Between Teaching, English Language, and Supervisor: Young Business Scholars Under the Pressure of Transforming Academia

Research on factors that have an influence on scholars’ success has a rather long tradition, but only recently has this research field become a hot topic in management research, which means that our knowledge of the determinants of success in business academia is fairly new and fragmented. The study presented in this paper contributes to this knowledge by empirically testing the influence of selected factors on research productivity of young business scholars working in Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). The research productivity is defined and measured through scholars’ publication scores, including publications in journals with JCR’s Impact Factor (IF). The study suggests that among key determinants of the success of a business scholar from Visegrad area, there are English language skills and teaching load. Surprisingly, productivity of young business scholars seems not to be leveraged much by the recognizability of their supervisors. Moreover, contrary to some other studies, teaching load correlates positively with research productivity. At the end of the paper, the results of empirical study are discussed in the context of prior studies and specific features of academia in postcommunist countries.