No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Market for Academics
Abstract
This book addresses academic labor markets in three countries: France, Germany, and the United States. The management of faculty careers is a critical issue in university autonomy, and in many countries recent reforms have increasingly addressed this area. Musselin's exhaustive empirical research on academic job hiring practices and faculty career patterns included over 200 interviews with faculty members and administrators concerning two disciplines: history and math. Each of the countries has very different historical traditions with regard to how peers recruit their colleagues within the academy. Using what is known as an "economics of quality" comparative approach, she sheds new light on faculty worklife. The author's focus on the criteria of evaluation in academic hiring decisions is a unique contribution and one that should stimulate the current debates on higher education reforms.
... Exploring perceived barriers to recruitment from the viewpoint of those most directly involved -academics -is especially relevant for better understanding academic hiring processes. Not only do academics make up the applicant pool but they also play a core role in assessing and deciding on academic quality in recruitment (Langfeldt & Kyvik, 2011;Musselin, 2010;Reymert, 2021). This paper therefore investigates the following questions: ...
... National career opportunities may influence the attractiveness of academic positions, especially for tenured positions. National career systems differ in the length and nature of the pre-tenure period, the qualifications required to obtain a tenured position, and the valuation of experience by internal and external labor markets, that is, whether hiring is a question of success in systems other than one's own or whether career development occurs within a university, using its rules and incentives for career advancement (Musselin, 2010;Whitchurch et al., 2021). ...
... Thus, disciplines also matter for recruitment processes. Given that they have their own formal and informal criteria for recruitment, reflecting their community, culture, type of knowledge, and notions of quality (Lamont, 2009;Musselin, 2010), they can be argued to emphasize different qualities in an applicant (Reymert et al., 2020;Reymert, 2021). For instance, bibliometric indicators, teaching experience, and interpretive and technical skills are valued differently across the disciplinary spectrum (Hammarfelt & Rushforth, 2017;Herschberg et al., 2018;Levander & Riis, 2016;Musselin, 2010). ...
Recruitment is one of the main strategic tools for universities, which aim to hire the best possible candidates for their academic positions. However, not every institution can hire whom they perceive as the best. Our paper investigates what are perceived to be the most pressing hindrances to attracting the best researchers. We focus on national and disciplinary differences in researchers’ perceptions of barriers to recruiting the best scholars in their fields. We surveyed researchers in economics and physics in the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK and find that economists emphasize salary level and institutional prestige as the main barriers, while physicists underline competition from non-academic actors and career development opportunities. We further find differences by country. In Norway, limited institutional prestige is a key barrier to attracting the best researchers, while researchers in the UK highlight salary levels. Respondents at Dutch universities claim that they experience multiple, equally important barriers.
... These processes are salient in organizations that must recruit the right kind of people for both technical and symbolic reasons (Scott and Davis 2007). In these processes, the application of evaluative criteria is pivotal, since they represent core peer-review processes (Langfeldt and Kyvik 2011) that are controlled and conducted by the academic profession (Musselin 2010). In these evaluations, candidates are assessed on multiple criteria, such as teaching experience (Levander et al. 2019), international experience and language skills (Herschberg et al. 2018), administrative skills (Hamann 2019), or social skills (Musselin 2010); therefore, the desired candidates are often referred to as "the sheep with five legs" or "jack-of-alltrades" (Van den Brink and Benschop 2011). ...
... In these processes, the application of evaluative criteria is pivotal, since they represent core peer-review processes (Langfeldt and Kyvik 2011) that are controlled and conducted by the academic profession (Musselin 2010). In these evaluations, candidates are assessed on multiple criteria, such as teaching experience (Levander et al. 2019), international experience and language skills (Herschberg et al. 2018), administrative skills (Hamann 2019), or social skills (Musselin 2010); therefore, the desired candidates are often referred to as "the sheep with five legs" or "jack-of-alltrades" (Van den Brink and Benschop 2011). Nevertheless, research output is often the most salient criterion (Van den Brink and Benschop 2011), although teaching experience has recently been gaining importance (Levander et al. 2019). ...
... The use of evaluative criteria is not only regulated by academic fields but also national academic career structures with different types of positions and diverse obligations, career paths, and recruitment procedures (Alfonso 2016;Sanz-Menéndez and Cruz-Castro 2019). In Musselin's (2010) study, she found that the national context, including different formal and informal procedures, to some extent shapes the use of evaluative criteria. The American custom of inviting candidates to a visit, including lunch and dinner, provides greater opportunity for evaluating their personalities, and contrasts with the European approach of recruiters and candidates having more limited social encounters through more formal interviews. ...
Studies on academic recruitment processes have demonstrated that universities evaluate candidates for research positions using multiple criteria. However, most studies on preferences regarding evaluative criteria in recruitment processes focus on a single country, while cross-country studies are rare. Additionally, though studies have documented how fields evaluate candidates differently, those differences have not been deeply explored, thus creating a need for further inquiry. This paper aims to address this gap and investigates whether academics in two fields across five European countries prefer the same criteria to evaluate candidates for academic positions. The analysis is based on recent survey data drawn from academics in economics and physics in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the UK. Our results show that the academic fields have different evaluative cultures and that researchers from different fields prefer specific criteria when assessing candidates. We also found that these field-specific preferences were to some extent mediated through national frameworks such as funding systems.
... However, while the changing nature of academic identities have been studied in great detail, we still know little about how scholars actually 'work' on their identities to navigate normative demands and complex career structures. This is surprising, given that academia is characterized by a general lack of objective evaluative standards (Musselin 2010). In such 'status markets' (Aspers 2009), reputationand thus identitybecomes a key commodity. ...
... Early career academics constitute a group that has recently gained attention in higher education research and science studies. Due to the organization of academic labour markets as 'tournaments' (Musselin 2010), aspiring scholars face fierce competition and uncertain career prospects (Sigl 2016). In particular, the casualization and surveillance of academic work have reinforced their status as precarious knowledge workers (Gill 2014). ...
Due to the changing landscapes of higher education, a large body of research has studied how scholars make sense of academic identities and careers. Yet, little is known about how academics actually ‘work’ on their identities to navigate normative demands and complex career structures. This paper explores how scholars negotiate career scripts trough identity work. Drawing upon 35 interviews with early career academics in political science and history, the analysis discerns four patterns of identity talk through which academic identities are constructed: achievement talk (signalling achievement and competitiveness), authenticity talk (signalling genuineness and being true to self), loyalty talk (signalling loyalty and willingness of helping out), and personation talk (adjustment to privileged identities). Defining what to display and how to correctly embody its corresponding values, these patterns convey different ways in which scholars manage their identities according to the perceived rules of recognition. Identifying several contrasting understandings of what it means to act and to represent worth, the study shows that successful identity management requires a certain feel for the game of recognition. Involving the symbolic struggle of ‘fitting in’ and ‘standing out,’ strategies for identity work are shaped by scholars’ social class background and gender. In demonstrating how the prevalence of project-based work accentuates the importance of identity performances on academic markets, the findings suggest that the concept of identity labour may open up new avenues of investigation.
... Some authors underscore the fact that the changes observed in the functioning and management of universities are not simple adjustments but profound transformations defining other values and other practices (cf. Calhoun 2006;Amaral 2009;Musselin 2009). The norms and standards that academic institutions must adopt appear to have radically changed, and new images of excellence bear witness to the affirmation of a new academic ethos. ...
... The norms and standards that academic institutions must adopt appear to have radically changed, and new images of excellence bear witness to the affirmation of a new academic ethos. For Musselin (2009), this orientation corresponds to a paradigm shift. Scientific excellence is measured according to new devices for evaluating the quality of academic activities, based on quantitative criteria and objectified in performance indicators (cf. ...
... Langfeldt, 2001;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
This open access volume explores peer review in the scientific community and academia. While peer review is as old as modern science itself, recent changes in the evaluation culture of higher education systems have increased the use of peer review, and its purposes, forms and functions have become more diversified. This book put together a comprehensive set of conceptual and empirical contributions on various peer review practices with relevance for the scientific community and higher education institutions worldwide. Consisting of three parts, the editors and contributors examine the history, problems and developments of peer review, as well as the specificities of various peer review practices. In doing so, this book gives an overview on and examine peer review , and asks how it can move forward.
Eva Forsberg is Professor of Education at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research focuses education governance and evaluation, academic work and the interface between educational policy, practice and research.
Lars Geschwind is Professor in Engineering Education Policy and Management at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His main research interests are higher education policy, institutional governance, academic leadership and academic work.
Sara Levander is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Education at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests are higher education, academic work and faculty evaluation in academic recruitment and promotion.
Wieland Wermke is Associate Professor in Special Education at Stockholm University, Sweden. His research interest focuses on comparative education methodology, and teacher practice at different levels of education.
... Langfeldt, 2001;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
The recruitment of full professors is critical for the formation of academia. The professorship is critical not only for the prosperity of the HEIs, but especially so for the establishment, development and communication of the discipline. In this chapter, we analyze the initial step of the typecasting process in the recruitment of full professors. We use a few cases to illustrate how the intellectual and social organization of the field of education science(s) is manifested in publicly posted job advertisements. The analysis shows that the field is characterized by heterogeneity and no longer has a basis in one single discipline. New relations between research, teaching, and society can be observed, as well as a narrowing of authority of the professorship but an increase of responsibilities.
