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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1975

R.M. THORPE and B. WHITTINGTON

In the past few years a new debate has started and blossomed among those concerned with British university administration. It has centred around the lack of specific provision of…

Abstract

In the past few years a new debate has started and blossomed among those concerned with British university administration. It has centred around the lack of specific provision of training for university administrators. This research is a reflection of this debate. In an attempt to provide, firstly, information which would facilitate the construction of a course appropriate for “middle grade” administrators and, secondly, knowledge of a more general kind on the weaknesses of present administrator training, the authors carried out an attitudinal survey by postal questionnaire of 52 university and university college institutions in Britain. Interest focussed upon the training needs perceived by middle range administrators. This information was used to construct a course for these administrators which was offered at the University of Bradford in September 1973. Further, biographical and attitudinal data were used to attempt to explain variations in perceived training need. A consideration of several propositions suggested to explain such apparent variations served to indicate the evident need for more training in these techniques, either through the perceived need of a majority of respondents, or through the respondents' self confessed lack of knowledge about the applicability of these techniques. The authors conclude with a call for more non‐survey data based research into training needs and the expansion of specific university administrative training in management techniques.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Article
Publication date: 3 March 2020

Md. Sariful Islam, Sonia Afrin, Debasish Kumar Das and Md. Nasif Ahsan

This paper aims to study students' strategic behaviors for increasing their job prospect in response to university administrators' moves for lifting up institutional reputation in…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study students' strategic behaviors for increasing their job prospect in response to university administrators' moves for lifting up institutional reputation in the academia.

Design/methodology/approach

A Stackelberg differential game is used to study this strategic interplay between administrators and students. In this game, an administrator maximizes institutional quality to build university reputation while student maximizes grades to increase their job prospects. Therefore, administrators being the leader move first while students set strategies for maximizing their objective function by following administrators' move.

Findings

The study produces several distinctive results by analyzing administrator–students’ strategic interactions. First, university administrators need to be sufficiently more impatient for building reputation by improving institutional quality than students’ impatience for increasing their job prospects to have feasible solutions. Second, students attempt to increase academic grades for making them more marketable in response to administrators’ additional efforts for increasing their students’ job prospects. Third, exogenous increase in university reputation improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects without affecting their academic grades. However, increase in job prospects motivates students to increase their grades. Fourth, administrators’ too much impatience for increasing university reputation could inflate students’ grade, reduce job prospect and degrade institutional quality. Fifth, an exogenous rise in students’ impatience improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects but reduces students’ grades. Finally, the exogenous increase in opportunity cost of securing good grade degrades institutional quality, thus reducing further job prospects. Therefore, administrators’ positive but moderate impatience for reputation will improve students’ academic performances, institutional quality and job prospects.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze students’ strategic responses for improving their job prospects in response to administrators’ actions for enhancing university reputation. It helps administrators to design an effective framework for building university reputation in the academic market through improving institutional quality and expanding job markets for their students.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 15 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 29 November 2023

Abstract

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Research Management and Administration Around the World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-701-8

Article
Publication date: 4 January 2008

Kevin T. Leicht and Mary L. Fennell

The paper aims to argue that US colleges and universities resemble a “leaning tower” with ever expanding layers of administrators and managers who control and dominate university

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to argue that US colleges and universities resemble a “leaning tower” with ever expanding layers of administrators and managers who control and dominate university life. This set of institutional changes has altered the way that college administrators are recruited.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses recent developments in institutional theories of organisations to explain the changing environment facing US colleges and universities and the role that college administrators play in this environment. The paper matches data from a sample of administrative positions advertised in the 2004‐2005 Careers section of the Chronicle of Higher Education with web‐based data on incumbents subsequently hired for each position. These data are supplemented with aggregate statistics provided by the Chronicle and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Findings

Results suggest that only a small number of administrative positions advertised involve academic appointments with tenure and that the educational qualifications advertised span a surprisingly wide spectrum of credentials other than academic PhD's. Ethnically underrepresented groups and women are most likely to hold jobs requiring PhD's while whites and men occupy most of the positions where qualifications are ambiguous or classic academic qualifications are not called for.

