The literature has shown that academics often share intermediate research resources bilaterally and only infrequently deny requests for sharing. This study goes further and investigates how resource sharing is rewarded. We contrast rewarded and non-rewarded sharing, and further differentiate the types of rewards into direct (e.g., coauthorship) and reputational (e.g., acknowledgments). In a survey of 1,204 resource suppliers or recipients in the UK, Germany, and Japan, we find that rewards are commonly used, and that the form of rewarding is associated with the context in which academics work. In particular, we find that suppliers who are commercially active are more likely to agree on direct rewards. Instead, suppliers who make use of open sharing platforms are more likely to agree on reputational rewards and less likely to agree on direct rewards. For both suppliers and recipients we find that those working in larger teams are more likely to agree on direct rewards, and that their interdisciplinarity is positively linked to direct rewards and negatively to reputational rewards. These results suggest that a reward system for intermediate resources is emerging and rewarding practices are evolving with contextual differences.

文献表明，学者经常在双边之间共享中间研究资源，并且很少偶尔拒绝共享请求。这项研究走得更远，并探讨了如何奖励资源共享。我们对比奖励和非奖励共享，并将奖励的类型进一步分为直接（例如，共同作者）和声誉（例如，确认）。在对英国，德国和日本的1,204个资源提供者或接受者进行的一项调查中，我们发现奖励是普遍使用的，并且奖励的形式与学者工作的环境有关。特别是，我们发现从事商业活动的供应商更有可能就直接奖励达成协议。反而，使用开放共享平台的供应商更可能同意声誉奖励，而不太可能同意直接奖励。对于供应商和接受者，我们发现在较大团队中工作的人更可能同意直接奖励，而他们的跨学科性与直接奖励正相关，而与声誉奖励则负相关。这些结果表明，一种针对中间资源的奖励体系正在形成，奖励实践也随着上下文的差异而发展。