... Langfeldt, 2001;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
Many warnings are issued against the influence of evaluation machineries (such as bibliometric indicators) upon research practices. It is often argued that human judgment can function as a bulwark against constitutive effects of evaluation machineries. Using vignettes (small case narratives) related to the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI), this chapter shows that gatekeepers who “know the future” and use this “knowledge” in a preemptive or precautionary way play a key role in the construction of reality which comes out of the BRI. By showing that human judgment sometimes enhances or multiplies the effects of evaluation machineries, this chapter contributes to an understanding of mechanisms which lead to constitutive effects of evaluation systems in research.
... Langfeldt, 2001;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
Peer review is the most legitimate form of evaluation in academia, and a pillar of many decisions and processes in education, research, and other areas of life in higher education. Its legitimacy is based on the peer having relevant expertise to make judgements about the evaluand, and on its presumably external and disinterested character. However, in this chapter we identify what we call “peer advocacy”: when peer reviewers take on the role of promoter or advocate for the evaluand, or for any of the stakeholders involved. To explore this phenomenon, we analyse four cases in the context of Swedish higher education, based on documented studies and the authors’ own experiences. The cases are analysed to show how peer advocacy can be attributed not only to the peer reviewers themselves, but also to the evaluation model, conditions, and expectations. With a view to preserving the legitimacy and integrity of peer review, recommendations are made both to those who commission evaluations and to peer reviewers.
... Langfeldt, 2001;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
While research merits have long been the priority in the recognition of institutions and scholars, teaching is often downplayed, appearing as a practice of less worth in Academia. To counteract this tendency, various systems to upgrade the value of education and to promote teaching excellence have been introduced by higher education institutions on a global scale. In this chapter, we explore the values and beliefs unveiled in the promotion of academics in such a system. We employ empirical data collected from an inquiry into the promotion of distinguished university teachers at a comprehensive university in Sweden. An analysis of reviewers’ judgements and legitimations shows that the intersection between promotion, peer review, and excellent teaching affects not only the peer review process, but also the notion of the distinguished university teacher.
... Langfeldt, 2001;Lamont, 2009;Van Arensbergen et al., 2014) rather than on academic careers. Moreover, the literature on academic careers tends to focus on structural aspects such as differences between national career systems (Musselin, 2009) or systematic discrimination based on gender (Steinpreis et al., 1999), while actual evaluation procedures have attracted less attention. ...
... Examples of singularities are literary works or a medical doctor and when comparing and evaluating such 'goods' consumers often make use of so-called judgement devices. Judgement devices provide external support for making and legitimating decisions, and their use in academic recruitment was first suggested by Musselin (2009). Musselin's study pointed to a more general use of judgement devices, but for the more detailed and comparative approach taken here it is important to consider the different types of devices identified by Karpik: appellations, cicerones, confluences, networks and rankings. ...
The reputation of an academic is dependent on their recognition among a wider community of peers, which means that the research field, rather than the institution, is the venue where careers are valued. This chapter looks at discipline specific practices for evaluating publications oeuvres in three fields; biomedicine, economics and history. The material consists of reports, written by independent referees, commissioned by Swedish universities when hiring for new professors. The approach is to study how ‘value’ is enacted with special attention to the kind of tools—judgements, indicators and metrics—that are used. The chapter concludes by relating the findings to a broader context of how academics are assessed, and the implications that such practices may have for knowledge production and careers are discussed.
... A large number of studies across multiple countries show the existence of academic hiring networks operating within the larger framework of stratified higher education systems. Faculty 3 who studied in the most prestigious academic departments in their respective disciplinary fields are the ones who end up securing tenure-track positions at equally prestigious academic departments (for Chile, see Celis & Kim, 2018; for the USA, see Burris, 2004;Clauset, Arbesman, & Larremore, 2015;Hadani, Coombes, Das, & Jalajas, 2012;Headworth & Freese, 2016; for France, Germany, and the USA, see Musselin, 2009; for South Africa, see Cowan & Rossello, 2018). ...
... Whether academic departments prefer candidates with an "elite pedigree" because it indicates academic quality and/or because these candidates have connections to prestigious universities is a topic of discussion in the relevant literature (Burris, 2004;Hadani et al., 2012;Musselin, 2009;Posselt, 2018). Whatever the case may be, the practice of recruiting and selecting candidates based on the prestige of PhD-granting academic departments evolves into a social closure mechanism, which consciously or unconsciously excludes individuals who did not study at highly prestigious universities (Burris, 2004;Hadani et al., 2012). ...
In our rapidly globalising world, “the global scholar” is a key concept for reimagining the roles of academics at the nexus of the global and the local. This book critically explores the implications of the concept for understanding postgraduate studies and supervision. It uses three conceptual lenses – “horizon”, “currency” and “trajectory” – to organise the thirteen chapters, concluding with a reflection on the implications of Covid-19 for postgraduate studies and supervision. Authors bring their perspectives on the global scholar from a variety of contexts, including South Africa, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Germany, Cyprus, Kenya and Israel. They explore issues around policy, research and practice, sharing a concern with the relation between the local and the global, and a passion for advancing postgraduate studies and supervision.
... 14 Apart from the factors included in the model, respondents' institutional affiliation and their specific research fields may influence their emphases in the assessment of research. Institutional affiliation has proven to influence researcher's evaluation at least in recruitments (Musselin 2010) and there may be large differences within research fields regarding notions of research quality and use of metrics (Lamont 2009;Hylmö 2018). Due to low numbers of respondents per institution, and insufficient data on subfields, we have not been able to control for these factors. ...
... Despite our comparative point of departure, along with the inclusion of countries with different use of metrics in national research funding, we found only limited country-specific differences. The lack of country-related differences indicates that notions of research quality are more connected to general field differences than to national context (Lamont 2009;Musselin 2010). Still, even if our sample of three countries in the northern corner of Europe represents variety in research funding and research evaluation, a larger sample of more diverse countries might have exposed greater differences in the use of metrices in peer assessments. ...
Metrics on scientific publications and their citations are easily accessible and are often referred to in assessments of research and researchers. This paper addresses whether metrics are considered a legitimate and integral part of such assessments. Based on an extensive questionnaire survey in three countries, the opinions of researchers are analysed. We provide comparisons across academic fields (cardiology, economics, and physics) and contexts for assessing research (identi-fying the best research in their field, assessing grant proposals and assessing candidates for positions). A minority of the researchers responding to the survey reported that metrics were reasons for considering something to be the best research. Still, a large majority in all the studied fields indicated that metrics were important or partly important in their review of grant proposals and assessments of candidates for academic positions. In these contexts, the citation impact of the publications and, particularly, the number of publications were emphasized. These findings hold across all fields analysed, still the economists relied more on productivity measures than the cardiologists and the physicists. Moreover, reviewers with high scores on bibliometric indicators seemed more frequently (than other reviewers) to adhere to metrics in their assessments. Hence, when planning and using peer review, one should be aware that reviewers -- in particular reviewers who score high on metrics -- find metrics to be a good proxy for the future success of projects and candidates, and rely on metrics in their evaluation procedures despite the concerns in scientific communities on the use and misuse of publication metrics.
... Because scholars produce unique and incommensurable 'goods,' there is a general lack of objective evaluative standards. While this has been recognized in studies of how academic gatekeepers pass judgment on the works of others (Hammarfelt and Rushforth 2017;Lamont 2009;Musselin 2010), little is known about how scholars deal with the uncertainty about how their work and they themselves will be evaluated by gatekeepers. ...
... Similar to a film or a painting, a scientific article or an academic CV are defined by both incommensurability and quality uncertainty and may thus be understood as singularities (Karpik 2011). Accordingly, several studies have analyzed how judgment devices are used when making evaluative decisions in academic hiring processes (see e.g., Hammarfelt and Rushforth 2017;Hylmö 2018;Musselin 2010). ...
There is a lack of objective evaluative standards for academic work. While this has been recognized in studies of how gatekeepers pass judgment on the works of others, little is known about how scholars deal with the uncertainty about how their work will be evaluated by gatekeepers. Building upon 35 interviews with early career academics in political science and history, this paper explores how junior scholars use appraisal devices to navigate this kind of uncertainty. Appraisal devices offer trusted and knowledgeable appraisals through which scholars are informed whether their work and they themselves are good enough to succeed in academia. Investigating how early career academics rely upon appraisals from assessors (i.e., 'academic mentors'), the study adds to existing literature on uncertainty and worth in academic life by drawing attention to how scholars' anticipatory practices are informed by trusting the judgment of others. The empirical analysis demonstrates that early career academics are confronted with multiple and conflicting appraisals that they must interpret and differentiate between. However, the institutional conditions for dealing with uncertainty about what counts in future evaluations , as well as which individuals generally come to function as assessors, differ between political science and history. This has an impact on both valuation practices and socialization structures. Focusing on what I call practices of appraisal devices, the paper provides a conceptual understanding of how scholars cope with uncertainties about their future. Furthermore, it expands existing theory by demonstrating how scholars' self-concept and desired identities are key to the reflexive ways appraisal devices are used in the course of action.
