Peer Effects and Academics’ Industry Involvement: The Moderating Role of Age on Professional Imprinting

This study explores the interaction between professional imprinting and age in the context of industry-science collaboration. Specifically, we examine the impact of localized and personal peer effects on academics’ involvement with industry and how these effects are moderated by the career age of the scientist. We suggest that both localized and personal peer effects drive industry involvement but that the effects from such imprinting are more pronounced for younger researchers, suggesting that professional imprinting takes place in the early stages of a scientist’s academic career. Based on a sample of 330 German academics in the field of biotechnology and publication data from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), we find that scientists with industry-oriented co-authors are more likely to be involved with industry (personal peer effect). Moreover, we find that the scientist’s involvement increases with the orientation of the scientist’s department towards industry (localized peer effect). Only the latter effect turns out to be moderated by scientist’s age. While personal peer effects are independent of the scientist’s age, localized peer effects emerge for younger researchers.