Search results

This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for academic librarians. Discourse analysis can illuminate the social role of language, social systems, and social practices.

This qualitative research analyzes the APT documents for librarians from a group of US universities (n = 50) whose librarians are tenured faculty (n = 35). Linguistic features were examined to identify genre (text type) and register (language variety) characteristics.

The documents showed strong relationships with other texts; vocabulary from the language of human resources (HR); grammatical characteristics such as nominalization; passive constructions; few pronouns; the “quasi-synonymy” of series of adjectives, nouns, or verbs; and expression of certainty and obligation. The documents have a sociolinguistic and social semiotic component. In using a faculty genre, librarians assert solidarity with other faculty, while the prominent discourse of librarians as practitioners detracts from faculty solidarity.

This research is limited to librarians at US land grant institutions. It has implications for other research institutions and other models of librarian status.

This research can help academic librarians fulfill their obligations by understanding how values encoded in these documents reflect positive and negative approaches.

Higher education and academic librarianship are in a state of flux. Understanding the discourse of these documents can help librarians encode appropriate goals and values. Little has been written on the discourse of librarianship. This is a contribution to the understanding of librarians as a discourse community and of significant communicative events.

This chapter studies the negative signals associated with nonpromotion. I first show theoretically that, when workers' productivity rises little with additional years on the same job level, the negative signal associated with nonpromotion leads to wage decreases. On the other hand, when additional job-level tenure leads to a sizable increase in productivity, workers' wages increase. I then test my model's predictions using the personnel records from a large US firm from 1970–1988. I find a clear hump-shaped wage-job-tenure profile for workers who stay at the same job level, which supports my model's prediction.

Historically, academic careers in many European universities have been characterized by the civil servant status of academics (i.e., an open vacancy model) based on the German Lehrstuhl (professorial chair) tradition. The chair system has been abandoned in many countries, and the status of civil servants has been changed to private employment. At the same time, many European universities have introduced some variant of the tenure track model to increase the attractiveness of academic careers at their institutions; however, open vacancy models continue to dominate academic careers in Europe. This chapter describes recent changes in academic promotion systems using case examples from tenure track models in two European countries, Finland and Austria. In conclusion, this chapter offers examples based on the best practices and challenges identified in the analyzed tenure track models.

This chapter focuses on the barriers women of color (WOC) in the professoriate face in their pursuit of tenure and promotion and provides selected strategies that build bridges for their success. It draws on critical race theory (CRT) to identify structural as well as individual changes that must be made in academe. The chapter addresses selected strategies for African-American, Latina American, and Asian/Pacific American women to successfully traverse the perilous road from untenured assistant professor to tenured full professor. The Newcomer Adjustment framework of the Organizational Socialization Model (OSM; Bauer, Bodner, Erdogan, Truxillo, & Tucker, 2007) is used as a systematic approach to addressing barriers and building bridges for WOC in the professoriate. Gaps in the research are also identified.

We formulate static and dynamic empirical models of promotion where the current promotion probability depends on the hierarchical level in the firm, individual human capital, unobserved individual specific attributes, time-varying firm-specific variables, as well as endogenous past promotion histories (in the dynamic version). Within the static versions, we investigate the relative influence of the key determinants of promotions and how these influences vary by hierarchical levels. In the dynamic version of the model, we examine the causal effect of past speed of promotion on promotion outcomes. The model is fit on an eight-year panel of 30,000 American executives employed in more than 300 different firms. The stochastic process generating promotions may be viewed as a series of promotion probabilities which become smaller as an individual moves up in the hierarchy and which are primarily explained by unobserved heterogeneity and promotion opportunities. Firm variables and observed human capital variables (age, tenure, and education) play a surprisingly small role. We also find that, conditional on unobservables, the promotion probability is only enhanced by the speed of promotion achieved in the past (a structural fast track effect) for a subset of the population and is negative for the majority. In general, the magnitude of the individual-specific effect of past speed of promotion is inversely related to schooling, tenure, and hierarchical level.

To achieve tenure and promotion, an academician must demonstrate productivity and persistence in the midst of uncertainty. While there are policies in place to guide the tenure and promotion processes, at most institutions, the policies are written in a professionally vague manner such that “The Committee,” made up of senior faculty, has sufficient leeway to make a decision deemed most appropriate for all parties involved, including the junior faculty member under consideration. My essay highlights my experiences with the tenure and promotion processes at two different institutions on my academic journey and uses sayings to convey messages of importance to the process. After providing some personal background information that includes some of my strengths and fears for context, I transition to a discussion of my decision to exchange a coveted, tenure-track position for a long-term contract at a newly established state college with an opportunity of being promoted to the highly esteemed rank of Full Professor.