... One of the main aims of the study was to ascertain what the barriers are that young scientists and scholars in Africa experience as far as their academic and scholarly careers are concerned. In terms of contextual factors, national career systems (Musselin 2002(Musselin , 2010Pezzoni et al. 2012) are particularly relevant for the careers of young scientists. In this regard, formal/legal aspects, such as short-term contracts, the organisation and execution of appointment processes for professorships, departmental strategies, and national academic labour markets, are identified as relevant factors that affect career development. ...
... In this regard, formal/legal aspects, such as short-term contracts, the organisation and execution of appointment processes for professorships, departmental strategies, and national academic labour markets, are identified as relevant factors that affect career development. Musselin (2002) points out that the definition of what constitutes a 'quality' or a 'good' candidate for a job in higher education -in terms of scientific activities, personality/collegiality of the candidate, and teaching abilities -can vary greatly from one department to another and evolve over time (Musselin 2010). Hence, the evolution of department recruitment rationales, the continuous assessment of performance and the development of relevant promotion criteria are also important factors to consider and must therefore be taken into account in higher education research (Barrett & Barrett 2008;Farnham 2009 In recent years, non-structural, subjective factors such as normative orientations, career expectations and alternative career options for PhD holders in other employment sectors have received increased research attention. ...
Young scientists are a powerful resource for change and sustainable development, as they drive innovation and knowledge creation. However, comparable findings on young scientists in various countries, especially in Africa and developing regions, are generally sparse. Therefore, empirical knowledge on the state of early-career scientists is critical in order to address current challenges faced by those scientists in Africa.
This book reports on the main findings of a three-and-a-half-year international project in order to assist its readers in better understanding the African research system in general, and more specifically its young scientists. The first part of the book provides background on the state of science in Africa, and bibliometric findings concerning Africa's scientific production and networks, for the period 2005 to 2015. The second part of the book combines the findings of a large-scale, quantitative survey and more than 200 qualitative interviews to provide a detailed profile of young scientists and the barriers they face in terms of five aspects of their careers: research output; funding; mobility; collaboration; and mentoring. In each case, field and gender differences are also taken into account. The last part of the book comprises conclusions and recommendations to relevant policy- and decision-makers on desirable changes to current research systems in Africa.
... Traditionally, recruitment processes were conducted by tenured academics qualitatively assessing the candidates' works (Fürst 1988;Musselin 2010). However, recent studies have suggested that metrics are increasingly applied in these candidate evaluations. ...
... Moreover, they are relatively free from recollection bias as they are written at the time of the evaluations and, thus, used in studies of academic recruitments (Hammarfelt and Rushforth 2017; Hylmö 2018). However, these documents do not openly account for the recruiters' strategic behavior (Musselin 2010), inbreeding effects (Altbach et al. 2015;Tavares et al. 2019), or gender bias (Van den Brink and Benschop 2011). Nor do they show unreported quantitative or qualitative research evaluations. ...
This paper investigates the use of metrics to recruit professors for academic positions. We analyzed confidential reports with candidate evaluations in economics, sociology, physics, and informatics at the University of Oslo between 2000 and 2017. These unique data enabled us to explore how metrics were applied in these evaluations in relation to other assessment criteria. Despite being important evaluation criteria, metrics were seldom the most salient criteria in candidate evaluations. Moreover, metrics were applied chiefly as a screening tool to decrease the number of eligible candidates and not as a replacement for peer review. Contrary to the literature suggesting an escalation of metrics, we foremost detected stable assessment practices with only a modestly increased reliance on metrics. In addition, the use of metrics proved strongly dependent on disciplines where the disciplines applied metrics corresponding to their evaluation cultures. These robust evaluation practices provide an empirical example of how core university processes are chiefly characterized by path-dependency mechanisms, and only moderately by isomorphism. Additionally, the disciplinary-dependent spread of metrics offers a theoretical illustration of how travelling standards such as metrics are not only diffused but rather translated to fit the local context, resulting in heterogeneity and context-dependent spread.
... A large number of studies across multiple countries show the existence of academic hiring networks operating within the larger framework of stratified higher education systems. Faculty 3 who studied in the most prestigious academic departments in their respective disciplinary fields are the ones who end up securing tenure-track positions at equally prestigious academic departments (for Chile, see Celis & Kim, 2018; for the USA, see Burris, 2004;Clauset, Arbesman, & Larremore, 2015;Hadani, Coombes, Das, & Jalajas, 2012;Headworth & Freese, 2016; for France, Germany, and the USA, see Musselin, 2009; for South Africa, see Cowan & Rossello, 2018). ...
... Whether academic departments prefer candidates with an "elite pedigree" because it indicates academic quality and/or because these candidates have connections to prestigious universities is a topic of discussion in the relevant literature (Burris, 2004;Hadani et al., 2012;Musselin, 2009;Posselt, 2018). Whatever the case may be, the practice of recruiting and selecting candidates based on the prestige of PhD-granting academic departments evolves into a social closure mechanism, which consciously or unconsciously excludes individuals who did not study at highly prestigious universities (Burris, 2004;Hadani et al., 2012). ...
Este artículo utilizó una metodología cualitativa de caso para analizar el rol que cumple la clase social de origen y las redes académicas en la obtención de posiciones académicas. El grupo de estudio incluyó 10 personas con doctorados en Ingeniería y que estaban en las etapas iniciales de su carrera académica. Los hallazgos de la investigación muestran que la clase social de origen de los académicos influye indirectamente en la configuración de sus redes dada la estrecha relación entre la clase social de origen y la posibilidad de asistir a universidades de investigación intensiva durante el pregrado. Posteriormente, las redes desarrolladas durante la formación de pregrado y la clase social de origen inciden en la decisión de estudiar un doctorado en universidades extranjeras con alto prestigio. Los hallazgos muestran que solo los candidatos de la clase social alta que recibieron su doctorado de universidades extranjeras de gran prestigio fueron capaces de obtener puestos en las universidades chilenas de mayor prestigio. En general, los hallazgos muestran que las redes académicas con profesores que conocen los procesos de contratación son cruciales al momento de buscar trabajos académicos en el sistema de Educación Superior chileno.
... The sociological fabric of academic careers has been investigated in an edited volume by Burton Clark (1987) through country cases in US and Europe as well as through cases related to disciplines and types of professional higher education. Musselin (2010) provides an analysis of academic careers in France, Germany and the US in the disciplines of History and Mathematics, highlighting how the articulation of supply and in academic labour markets on the basis of ideas of quality, of autonomy of higher education institutions and of institutional settings (e.g. recruitment committees). ...
... Today, Merton's observation seems as valid as ever: evaluations are, if anything, quasi-ubiquitous in contemporary academia. Scientists evaluate and are evaluated on a recurrent basis to make decisions about grants (Lamont 2009), conferences (Brezis and Birukou 2020), publications (Langfeldt and Kyvik 2011), and employments (Musselin 2009). Presently, there appears to be an innate supply of and demand for evaluations in the academic sector. ...
More than resource allocations, evaluations of funding applications have become central instances for status bestowal in academia. Much attention in past literature has been devoted to grasping the status consequences of prominent funding evaluations. But little attention has been paid to understanding how the status-bestowing momentum of such evaluations is constructed. Throughout this paper, our aim is to develop new knowledge on the role of applicants in constructing certain funding evaluations as events with crucial importance for status bestowal. Using empirical material from retrospective interviews with Sweden-based early-career scientists who, successfully or unsuccessfully, applied for European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants, our findings show how these scientists interlinked experiences from various practices to construct the ERC’s evaluations, in general, and the final-stage appointments at Brussels’ Madou Plaza Tower, in particular, as apex-esque, crescendo-like status-bestowing events. We discuss our findings as instructional, preparatory, and demarcative practices that, by extension, distribute responsibility for the construction and reinforcement of high-stakes, career-defining evaluations through which considerable stress and anxiety is generated in academia.
... For those who stayed in the country, the national inquiry to the working conditions of PhD holders also reveals that there was an increase in the precariousness of working conditions (DGEEC, 2017). Although relevant differences among disciplinary areas exist, it seems that the trends of having a degradation in working conditions, terms of appointment, and remuneration as verified in other countries (Altbach, 2000;Musselin, 2009;Carvalho, 2018;Carvalho & Diogo, 2018b) also exist in Portugal. ...
This chapter argues for the importance of a comparative perspective on the academic profession, as higher education globally assumes an increasingly central role in the knowledge society and economy. We begin with an overview of the surge in empirical research on the academic profession over the past three decades and culminate with an introduction to the APIKS project: the Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society. The project, involving research teams from 22 countries across 5 continents, designed and executed surveys of the academic profession in 2019–2020, including their role, working conditions, career trajectories and prospects, and the changing pressures and expectations for contributing to economic growth and social betterment through research, teaching, and external activities. Sampling and survey processes, including planning and design and datafile management, are described. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges of conducting a large-scale comparative survey and considers the project’s likely future directions.
... For those who stayed in the country, the national inquiry to the working conditions of PhD holders also reveals that there was an increase in the precariousness of working conditions (DGEEC, 2017). Although relevant differences among disciplinary areas exist, it seems that the trends of having a degradation in working conditions, terms of appointment, and remuneration as verified in other countries (Altbach, 2000;Musselin, 2009;Carvalho, 2018;Carvalho & Diogo, 2018b) also exist in Portugal. ...
