Does management matter in scientific laboratories? : evidence from Harvard Medical School

The high quality of modern medical care is built upon the creation of scientific knowledge generated from medical research. While the role of management practices has been rigorously explored across various industries, little is known about management in medical research. I collected data surveying principal investigators of medical research laboratories at the Harvard Medical School to examine the relationship of management practices and research outputs. I find that principal investigators with more effective management practices are associated with higher-impact research (measured by citations). This effect is stronger and more significant in younger compared to older laboratories and remains robust after using different controls. This study helps to increase the understanding of management in a scientific setting and should start a new discussion about the relevance of management in medical research.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Hillen, Florian, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric von Hippel and Karim R. Lakhani.

• Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
• Technology and Policy Program.
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117888

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/117888