Originality/value

The paper is the first to discuss the growing distinctive labour market for college administrators while providing preliminary data on the diversity effects of this labour market.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 27 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1975

ROBERT McCAIG

The universities have traditionally seen as one of their major functions the preparation of persons for the higher professions. Though the definition of high profession has been…

Abstract

The universities have traditionally seen as one of their major functions the preparation of persons for the higher professions. Though the definition of high profession has been expanded in recent decades to include a wide spectrum of occupations ranging all the way from forestry to accountancy and including various kinds of administration, whether it be business or hospital or school, the universities hate been very slow in recognising university administration as an area requiring their attention. Universities provide preparation for many professions including those relating to administration, but they have been slow to develop courses to meet the requirements of their own complex administrative systems. The reason for this lies in an outmoded perspective of the modern university. In Australia, programmes of training are now being introduced. Some of these are examined and described.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Article
Publication date: 17 July 2023

Bert Spector

The purpose is to offer a critique of the process of decision-making by top university administrators and to analyze how their decisions imposed their preferences and expanded…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose is to offer a critique of the process of decision-making by top university administrators and to analyze how their decisions imposed their preferences and expanded administrative control.

Design/methodology/approach

In the fall of 2021, the top administrators at Boston-based Northeastern University required that all members of the university community return to fully on-campus face-to-face work. That decision involved a return to what was labeled “normal operations” and followed a year-and-a-half of adjustments to the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on that case example, the analysis then ranges backward and forward in time. Other decisions – by Northeastern University leaders as well as leaders at other schools – are considered as well.

Findings

Leaders impose labels on complex contingencies as a way of constructing meaning. No label is objectively true or indisputable. In the hands of individuals who possess hierarchical power and authority, the application of a label such as “new normal” represents an exercise of power. Through an exploration and analysis of the underlying, unspoken, assumptions behind the application of the “new normal” label, the article suggests how the interests of university leaders were being advanced.

Research limitations/implications

Because of its reliance on labeling, the paper focuses mainly on the words of administrators – at Northeastern University and elsewhere – that are called upon to explain/justify decisions. The multiplicity of interests forwarded by the “new normal” label are explored. No attempt is made – nor would it be possible – to understand what was in the hearts and minds of these administrators.

Practical implications

The article makes a case that any and all pronouncements of leaders should be understood as assertions of power and statements of interests. The practical impact is to suggest a critical analysis to be applied to all such pronouncements.

Social implications

The approach taken in this article is situated within post-modernist analysis that critiques dominant narratives, disputes epistemological certainty and ontological objectivity and takes cognizance of coded messages contained in language.

Originality/value

Everyone has been through a traumatic period of time with the pandemic. The author has focused on a specific community – university administrators and tenure/tenure track faculty – as a window to help explain how decision-makers shaped their response. The author wants to emphasize the labels imposed by leaders and the assumptions behind the application of those labels.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 January 2019

Wei Liu and Weigang Yan

The purpose of this paper is to glean a comprehensive picture of the internal governance structure in Chinese universities based on data from 40 university administrators from 33…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to glean a comprehensive picture of the internal governance structure in Chinese universities based on data from 40 university administrators from 33 Chinese institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

The 40 administrators were convenience sampled while they were taking a three-month higher education leadership development program in a large public university in Canada. Permission was obtained to use the comparative discussions at different reflective research sessions as data to inform this study. The data were also progressively collected through informal interviews throughout the three months.

Findings

The study finds that the current governance model practiced in Chinese universities can be called “administrator governance,” with all members on the two major governing bodies being senior administrators appointed by and accountable for the governments. To build a “modern university system” aspired in China, the Chinese university administrators perceived a need to strengthen institutional autonomy and collegial governance with participation of the faculty and students.