Within the knowledge society framework, higher education has become a driving factor for democratizing and rising equality in societies and consequently stimulating economic development (Panitsidou et al., Procedia Soc & Behav Sci, 46: 548–553, 2012). In Portugal, as elsewhere, higher education institutions (HEI) were expected to play a key role within the changing dynamics in the orientation of knowledge production and dissemination. Research and the national scientific system are closely connected to the higher education system, with knowledge production being mostly concentrated in universities, especially in public ones. In this context, HEIs are considered as a privileged locus of change framed by the knowledge society providing the new epistemological, ontological, and methodological logics as well as legitimacy for a new “political economy” of knowledge. However, this chapter has a double purpose. On the one hand, it intends to present an overview of the Portuguese higher education system and its relation to the research and innovation system. On the other hand, the paper seeks to analyze the contemporary conceptions of the “knowledge-based society” in the Portuguese state policies and HEI narratives, as well as the expected role assigned to academics in the new knowledge production, dissemination, and transfer systems.
... Since the early 1990s, we have witnessed a spread of New Public Management-inspired governmental policies aimed at increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of universities in European countries (de Boer, Enders, Schimank, 2007) and worldwide. These reforms entail a shift from the "collegium" to the "enterprise" model of higher education (Deem, Hillyard, Reed, 2007;Enders, de Weert, 2009;Musselin, 2009), and are therefore widely regarded as a threat to the principle of academic freedom. NPM-inspired reforms have led to significant changes in academic work conditions through the rising numbers of temporary contracts, the introduction of performance reviews as well as the stronger division of labor into different tasks related to academic work -teaching, research, and administration (Leišytė, Dee, 2012). ...
In this paper we focus on the development and academics’ perceptions of managerialism in Lithuanian higher education (HE). We systematically investigate historical changes in HE governance and policies in Lithuania and conduct an analysis of data collected through the APIKS Lithuania project survey of academics at Lithuanian public universities (N=389). We find that Lithuanian HE policies shifted to a rather market-oriented paradigm. The survey results reveal that the majority of respondents perceive their university as highly managerial, which points out to high managerialism in practice in line with the policies. Based on our key findings, we discuss theoretical and practical implications.
... К взаимодействиям в академическом мире все это относится даже в большей степени, чем к другим контекстам. Здесь все мы постоянно оцениваем потенциал и статус других на основании частичной и несовершенной информации -и сами становимся предметом подобной оценки (Соколов и др., 2015;Van Dalen, Henkens, 2005;Lamont, 2009;Musselin, 2009). Учебные заведения и фонды оценивают кандидатов по их резюме, университеты или исследовательские институты дают оценку претендентам на позиции на основании пробных выступлений и рекомендаций коллег, а чиновники определяют продуктивность работы самих этих организаций, основываясь на формальных наукометрических показателях (Aksnes et al., 2019;Van Dalen, Henkens, 2005;Espeland, Stevens, 2008). ...
The article presents the results of a study of signals conveying positive or negative messages about social scientists. We surveyed sociologists actively publishing in the Russian language (N = 810). Subjects were asked to respond to a hypothetical situation in which they were to assess CVs of a fictional applicant for a grant competition. Attributes of scholars comprising a standard academic biography differed markedly both in their salience and in the degree of consensus about their importance. A book written single-handedly was the most unanimously recognized symbol of academic merit among Russian sociologists. The least agreement was about the signals related to the presence at the international intellectual scene (teaching in a “well-known European university”, publishing in international periodicals) and to the participation in dissertation production (supervising or serving as a reviewer of many dissertations). Importance of these groups of signals depends on the overall orientation to the local or global audience and age. There were much more consensus about the attributes in different ways discrediting scientists, such as plagiarizing or multiple publications.
... Sofern diese Wechselverhältnisse weiter verzweigt sind oder nur auf der Mikrooder Makroebene sichtbar werden, bleiben sie für die organisationssoziologische Wissenschaftsforschung daher eine Randerscheinung . Machtfragen werden in den funktionalistischen Strömungen der Hochschulforschung weitgehend ausgeblendet oder sind auf konkrete Entscheidungsprozesse begrenzt (Musselin 2009), während der soziologische Neoinstitutionalismus für Machtphänomene nur unzureichend sensibilisiert scheint (Hasse und Krücken 2005 Macht-, diskurs-und feldanalytischen Herangehensweisen verbinden sich nicht nur mit den Namen Bourdieus und Foucaults, sie verweisen auch auf ein komplexes Feld weiterer Diskussionsstränge, an die dieser Band ebenfalls anschließt . So wurden etwa in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Überlegungen zu Methoden und Methodologien der Diskursanalyse (etwa Angermuller et al . ...
... No México, o SNI é a outra face da moeda no que se refere a pagamentos e salários, um mecanismo de orientação intelectual do ofício científico que complementa as ambições e opções que a ciência oferece no país, suas universidades e atores; como assinala Musselin (2010), em diversas dinâmicas atuais os investigadores participam de um mercado que ultrapassa os âmbitos de suas universidades. ...
... (Granovetter 1995(Granovetter [1974). Few studies, however, are concerned with the academic labor market (Musselin 2010). According to this specialized literature, the recruitment process is influenced by so-called "academic gatekeepers" (Simon & Fyfe 1994) -a concept that refers to the "role-set" of scientists (Merton 1957). ...
Zusammenfassung
Der Artikel analysiert akademisches Gate-Keeping anhand von 1460 Empfehlungsschreiben des einflussreichen amerikanischen Soziologen Robert K. Merton (RKM). Teils auf Ansuchen von Berufungskommissionen und zumeist mit augeprägtem Enthusiasmus gab RKM sein Urteil über das Talent sowie die stellenspezifische Eignung von 560 Bewerbern/Bewerberinnen ab, um in der Regel den Weg für eine akademische Karriere zu ebnen. In den stilistisch virtuos verfassten Schreiben geht RKM vor allem auf akademische Fähigkeiten ein, kommentiert aber auch Persönlichkeitszüge. Die hohe „Erfolgsquote“ seiner Empfehlungen ist wahrscheinlich auch auf die überzeugende Rhetorik RKMs sowie seine gute Kenntnis der Bewerber/Bewerberinnen zurückzuführen. Systematische Lebenslaufrecherchen zeigen u. a., dass im Falle von Promotionen zur vollen Professur etwa 87 Prozent und bei externen Kandidaten für ausgeschriebene Professuren etwa 43 Prozent die angestrebte akademische Position erhielten.
... A different story of 'getting locked out' emerged from the accounts of academics from Continental Europe countries such as Germany, Italy, France and Spain. Academia in these countries is characterised by insularity, lack of career flexibility, and strong hierarchies (Musselin 2004(Musselin , 2009). Consequently, academics whose careers did not fit the standard path of that country, for instance because they had moved into industry or because there were no jobs available in the university where they completed their doctoral degree, found themselves unable to access an academic career there. ...
Current understanding of international academic mobility tends to view migrant academics as career-oriented actors who can follow opportunities across borders with relative ease. This paper offers a more nuanced reading of international mobility in academia by analysing how the professional context influences migrant academics’ decisions to come to and remain in the United Kingdom (UK). Drawing on data from 62 semi-structured interviews with foreign-born academics employed in the UK, the paper argues that the availability of (relatively) good-quality employment shapes international academic mobility more than country preferences. However, academics may become ‘stuck’ in the country of residence even when employment conditions deteriorate, not only because they are gradually tracked into country’s higher education system and culture but also because they lose the credentials, work experience and networks that may be needed to make another international move. This paper therefore shows that ‘stickiness’ in international mobility involves not only being ‘locked into’ a country but also being ‘locked out’ of another, and in so doing contributes to knowledge about the ways in which migrant academics become stuck whilst working abroad.
... But is the competition induced by rankings market competition? Sociologist Christine Musselin, a leading specialist in the study of higher education in comparative perspective (Musselin 2004(Musselin , 2009, argues that although we can talk, for ex ample, about a professional labor market in the field of higher education, we should be cautious about the metaphor. "[I]t is only in some countries that we can speak of a market for professors or students" (Musselin 2010: 78). ...
What’s valuable? Market competition provides one kind of answer. But competitions offer another. On one side, competition is an ongoing and seemingly endless process of pricings; on the other, competitions are discrete and bounded in time and location, with entry rules, judges, scores, and prizings. This book examines what happens when ever more activities in many domains of everyday life are evaluated and experienced in terms of performance metrics. The ratings and rankings of such systems do not have prices but are more like the prizes of competitions. Yet unlike organized competitions, they are ceaseless and without formal entry. Instead of producing resolutions, their scorings create addictions. In the performance society, networks of observation – in which all are performing and all keeping score – are entangled with a system of emotionally charged preoccupations with one’s positioning within the rankings. From the bedroom to the boardroom, pharmaceutical companies and management consultants promise enhanced performance. We refer to this assemblage of metrics, networks, and their attendant emotional pathologies as the performance complex.
