Uncategorized – Dr. Bastian Rake

Workshop on medical innovation to overcome social and economic challenges

The 2020 edition of the annual Workshop on Medical Innovation and Healthcare (WOMI) and was co-organized by myself and by Ethan Gifford and Maureen McKelvey, University of Gothenburg and GOT KIES. In this year’s digital Workshop more than 40 participants from many different universities and countries discussed urgent questions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and other health challenges, and how medical innovation can help society to tackle these challenges. Further information about the Workshop and the researchers engaged in the WOMI community can be found on the community’s website.

Can contact tracing apps stop the pandemic?

My recent post in the Business&Society blog presents a few reflections on the diffusion of contact tracing apps. I argue that contact tracing apps must provide clear benefits that outweigh the cost of giving up control over sensitive information. However, avoiding a decline in the number of users over time will be challenging, particularly if other measures to keep the virus under control are successful and the individual benefits become less clear.

New Publication: Which role do corporate partners play for publications in high reputation or high impact journals?

In our recent publication in Scientometrics, Maureen McKelvey (University of Gothenburg) and myself explore whether the reputation and the impact of scientific publications originating in firms benefit from R&D alliances with different types of partners. Our results suggest that biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms should focus on establishing R&D alliances with pharmaceutical firms in order to increase the probability of publishing in journals with a high reputation. However, in terms of scientific impact, i.e., forward citations, publications originating in firms do not benefit from having access to different types of alliance partners. Our study can be found here.

New Publication on academic publication output and collaborations with firms

My paper “Do publication activities of academic institutions benefit from formal collaborations with firms?” has been published in Innovation: Organization & Management. In this study, I explore whether the proportion of (formal) collaborations with different types of firm partners in strategic R&D alliances is associated with publications originating in academic institutions. The empirical analysis suggests that the share of collaborations with industry partners has an inverted u-shaped relationship with the reputation of the journal in which an article originating in an academic institution is published. The share of alliances with pharmaceutical firms shows a similar inverted u-shaped pattern, suggesting that research […]

Paper Presentation “Big Pharma, Bad Science?” at AoM Conference

I presented the paper “Big pharma, bad science? An analysis of retractions in bio-medical journals” at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. In this paper, I study the amount of and the reasons for retractions of bio-medical articles authored by firm researchers or sponsored by firms. The empirical analysis based on retractions in the bio-medical literature reveals that retractions of firm articles are quite rare. However, among the retracted firm publications fake data and questionable research are important reasons for retraction.

Winner of STR and TIM Best Reviewer Awards

It is a great honor for me to receive again the Outstanding Reviewer Award of the Academy of Management’s Strategic Management Division (STR) and the Best Reviewer Award of the Technology and Innovation Management Division (TIM). Both divisions give these awards to a small group of reviewers who provided high quality and highly constructive feedback during the review process in preparation of this year’s Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

Piece on “how to use LinkedIn more effectively”

I recently published a piece on RTÉ Brainstorm on “how to use LinkedIn more effectively.” The post summarizes some core ideas and research results of the social network literature for a non-academic audience. In particular, I argue that we need to think strategically about the structure of our professional networks depending on the objectives we would like to achieve. In any case, building up professional networks is a long-term endeavor that does not necessarily deliver immediate returns.

New Publication in PLoS ONE

I am delighted to announce that our paper “Did relaxing clinical trial regulation enhance the stock of scientific knowledge in India? Not necessarily” co-authored by Carolin Häussler (University of Passau) has been published in PLoS ONE. By examining a change in clinical trial regulations in India, a country often viewed as a first-choice offshoring location, we study how the relaxation of clinical trial regulations affects the number and the type of clinical trials as well as the domestic scientific knowledge base. Based on trial data from ClinicalTrials.gov and data on associated publication activities, our empirical analysis suggests that, despite an […]

PhD Workshop Social Network Analysis in Management Research

On September 04, 2018 I gave a PhD workshop on “Social Network Analysis in Management Research” at the University of Gothenburg. PhD students from the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship participated in this workshop. The workshop introduced PhD students to Social Network Analysis as a methodological approach for studying social relations among different types of actors and discussed the application of this approach in management research. A hands-on session introduced the participants to the network analysis software Pajek and enabled students to apply their knowledge of network measures acquired during the workshop.