncertainty. Although achievement striving is an asset for initiating negotiations, it appears to disproportionately benefit those with higher SCBs.

Individuals higher in achievement striving and with lower SCBs may approach the negotiation process differently than those with higher SCBs. This dynamic serves as another mechanism through which cumulative (dis)advantage processes in career success may occur over time.

Bradford's Law is presented as an observation made from the outcome of searching, rather than a mathematical development. The organization and presentation of search data is explained. Potential applications of Bradford's Law are discussed. New findings are presented which show the relationship described by Bradford's Law to be fundamentally important but in a more subtle way than previously supposed. Future developments are suggested in terms of their impact on librarianship.

Status constitutes a core research concept across the social sciences. However, its definition is still contested, and questions persist about its consequences. We begin with a flexible, provisional definition: status is a relational asset possessed by social actors insofar as they are highly regarded by highly regarded others. Using this definition as a backdrop, we develop a fourfold typology based on how status is used as an asset and from where it is derived. The typology allows us to explore the implications of considering status as either a quality signal or a good and of viewing status-conferring ties as either deference-based or dominance-based. We then consider the implications of our framework for the generation of novelty. Although status has been connected to many social and economic outcomes, because of competing predictions in the literature – the generation of novelty has been linked to all regions of the status distribution – we sketch intuitions for future research on the status–novelty linkage. We also work toward greater conceptual clarity by comparing and contrasting status with selected related concepts: quality, reputation, and legitimacy. We conclude with considerations for future research, including cautionary remarks regarding network-analytic measurement in light of the definition we propose.

A probabilistic mechanism is proposed to describe various forms of the Bradford phenomenon reported in bibliometric research. This leads to a stochastic process termed the Waring process, a special case of which seems to conform with the general features of ‘Bradford's Law’. The presence of a time parameter in the model emphasises that we are considering dynamic systems and allows the possibility of predictions being made.

In this contribution to EDI's professional insights, the authors develop practical and evidence-based recommendations that are developed for bias mitigation, discretion elimination and process optimization in panel evaluations and decisions in research funding. An analysis is made of how the expectation of “selling science” adds layers of complexity to the evaluation and decision process. The insights are relevant for optimization of similar processes, including publication, recruitment and selection, tenure and promotion.

The recommendations are informed by experiences and evidence from commissioned projects with European research funding organizations. The authors distinguish between three aspects of the evaluation process: written applications, enacted performance and group dynamics. Vignettes are provided to set the stage for the analysis of how bias and (lack of) fit to an ideal image makes it easier for some than for others to be funded.

In research funding decisions, (over)selling science is expected but creates shifting standards for evaluation, resulting in a narrow band of acceptable behavior for applicants. In the authors' recommendations, research funding organizations, evaluators and panel chairs will find practical ideas and levers for process optimization, standardization and customization, in terms of awareness, accountability, biased language, criteria, structure and time.

Showing how “selling science” in research funding adds to the cumulative disadvantage of bias, the authors offer design specifications for interventions to mitigate the negative effects of bias on evaluations and decisions, improve selection habits, eliminate discretion and create a more inclusive process.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationship between ethnic diversity, social capital, and objective career success in upward mobility systems over time. The authors conceptualize the underlying process of why intra-organizational career boundaries are more permeable for dominant ethnics compared to minority ethnics.

The authors conceptually explore and model this relationship by elaborating on three mechanisms of social capital return deficit proposed by Lin (2000), building the argument based on four underlying principles (stereotype fit, status construction, homophily, and reciprocity).

Based on a proposed reciprocal relationship between social capital and objective career success, the authors suggest the development of an upward career spiral over time, which is continuously affected by ethnic group membership. Consequently, the authors argue that dominant ethnics do not only advance to a higher level of objective career success, but that they also advance exponentially faster than minority ethnics.

The conceptualization provokes the question to what extent the permeability of intra-organizational boundaries constrains careers of some, while enabling careers of others.

The contribution lies in the exploration of the relationship between social capital and objective career success over time, of the permeability of intra-organizational career boundaries, and how both are affected by ethnic group membership.

The purpose of this study is to account for gender gaps owing to a lack of education and training. Gender gaps pervade human activity. But little is known about forces reshaping gaps across career phases, from education to running a business. Such gaps may accumulate over one’s entrepreneurial career and widen or narrow due both to environmental forces that reconfigure the gap across career phases and to the gendering of competencies and benefits from education and training.

A representative sample of 110,689 adults around the world was surveyed in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Gender-related effects were ascertained by odds ratios estimated by hierarchical modelling, controlling for country and attributes of individuals.

Education and entrepreneurial training, both during and after formal schooling, are highly beneficial in developing competencies and during career phases – i.e. intending to start a business, starting a business, and running a business. Early gaps in human capital are reproduced as gaps in careers, and continuous disadvantages in the environment repeatedly widen gaps throughout a person’s entrepreneurial career. That said, gender gaps are reduced slightly over time as women gain greater benefit from training than men.

The cumulative effects of early gender gaps in education and training call for research on gendered learning, and recurrent gender effects across career phases call for research on gendering in micro-level contexts such as networks and macro-level contexts such as institutions.

Understanding the gendering of human capital and careers has implications for policy and education aimed at developing human resources, especially for mobilising women. The finding that women gain greater benefit than men from training is informative for policies that foster gender equality and empower women pursuing careers.

Conceptualising the entrepreneurial career as a sequence of several stages enables the assessment of gender gaps owing to initial disadvantages in education and to recurrent disadvantages on the career path.

In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of workforce diversity on labor market outcomes. We argue that to understand the impact of workforce diversity, we must consider the effects of power (the distribution of valued and scarce resources), status (the relationships among people and groups), and numbers (the compositional effects of the unit), whether in the work group, job, occupation, firm, or society. We then discuss the mechanisms that generate and reproduce these dimensions of inequality and explain how they contribute to everyday practices such as allocation decisions and evaluative processes and ultimately lead to sustained or durable inequality (e.g. labor force outcomes including attitudes, behaviors, and material and psychic rewards).