... Again, it should be stressed that the differences between competition and market in higher education are mainly of an analytical, not empirical nature. Musselin (2010), for example, offers a very insightful analysis of academic labour markets in France, Germany and the United States, where the competition for reputation, in particular research reputation, is of paramount importance in structuring these markets. In a similar vein, it can be assumed that the competition for students contains market elements since supply and demand have to be coordinated. ...
Currently, one can observe a strong increase in competition in very different areas in higher education. Individual and collective actors compete, for example, for scarce material and symbolic resources like research grants, high-quality publications, ranking positions, attention from external stakeholders or societal impact. As a consequence, universities as organisations and academics as individual actors are simultaneously embedded in different, nested, and interdependent competitions, i.e. multiple competitions. But what are multiple competitions, where do they come from and what consequences result? Multiple competitions are not simply ‘out there’, but are rather the socially constructed product that results from the dynamics and interactions of different social systems. In the paper, a conceptual framework is developed, focusing on the interrelated dynamics of the science system, the state and the university. Of particular importance is the overall trend of metricisation, which affects these systems and their interrelated dynamics. At the end of the paper, the implications of multiple competitions for creativity and innovation in science and higher education are critically discussed. Here, important questions for the further study of multiple competitions are addressed.
... Sofern diese Wechselverhältnisse weiter verzweigt sind oder nur auf der Mikrooder Makroebene sichtbar werden, bleiben sie für die organisationssoziologische Wissenschaftsforschung daher eine Randerscheinung. Machtfragen werden in den funktionalistischen Strömungen der Hochschulforschung weitgehend ausgeblendet oder sind auf konkrete Entscheidungsprozesse begrenzt (Musselin 2009), während der soziologische Neoinstitutionalismus für Machtphänomene nur unzureichend sensibilisiert scheint (Hasse und Krücken 2005 Macht-, diskurs-und feldanalytischen Herangehensweisen verbinden sich nicht nur mit den Namen Bourdieus und Foucaults, sie verweisen auch auf ein komplexes Feld weiterer Diskussionsstränge, an die dieser Band ebenfalls anschließt. So wurden etwa in den letzten Jahren zahlreiche Überlegungen zu Methoden und Methodologien der Diskursanalyse (etwa Angermuller et al. 2014) und Feldanalyse (Bernhard und Schmidt-Wellenburg 2012) geführt, von denen die Debatten gerade in der deutschsprachigen Hochschulforschung und Wissenschaftssoziologie augenfällig unberührt blieben (siehe paradigmatisch die entsprechenden Beiträge in Maasen et al. 2012;Simon et al. 2010;weiterhin Matthies et al. 2015;Kreckel 2008;Kehm und Stensaker 2009;Krücken et al. 2006; vgl. ...
Hamann J and Maeße J (2019) Einleitung. Diskurs, Feld, Subjektivierung. Empirische und theoretische Fragen. Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung 2019(1): 4-10.
... To understand career gatekeeping in German academia, it is important to be aware of some distinct features of the German academic labor market (see Musselin 2010). While the job market for professors is federal, professors' salary is paid by one of the 16 states [Länder] and state ministries are directly involved in appointments. ...
Preprints here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/9pu8d This paper presents a comparative analysis of career gatekeeping processes in two cultural fields. Drawing on data on appointment procedures in German academia and booking processes in North American stand-up comedy, we compare how gatekeepers in two widely different contexts evaluate and select candidates for established positions in their respective field and validate their decisions. Focusing on three types of gatekeeping practices that have been documented in prior research—typecasting, comparison, and legitimization—our analysis reveals major differences in how gatekeepers perform these practices across our two cases: (1) typecasting based on ascriptive categories versus professional criteria, (2) comparisons that are ad-hoc and holistic versus systematic and guided by performance criteria, and (3) legitimation by means of ritualization versus transparency. We argue that these differences are related to the social and organizational context in which gatekeepers make selection decisions, including differences in the structure of academic and creative careers and the organization of the respective labor markets in which these careers unfold. These findings contribute to scholarship on gatekeeping in cultural fields by providing comparative insights into the work of career gatekeepers and the social organization of career gatekeeping processes.
Insecurity and intense competition for permanent academic positions appear to be common experiences for early career researchers across the globe. With academic precarity now firmly on the international research and policy agenda, this article looks comparatively at postdoc precarity in three European countries: Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. It suggests that the career prospects and status of these early career stage researchers depend to a large extent on societal variations in academic career structures and research funding models. The article underlines the implications of an increasingly competitive academic labour market on postdoc precarity and identifies both common and specific (national and/or disciplinary) challenges facing postdocs in these different contexts.
Social class of origin is apparently an imperceptible attribute among doctorate holders seeking academic jobs. Yet, recent studies in different countries reveal that social class of origin may still be influencing the chances of PhD holders from low social class being hired at prestigious universities. Drawing from the theory of social and cultural reproduction, normative ‘fair’ academic hirings frameworks, and qualitative evidence collected in Chile, this research identifies the mechanisms that trigger (un)conscious social class bias in the stages of recruitment and selection of candidates in seven academic departments in economics and industrial engineering (46 interviews). Findings did not prove explicit classism manifestations, but practices of inclusion/exclusion of candidates based on the prestige of PhD-granting universities, and networks. These reproduce the relationship between social class and unequal chances of being connected to prestigious universities. Recommendations to address (un)conscious social class bias in academic hiring are discussed.
Research on the creative process has focused on how an idea develops within a single focal creative project. But creators often work to develop creative portfolios featuring multiple projects that overlap and intertwine over time. Through an inductive qualitative study of creative workers in independent theater and in architecture, we explore how creators manage ideas across multiple projects when developing creative portfolios. Our emergent model shows how creators shift ideas across projects by stockpiling ideas from one creative project, transforming them into resources, and mobilizing them in their portfolios. Our analysis reveals that these practices unfold in distinct ways across two different processes for managing ideas: managing ideas strategically to build portfolios by realizing stockpiled ideas in new creative products across different opportunities, and managing ideas symbolically to balance creative outputs with new meanings constructed from unrealized ideas that represent the creator’s identity and journey. Our findings reveal the critical role of stockpiling in creative work, showing how different ways of stockpiling transform ideas into resources for developing a portfolio. Our portfolio perspective on the creative process informs our understanding of creative portfolios as they develop and evolve as well as the dynamics of creative processes as they unfold across different projects.
Traditionally, professorial recruitment has been controlled by scholars themselves selecting the best qualified candidates as new member of the academic community according to scientific criteria. Recent studies have, however, documented that recruitment has become increasingly influenced by managers and HR personnel who approach professorial recruitment as a strategic opportunity to satisfy organizational needs following a strategic organizational logic. Thus, today professorial recruitment is shaped by both an academic and an organisational logic. However, the complex interplay between these logics and how this complexity is handled remains unclear. Drawing on interviews and semi-confidential reports from professorial recruitment processes at Norwegian universities, we show that recruitment is a sequential decision-making process and that different logics dominate different phases of the process. Sequential decision-making eases tension, meaning that multiple logics can operate harmoniously if appropriately separated. However, we also document that the sequential problem-solving has altered the power balance between the logics, leading to a moderately increased reliance on organisational logic.
This study aims to determine the relationship between faculty members’ perceptions of their academic titles and job stress, and the variables affecting their perceptions. Designed as a survey, the quantitative method was used in the study. The research sample consisted of faculty members working at ten public universities. The data were collected via two scales named “Scale of Academic Title Perception” and “Scale of Academics’ Job Stress”. The obtained data were analyzed by frequency and percentage values, t-test, ANOVA, correlation and regression analysis. A significant difference was found in terms of faculty members’ titles and subject areas and perceptions of the faculty members were differentiated by components of the Scale of Academic Title Perception. Likewise, there was a significant difference between faculty members’ perceptions regarding their job stress levels and their academic titles, seniorities and genders. Moreover, there was a significant negative correlation between the academic title perceptions of the faculty members and their levels of job stress. The results indicate that the faculty members’ perceptions of academic titles and the components of the titles are a significant predictor of the level of job stress and there is a significant negative correlation between them. Some suggestions are made to take measures that will positively affect the academic title perceptions of faculty members and reduce their job stress.
This article explores how organizational mobility and foreign nationality affect a researcher’s chances of an internal career promotion in university systems that do not have rules preventing inbreeding and where teaching occurs mostly not in English but a local language. As a case study, we have examined the Flemish university system, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, and developed expectations on the chances of promotion for mobile and foreign researchers compared to non-mobile and nationals. We use data for all postdoctoral and professorial staff between 1991 and 2017, for a total of 14,135 scientists. We calculated the chances of promotion with a competing risk model to take time into account and to disentangle the probability of two mutually exclusive risk events: promotion and leaving the university. The results show that international mobility and foreign nationality reduced the chances of promotion in the same university, and that mobile and foreign scientists were also more likely to leave any given university. These effects were particularly strong at an early stage: in the study period, 21.9% of non-mobile national postdocs became professor compared to just 1.2% of internationally mobile foreigners. These results would suggest that internationally mobile and foreign scientists struggle to advance in universities that lack rules preventing inbreeding and with little opportunity to teach in English.
