The paper addresses whether there is a reward or punishment effect of having diverse work experience before entering the academic profession.
The study, based on a survey among the Norwegian academic population, indicates that non-academic work experience is common in all academic fields; more than half of the tenured academic staff members in Norway have worked outside academic institutions for at least one year.
Our analysis indicates that, in general, non-academic work experience is positive for having research ties to external communities, but we find no sign of a ‘‘punishment’’ effect of non-academic work experience on scientific productivity.