While the requirements and processes vary from institution to institution, and for tenure and promotion, the angst and anticipation generated can be fairly consistent, even if you are confident in what you have accomplished. Through the sharing of personal lived experiences (or biodata; Snell, Stokes, Sands, & McBride, 1994), I attempt to normalize these feelings and questions, while juxtaposing the beauty and burden of being an African-American male professor in Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) (Bell & Nkomo, 1999; Stanley, 2006; Turner, Gonzalez, & Wood, 2008; Warde, 2009). Furthermore, I offer key sayings and coping strategies (Johnson, Haynes, Holyfield, & Foster, 2014) that will allow individuals to not only survive but also thrive within these seemingly committees or make administrative decisions about said processes.

Personnel economics tends be based on single-firm case studies. Here, we examine several internal labor market dimensions of nearly 5,000 firms, over a period of 20 years, using detailed matched employer–employee data from Portugal. In the spirit of Baker, Gibbs, and Holmstrom (1994a, 1994b), we consider worker turnover, the role of job levels and human capital as wage determinants, wage dispersion within job levels, the importance of tenure in promotions and exits, and the scope for careers. We find a large degree of diversity in most of these personnel dimensions across firms. Moreover, some dimensions are shown to be robust predictors of firm performance, even after controlling for time-invariant firm heterogeneity and other variables. These dimensions include low worker churning, the importance of careers, low wage dispersion at low and intermediate job levels, and a tight relationship between human capital variables and wages.

This study examines and describes the experiences and perceptions of women and men associate professors from various academic disciplines as they chart and navigate their academic career trajectories.

Using a case study approach, we interviewed 11 purposively selected mid-career faculty members and five department heads.

Through the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), we identified issues of clarity, climate, self-efficacy, and gender disparity as major concerns for mid-career faculty.

This research is limited to a research-intensive university in the southeastern United States. The small study population and unique context limit the generalizability of the study.

Findings of the study provide a lens for university and college administrators, human resources professionals, and other institutional leaders to view professional development programs for mid-career faculty members at their own institutions. The findings also suggest a need for improvements to current family-friendly policies to reduce gender bias and retain women faculty members.

This paper offers practical recommendations to higher education administrators and human resources professionals on how to positively cultivate a better work climate and culture for mid-career faculty members. It also offers suggestions on how to be sensitive to and improve gender equity among mid-career faculty in higher education.

In this chapter, the authors review talent management in the research university sector, business schools in particular. The authors adopt an “exclusive” perspective on talent management, assuming that some scholars contribute disproportionately to organizational performance. The authors identify two particular groups of scholars likely to be the target of exclusive talent management practices in business schools: (i) faculty on a tenure track career path and (ii) “star” tenured faculty with exceptionally strong track records. Focusing on these current and potential future “stars,” the authors review and discuss talent management practices related to talent identification, recruitment and selection, performance management, talent development, benefits and rewards, and tenure, promotion, and retention. In the extant literature, these topics have been mostly examined in the general university environment and less so in the business school context. This is somewhat problematic given that business schools have their own special characteristics. Moreover, some of the reviewed topics – especially talent development – have received only marginal scholarly interest thus far. Based on this literature review, and by drawing on their own experience working in different roles in academia, the authors highlight some of the gaps in the current body of knowledge and propose an agenda for future research.

The institution of tenure has elicited debate and controversy since its introduction in higher education. Proponents argue the need for tenure based on academic freedom and efficient university governance. Critics argue that it represents inefficiency in the higher education labor market and protects less productive faculty members. The use of tenure in academic libraries has been no less controversial, with only 40−60% of academic libraries supporting tenure track positions for academic librarians. This dichotomy in the labor market for academic librarians represents a natural experiment and allows for the testing of the presence of a compensating wage differential for tenure.

This study examines 10 years’ worth of cross-sectional data drawn from member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Models examine both the institutional characteristics of tenure-granting ARL academic libraries and the impact of tenure on starting salaries. Issues related to both a union wage premium and a compensating wage differential due to tenure are explored. The results of this research suggest that tenure, while serving other functions within an academic library setting, does not have the predicted impact on starting salaries.