The extent to which collegiality conflicts or merges with managerial ideas and practices has recently given rise to a lively scholarly debate: have universities surrendered to managerialization or, on the contrary, do they continue to exhibit collegial traits? Part of this debate arises from the lack of a clear definition of “collegiality” in prior studies, where it is either reified or viewed through a limited number of different and possibly loosely coupled dimensions. We therefore deconstruct the collegial model and its structural and behavioral aspects, i.e., professional autonomy, organizational citizenship, faculty participation in decision-making, and academic units’ decision-making power. We examine the links between these dimensions of collegiality and performance metrics applied to research activities and outputs (PRM), because they are concrete artifacts of managerial practices seen as particularly deleterious to collegiality. We address this issue by undertaking a quantitative study of all French public universities (1,334 questionnaires analyzed). Our study draws two important conclusions. Firstly, it finds a mix of both conflict and hybridity depending on the dimension considered: the use of PRM is negatively linked with professional autonomy but compatible with organizational citizenship and faculty participation in decision-making. Secondly, we find that academic units’ reputation strengthens the positive link between PRM and faculty participation, but on the other hand, mitigates the increase of organizational citizenship and academic units’ decision-making power. In sum, we suggest that faculty participation in decision-making is the only aspect of collegiality that resists the advance of managerial logics in universities.
Our contribution aims kick off a nuanced debate about theories and theorising in higher education research. Drawing on sociological literature that reflects on theories and theorising, we introduce the notion of ‘theory work.’ Theory work emphasises that theories are practical tools that can be used for a variety of purposes. To make different forms of engagement with theories visible, we develop in a first step three conceptual lenses that facilitate a nuanced observation of different forms of engagement with theories in higher education research: the lenses focus on (1) ranges of theories, (2) ways of engaging with theories, and (3) degrees of epistemic autonomy of theory work. In a second step, we operationalise these lenses for two thematic fields: we discuss theory work in research concerned with organisation and governance, and theory work in research on academic careers. Our contribution shows that there are both differences and similarities in theory work across thematic fields with in higher education research. Across these differences and similarities our conceptual lenses reveal a variety of forms of theories and theory work in higher education research. We conclude by discussing several benefits a conceptual toolkit on theory work can have for higher education research more generally.
en This paper illuminates how three distinct but complementary concepts can be used to explain the prevalence of inbreeding in some contexts and the absence or limited frequency of inbreeding in others. The concepts of internal and external labour markets can be useful in understanding the academic labour market conditions that may support or discourage inbreeding. The concepts of vertical fragmentation of the academic labour within universities and the vertical stratification of institutions within systems can be helpful in understanding why inbreeding may be more prevalent for some categories of academic labour, located within specific institutional contexts, than others. Finally, the concepts of social and cultural capital can be useful in understanding inbreeding in terms of academic hiring decision processes.
Résumé
fr Cet article examine comment trois concepts distincts mais complémentaires peuvent contribuer à expliquer la prédominance de l’endorecrutement (inbreeding) dans certains contextes, et l’absence ou la fréquence limitée d’endorecrutement dans d’autres contextes. Les concepts de marchés du travail interne et externe sont utiles pour comprendre les conditions du marché du travail universitaire pouvant favoriser ou restreindre l’endorecrutement. Les concepts de fragmentation verticale du travail universitaire et de stratification verticale des établissements au sein des systèmes permettent de comprendre pourquoi l’endorecrutement est plus répandu pour certaines catégories de personnel universitaire, situées dans des contextes institutionnels particuliers. Enfin, les concepts de capital social et culturel sont utiles pour comprendre l’endorecrutement du point de vue des processus de décisions d’embauche en contexte universitaire.
Honesty is widely understood as an ethical imperative in science and scholarship. This article examines the operation of this ethic in an area crucial to academe but which has not received sufficient attention: faculty review of candidates seeking appointment to academic rank—in hiring and promotion—in U.S. higher education organizations. Confidentiality is a professional norm indicative of these faculty assessments. By turn, academic freedom is exercised by speaking without fear of retribution, but it is handicapped to the extent that breaches of confidentiality—an instance of professional deviance—cause a group to censor speech. The article investigates the conditions under which honesty is undermined and confidentiality transgressed in review proceedings. In addition, three social-institutional forces are theorized to account for lack of honesty in this central practice of academic life. A situation wherein honesty is systemically inhibited renders the legitimacy of academic organizations in question. The argument articulates a path of reform by spelling-out appointment criteria, professional ethics, and the means of their enforcement to maximize requisite behavior.
We apply event history analysis to analyze career and publication data of virtually all political scientists in German university departments, showing that each published refereed journal article increases a political scientist's chance for tenure by 9 percent, while other publications affect the odds for tenure only marginally and in some cases even negatively. Each received award and third party funding increases the odds for tenure by respectively 41 and 26 percent, while international experience, social capital and children hardly have a strong influence. Surprisingly, having degrees from a German university of excellence strongly decreases the odds for tenure. Women with similar credentials have at least 20 percent higher odds to get tenure than men. Our data therefore suggests that the lower factual hiring rates of women are better explained by a leaky pipeline, e.g. women leaving academia, rather than because women are not hired even when they are as productive as men. The article contributes to a better understanding of the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in achieving highly competitive job positions.
en Studies on academic inbreeding have mostly focused on institutional inbreeding and its negative effects, whereas little research has explored its causes. We identify current explanations of the macro‐, meso‐ and micro‐level factors that sustain academic inbreeding as well as research gaps. We address a main research gap regarding what macro‐level factors contribute to academic inbreeding, by analysing systems’ norms and rules regulating access to senior academic positions and teaching language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the largest public university systems of the European Union. The analysis reveals that career rules designed to guarantee quality may have unintended effects in terms of academic inbreeding. Most importantly, the habilitation procedures pose greater challenges to international candidates and often increase barriers between disciplines as well. In some disciplines and regions, language requirements contribute substantially to academic inbreeding.
Sammendrag
de Studier av akademisk innavl har hovedsakelig fokusert på institusjonell innavl og dens negative effekter, mens lite forskning har utforsket årsakene. Vi identifiserer nåværende forklaringer på makro‐, meso‐ og mikronivåfaktorer som opprettholder akademisk innavl, så vel som forskningshull. Vi tar for oss et hovedforskningsgap med hensyn til hvilke makronivåfaktorer som bidrar til akademisk innavl, ved å analysere systemets normer og regler som regulerer tilgang til senior akademiske stillinger og undervisningsspråk i Frankrike, Tyskland, Italia og Spania, det største offentlige universitetssystemet i det europeiske Union. Analysen avslører at karriereregler designet for å garantere kvalitet kan ha utilsiktede effekter når det gjelder akademisk innavl. Viktigst, habiliteringsprosedyrene gir større utfordringer for internasjonale kandidater og øker ofte også barrierer mellom fagfelt. I noen disipliner og regioner bidrar språkkrav vesentlig til akademisk innavl.
We apply event history analysis to analyze career and publication data of virtually all political scientists in German university departments, showing that each published refereed journal article increases a political scientist’s chance for tenure by 9 percent, while other publications affect the odds for tenure only marginally and in some cases even negatively. Each received award and third party funding increases the odds for tenure by respectively 41 and 26 percent, while international experience, social capital and children hardly have a strong influence. Surprisingly, having degrees from a German university of excellence strongly decreases the odds for tenure. Women with similar credentials have at least 20 percent higher odds to get tenure than men. Our data therefore suggests that the lower factual hiring rates of women are better explained by a leaky pipeline, e.g. women leaving academia, rather than because women are not hired even when they are as productive as men. The article contributes to a better understanding of the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in achieving highly competitive job positions.
This doctoral dissertation describes how the relationship between the academic profession and universities has changed, and how the global trends, particularly New Public Management (NPM), managerialism and academic capitalism, as well as other societal expectations have influenced it in Finnish higher education. Prior studies show that these global trends have had various effects on academic profession. Additionally, they have driven universities to develop as an organisation. NPM and managerialism emphasise hierarchical management structures, control, performance evaluations, and efficiency, which are commonly incompatible with professional values and practices; collegial decision-making, autonomy and trust. Higher education institutions are also expected to have more relevance in their activities. In addition, academics have started to apply entrepreneurial and commercial ways of acting in their work. The data of this study were collected in Finnish universities, and in two projects that include two sets of survey data (from fixed-term academics and middle managers) and one set of interview data (from top and middle managers). Three empirical sub-studies incorporated in this research include perspectives from reciprocal commitment in academic careers, recruitments in universities, and change and continuity in the academic profession. The results suggest that the relationship between the academic profession and universities is often tense. The academic profession is a powerful professional group that protects its traditional practices, values and autonomy. Universities have faced external pressure to develop as an organisation, and started to control their staff and monitor their performance more strictly. This has questioned the reciprocity between academics and universities by academics, standardised the university structures and processes, and emphasised the power of middle-managers in universities. The short project-based funding has also made academic careers more insecure. This study also suggests that in the new institutional frameworks, academics have adapted new roles and identities, as they have been affected by new organisational and societal expectations. New type of connected academic professionalism is emerging as professional, organisational, and societal/entrepreneurial roles, and identities are being blended in academic work
This article examines the academic job market for Canadian sociology through its PhD exchange network. Using an original data set of employed faculty members in 2015 (N = 1,157), I map the hiring relationships between institutions and analyze the observed network structure. My findings show that institutional prestige is a likely organizing force within this network, reflective of a disproportionate number of faculty coming from a few centralized high-status institutions, as well as predominantly downward flows in hiring patterns. However, further investigation is needed to understand the role of prestige in Canadian higher education, which has been previously characterized as having a flat social structure. This requires attention toward the interrelationships between institutional prestige, scholarly competence, and department size situated within a segmented academic field in Canada. Overall, this study aims to encourage collective self-reflection and motivate discourse about status-based inequalities in our own discipline.