Originality/value

As much of the literature has focused on the government–university relationship in China, this study aims to glean a comprehensive picture of the internal governance structure in Chinese universities.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 11 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 May 2009

Dina Biscotti, Leland L. Glenna, William B. Lacy and Rick Welsh

Purpose – University–industry relationships raise concerns about the influence of commercial interests on academic science. In this paper, we investigate how academic scientists…

Abstract

Purpose – University–industry relationships raise concerns about the influence of commercial interests on academic science. In this paper, we investigate how academic scientists who collaborate with industry understand their professional identity in relation to their research money and the notion of scientific “independence.”

Design/Methodology/Approach – We conducted in-depth interviews with 84 scientists and 65 administrators from 9 U.S. universities. The scientists do research in the field of agricultural biotechnology and collaborate with industry. The administrators have oversight responsibility for academic research, university–industry collaborations, and technology transfer.

Findings – We find that our respondents are wary of industry funding but believe that it has an appropriate place in academic research. Typically, industry money is treated either as seed money for preliminary research or as flexible funding that supplements the core, essential competitive grants academic scientists obtain from public agencies. We find that academic scientists talk about the mix of public and private funds in their research funding portfolios in ways that aim to construct an “independent” investigator professional identity.

Originality/Value – Our study is a case of how money is inscribed with meanings in institutional settings. It contributes to scholarship in economic sociology of work by revealing how money is used by academic scientists to signal their alignment with institutionally sanctioned professional norms and by administrators to evaluate scientists' work.

Details

Economic Sociology of Work
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-368-2

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2002

Linda Hon and Brigitta Brunner

A survey of 463 students examined how they perceive their relationship with the University of Florida. Overall, students described the relationship as one characterised by trust…

Abstract

A survey of 463 students examined how they perceive their relationship with the University of Florida. Overall, students described the relationship as one characterised by trust and satisfaction and they tended to feel more neutral about control mutuality, commitment and an exchange relationship. Items measuring a communal relationship were the weakest relationship indicators. Data from interviews with nine administrators further validated the relationship outcomes measured in the survey.

Details

Journal of Communication Management, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-254X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 29 January 2021

Herman Aguinis, Larry Yu and Cevat Tosun

The purpose of this study is to examine scholarly impact which is critical to universities in their aspiration to create, disseminate and apply knowledge. However, scholarly…

4874

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine scholarly impact which is critical to universities in their aspiration to create, disseminate and apply knowledge. However, scholarly impact is an elusive concept. First, the authors present a conceptual model to clarify different dimensions of scholarly impact (i.e. theory and research, education, organizations and society) and four key stakeholders (i.e. other researchers, students, practitioners and policy makers). Second, the authors provide actionable recommendations for university administrators, researchers and educators on how to enhance impact. The scholarly impact model is flexible, expandable, scalable and adaptable to universities in different regions of the world and with different strategic priorities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a general review of the literature and offered a multidimensional and multistakeholder model of scholarly impact to guide future actions aimed at enhancing scholarly impact.

Findings

The authors describe the multidimensional and multistakeholder nature of the critical and yet elusive concept of scholarly impact. The authors delineate multiple dimensions of impact, different stakeholders involved and recommendations for enhancing scholarly impact in the future.

Practical implications

The authors offer practical and actionable recommendations on how to enhance scholarly impact. For university administrators, the authors recommend aligning scholarly impact goals with actions and resource-allocation decisions; ensuring that performance management and reward systems are consistent with impact goals; being strategic in selecting a journal list; developing a strong doctoral program; and promoting practical knowledge and applications. For researchers and educators, the authors recommend developing a personal scholarly impact plan; becoming an academic decathlete; finding ways to affect multiple impact dimensions simultaneously; and leveraging social media to broaden impact on external stakeholders. Implementing these recommendations will benefit other researchers, students, practitioners (e.g. managers, consultants) and policy makers.

Originality/value

The authors provide an innovative way of conceptualizing scholarly impact. In turn, the conceptual analysis results in actionable recommendations for university administrators, researchers and educators to enhance impact.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 33 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

Keywords

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