© 2019 Canadian Sociological Association/La Société canadienne de sociologie.
In this article, we study the use of curricula vitae (CV) for competitive funding decisions in science. The typically sober administrative style of academic résumés evokes the impression of straightforwardly conveyed, objective evidence on which to base comparisons of past achievements and future potentials. We instead conceptualize the evaluation of biographical evidence as a generative interplay between an historically grown, administrative infrastructure (the CV), and a situated evaluative practice in which the representational function of that infrastructure is itself interpreted and established. The use of CVs in peer review can be seen as a doubly comparative practice, where referees compare not only applicants (among each other or to an imagined ideal of excellence), but also their own experience-based understanding of practice and the conceptual assumptions that underpin CV categories. Empirically, we add to existing literature on peer review by drawing attention to self-correcting mechanisms in the reproduction of the scientific workforce. Conceptually, we distinguish three modalities of how the doubly comparative use of CVs can shape the assessment of applicants: calibration, branching out, and repair. The outcome of this reflexive work should not be seen as predetermined by situational pressures. In fact, bibliographic categories such as authorship of publications or performance metrics may themselves come to be problematized and reshaped in the process.
The purpose of this paper is to find out what do academics do when approaching retirement and why – as well as reflect on the process and consequences of reaching a retirement decision, for themselves, the university system, and the wider community. Our study concentrates on baby-boomers, as this large cohort starts to retire or be entitled for retirement. Using qualitative data collection we engaged with 44 academics, mostly working in university business schools in Anglo-Saxon and Latin European countries (USA, UK, Spain and France). The findings suggest several clusters of late career plans, with the majority wishing and planning to continue their work. Findings are analyzed through the lens of career ecosystem theory, implications for individuals and universities are discussed and suggestions for further research outlined.
Résumé
Partanl du constat que les faits de protection des marchés du travail débordent largement le domaine des professions à statut, l'auteure propose de tirer toutes les conséquences qui résultent selon elle du passage d'une sociologie des professions à une sociologie de la professionnalisation. Elle invite ainsi à rassembler dans une même classe d'objets - "les marchés du travail fermés" - tous les faits d'organisation sociale des marchés du travail issus d'efforts de professionnalisation, c'est-à-dire de stabilisation institutionnelle du rapport de travail. Dans cette perspective, les professions apparaissent comme une espèce d'un genre qui rassemble également les marchés internes de firmes ou les métiers organisés transversalement aux entreprises, et répondent fondamentalement aux mêmes conditions de production et de reproduction.
Looking for new means of regulation for University Education
For a long time, university places were regulated by the disciplines taught and by the Ministry of Education whereas the particular demands of students, companies and local authorities were rarely taken into account. Two recent studies indicate that the situation has altered. First of all, universities have taken up the issue and are undertaking to better master the range of studies they offer. Secondly, the integration of students into the world of work has become a criterion of assessment of new specialized courses. However, if the authorities and the universities encourage teaching staff to set up professional courses, they don’t yet possess monitoring instruments enabling them to assess the worth of such projects which can no longer be assessed solely on the grounds as a discipline. As such, these courses are widely developing in ever-increasing numbers, but for the moment, they still seem difficult to regulate.
Interest in the status and functions, the potential and thevulnerability of the academic profession has grown in recent times.International comparison is of special interest in this context: are theproblems experienced more or less universal, or are there options andconditions in individual countries which might suggest solutions for thefuture? The paper analyses some findings and implications of theInternational Survey of the Academic Profession with a special focus onthe various subgroups of academics in the European countries involved inthis empirical study. The analyses focuses on the employment and workingconditions, as well as the way academics handle their various professionaltasks and functions. Considerable differences between the universityprofessoriate, middle-rank and junior staff at universities and staff atother institutions of higher education are noted. At least in the majorityof European countries surveyed, one would hesitate to consider them part ofthe same profession. By and large, however, the relatively independentnature of their jobs allows most academics to find areas of professionalactivity which are the source of professional attachment andsatisfaction.
This article proposes a method for characterizing the "activity profiles" of research laboratories. It is based on the "research compass card model" derived from the sociology of science, and which highlights the five complementary contexts in which research activities develop. A test was conducted in a regional setting on 75 labs. It demonstrates that simple indicators are enough to measure levels of involvement in each activity. Seven "activity profiles" based upon the mix by labs of their marked involvement were identified, crossing both institutional and disciplinary barriers.
The problematic of how supply and demand meet on a particular market is at the core of the economic sociology project. For several years this problematic has generated detailed analyses of the ways in which judgments of product or service-provider quality are constructed before the exchange relation occurs. Through observation of how funeral services are purchased and analysis of competition dynamics on local funeral service markets, this article brings to light certain alternative ways of organizing the marketplace encounter in this business sector. It describes arrangements used to capture the market, such as socio-technical operations for channeling customers toward a single service provider. It shows the degree to which service-provider activity, relations among competitors, and the market regulation game in this sector are structured by moves to produce an economy based on client manipulation.
As more and more public programs are being assessed, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique has, for a long time now, operated through a "system" of government based on discussion. Studies conducted in four of this research center's scientific commissions have closely examined the internal mechanisms (formal structures, implicit values and decision-making procedures) whereby peer review comes up with an opinion and scientific work is evaluated. In this mechanics, a contingent factor still exists, namely the roles of the secretary and the president, who give a commission its style.
Cet article confronte deux méthodes de recueil des données, l'entretien semi-directif et l'observation directe et met en évidence les contradictions qu'elles révèlent sur l'identité au travail de l'interviewé. Alors que le discours tenu par celui-ci témoigne d'une relative cohérence, sa pratique en situation apparaît diverse et paradoxale. Partant de cette constatation qui repose sur l'examen précis du cas d'un agent de sécurité sociale, l'auteur discute la notion d'identité telle qu'elle a été élaborée par la sociologie du travail et conclut, au-delà des relations stratégiques, à l'importance des rapports de savoir dans la définition et la reconnaissance de cette identité.
The first results of the author's underway research on the French and German university systems compare how these universities operate. The basic differences between French and German establishments (in particular, the fact that German professors have a stronger commitment and sense of belonging to their university) can be explained neither by diverging conceptions of higher education, nor by dissimilar formal, internal, structures, nor even by differences in the contents of scientific and teaching activities. However the German universities' role on the «disciplines market » whenever professors are recruited apparently creates the conditions for the development of a moral contract between the professor and his establishment ; and it contributes to the stronger institutionalization of these universities.
Cet article propose une réflexion critique sur les théories des marchés internes du travail en l'appliquant au secteur des télécommunications. Il se place sur deux registres complémentaires: l'analyse d'un cas de restructuration d'un marché de la maind'œuvre, le cas français, éclairé par des éléments de comparaison européens et l'analyse critique des différentes dimensions des théories des marchés internes. On examinera ici la définition du territorie et des frontières, la régulation des conditions d'emploi et les termes des échanges, les acteurs de la régulation et l'intervention de l'Etat, la régulation conjointe et la négociation collective et, caractéristique propre à la période et au secteur d'activités, les effets d'un changement fort. /// This article proposes a critical reflection on the theories for internal employment markets through an application in the telecommunications sector. It deals with two complementary aspects: an analysis based on the restructuring of a labour market, the French aspect, taking into account elements of comparison from European markets, and a critical analysis of the different dimensions of the theories for internal markets. At this point the article examines the definition of territory and its frontiers, the regulation of employment conditions and terms of exchange, the actors of the regulation and the intervention of the State, joint regulation and collective negotiations and, what is characteristic of this period and of the sector of activity, the effects of strong changes. /// Dieser Aufsatz bringt eine kritische Überlegung zu den Theorien der inneren Arbeitsmärkte am Beispiel der Telekommunikationen vor. Die Betrachtung geht von zwei sich ergänzenden Ebenen aus: die Analyse eines Restrukturierungsfalls eines Arbeitsmarkts, das französische Beispiel, beleuchtet mit europäischen Vergleichselementen, und die kritische Analyse der verschiedenen Dimensionen der Theorien der inneren Märkte. Hierbei werden untersucht die Definition des Gebiets und der Gebietsgrenzen, die Regulierung der Beschäftigungsbedingungen und der Bedingungen des Austauschs, die Regulierungsaktoren und der Staatseingriff, die Gemeinregulierung und die Kollektivverhandlung, sowie die Auswirkungen eines starken Wechsels, eine typische Eigenschaft der Periode und des Aktvitätssektors. /// Este articulo propone una reflexión crítica sobre las teorías de los mercados internos de trabajo aplicadas al sector de las telecomunicaciones. El articulo también se encuentra entre dos registros complementarios: el análisis de un caso de reestructuración de un mercado de la mano de obra que es el caso francés, que está además aclarado con elementos de comparación europeas; y el análisis crítico de las diferentes dimensiones de las teorías de los mercados internos. Se va examinar sobre todo aquí, la definición del territorio y de las fronteras, la regularisación de las condiciones de empleo y los términos de los intercambios, los actores de la regularisación y la intervención del Estado, la regularisación conjunta y la negociación colectiva así como también los efectos de un cambio fuerte, característica propia al periodo y a este sector de actividades.
Data from probability samples of U.S. graduate faculty in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and political science are examined in order to determine whether variation in disciplinary consensus is associated with differences in status-attainment patterns. We argue that high levels of agreement on research priorities and techniques facilitate the accurate and early detection of scientific talent, and we suggest how variation in agreement might be reflected in status attainment models. The results are consistent with our suggestions, but they imply that substantial variation in consensus produces fairly small differences in the status attainment patterns we analyze. We briefly discuss similarities between our results and Turner's typology of contest and sponsored mobility.
Analysis of data for 576 natural scientists currently faculty in U. S. graduate institutions shows that the prestige of the institution where a scientist received his doctorate is related to the prestige of his present affiliation even when the effects of his productivity are controlled. The relative effects of prestige of doctoral institution and productivity vary between different levels of the academic stratification system and between different stages in the scientific career. Turner's concepts of contest and sponsored mobility are related to these findings, and conditions promoting the existence of each type of mobility are suggested.
Cet article a pour objectif d'étudier les marchés du travail universitaires et plus exactement les mécanismes d'ajustement entre l'offre et la demande lors de la vacance de postes, à la lueur du concept «d'économie de la qualité» développé par L. Karpik pour le marché des avocats. Après avoir montré en quoi les marchés du travail universitaires sont également des marchés-jugement, les divergences entre avocats et universitaires sont analysées selon trois dimensions : l'inscription relationnelle, la gestion de l'ambiguïté de la qualité et la détermination du prix.
In recent years the academic labor market has been divided into tenure track and nontenure track positions. This division of the academic labor market is interpreted by means of dual labor market theory. Consequences of a dual labor market for both institutions of higher education and individual academicians are suggested.
Le demi-siècle écoulé aura été marqué par un certain recul de la centralité du travail. Ce mouvement, qui a débuté avec le glissement du travail à l’emploi, semble aujourd’hui se prolonger avec la migration des enjeux sociaux du monde productif vers l’univers de la consommation : après plusieurs décennies d’inquiétude sur le travail puis sur le chômage, l’attention se porte aujourd’hui sur des problèmes directement liés à la maîtrise du marché, tels la crise de la vache folle, la dissémination des OGM (organismes génétiquement modifiés) ou la mondialisation des échanges. [premières lignes]
Differences in expectations, values, and organizational traditions between the laboratory staff and the rest of the company are often reflected in the dissatisfaction of research and development personnel and in managerial doubts and misunderstandings. The difficulty of evaluating research and development activity adds to the instability of the relationship. Limiting the laboratory's responsibility for innovation to questions of technological feasibility further hinders it from becoming fully integrated with the rest of the company. Another common source of frustration and bitterness is the existence of an uneasy compromise between providing laboratory personnel with an environment which rewards scientific endeavor and providing them with an environment which rewards efforts to climb in the business and managerial hierarchy.
Previous studies of stratification in science have found a consistent positive correlation between the prestige of the departments where scientists received their degrees and the prestige of the departments where they obtained jobs, especially their first jobs. This correlation held regardless of previous research performance. Two limitations associated with these studies are (1) their almost exclusive focus on the hard sciences, and (2) their inability to inform a theoretical comparison between the hard and soft sciences. This study uses data on new sociology Ph.D.s who obtained their first job in Ph.D.-granting departments between 1985 and 1992 in order to assess whether the stratifying mechanisms in the hiring of sociologists are similar to those in the hard sciences. The results are generally consistent with previous findings for the hard sciences and suggest that job placement in sociology values academic origins over performance. The two strongest determinants of the prestige of a first job are the prestige of the Ph.D.-granting department and the selectivity of the undergraduate institution. In contrast, the effects of predoctorate single- or first-authored publications and of mentor's recognition are weak, though significant.
The paper proposes, following results in science studies, another entry point to the international comparison of RDT policies, focusing on the productive entities in research, that is the research laboratories or collectives. However before going to comparison of performance, account must be taken of the vector of outputs constituting research activities and of the choices made by laboratories as witnessed by their effective activity profiles. This is illustrated by an experiment done on 400 labs in Human genetics in six European countries. It shows that the well known and striking differences between EU nations, in terms of institutional structures and access to resources, do not directly translate into different productive patterns of research collectives, thus emphasizing the self-dynamics of both given organisations and, more important, of their research collectives.
It is generally recognised that academic pay in the UK is no longer in line with market conditions. Although recent Government decisions have recognised the problem of uncompetitive salaries for a small number of internationally leading academics, there is no sign that the situation of the profession as a whole is likely to be tackled at Government level. The paper analyses the history of pay bargaining in the university sector since the Second World War, and argues that although national pay scales and national negotiating mechanisms may have worked to the benefit of the profession until the 1960s, during the last 20 years or more they have neither persuaded governments to reward the profession adequately, nor assisted the higher education system to manage salaries effectively with the limited resources available. The paper highlights the ambiguous role of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals (CVCP), and more recently of the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association (UCEA), as both the employer of academic staff and their representative in salary negotiations with government; and identifies a basic failure on the part of universities and their representatives to come to terms with the consequences brought about by expansion and differentiation of the system and economic change. The paper argues that there is a need for much greater flexibility and the ending of the national bargaining machinery in order to take proper account of both institutional and disciplinary differences, and to uncouple academic and non-academic salaries.
Le developpement que connaissent les institutions de l'enseignement superieur marque l'un des changement majeurs de cette derniere decennie. Cet article se fonde sur l'hypothese que le processus d'integration des connaissances qui s'opere aux niveaux national et international influence necessairement l'enseignement superieur. Ce processus touche de maniere globale le systeme americain des diplomes et tend a creer quelques structures phares ainsi qu'une institutionnalisation de l'evaluation et de l'accreditation au lieu d'amener ces institutions a se tourner vers une dynamique entrepreunariale de haut niveau.
Empirical research of the C.S.O. on highereducation in the eighties showed that thecapacity of French universities for collectivedecision was very weak.
Since that time, legislators have attempted toreinforce universities autonomy by creatingexecutive boards whose capacity forconstructing university policies is nowindisputable. The analysis focuses on thefollowing issue: what are the consequences ofthe strengthening of central management on thebalance of powers between executive boards,faculties, and democratic elected assemblies?
Diversity may occur amonginstitutions that are considered to be similar.This is one of the arguments developed in thispaper through the empirical analysis of facultyrecruitments in history and mathematics withinGerman and French universities. This studyshows that the definition of what constitutes a`good candidate' varies greatly from onedepartment to another and affects the criteriato be taken into account and their respectiveweight in the decision. These variations are tobe explained by the internal dynamics of theparticular national academic labour market, thespecific situation of the department and alsoby its development strategy.
In comparatively small and simple societies in the past, various institutions had not yet become as clearly differentiated from each other as they are now. For example, in most such societies, there were no distinct economic, educational, welfare, or correctional institutions; basic functions now performed by such institutions were handled largely by the family. As societies have become more complex, new institutional distinctions have emerged; but institutions have also become intertwined in ways creating the appearance that the boundaries separating them are breaking down. We find a deterioration of boundaries among different spheres of American life: for example, between agriculture and industry, between economic affairs and political affairs, and between science and engineering. The boundary between the academic and business worlds has been similarly affected. Business corporations have been seeking university-based knowledge and expertise, while universities have come to seek financial support from business. A number of business corporations have created universitylike research facilities of their own, while universities and their scientists have become increasingly involved in business activities. In this article, I seek to contribute to our understanding of one aspect of the latter development: the formation of business firms by academic scientists for the purpose of commercially exploiting their own discoveries and expertise. Such firms, according to Henry Etzkowitz who has investigated this topic, may produce products as diverse as industrial enzymes, integrated circuits, new methods for locating mineral deposits, and market surveys. According to Frank A. Darknell, who has also studied this phenomenon, it is likely that approximately 3.3 percent of scientists and engineers who are employed full-time as professors in American four-year higher-educational institutions also work as consultants for commercial companies of which they are owners or part owners. This is a small percentage. It is probably much smaller for scientists than for engineers, although we have no precise data on that.
The authors examine how up-or-out rules operate as a screening device in the market for lawyers. Using data on large New York law firms, they show that firm growth is a slow and uncertain process because performance as an associate is not an especially informative signal about whether a lawyer will make a good partner and because the costs of mistaken promotion are relatively high. A newly hired associate is unlikely to be a suitable partner and the screening process is relatively imprecise. Firm growth therefore contributes between 5-7 percent of the present value of profits of a law firm. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.
This paper uses institutional level data collected by the American Association of University Professors as part of their annual survey of faculty members' compensation to analyze faculty turnover. Analyses of aggregate data over almost a twenty-year period highlight how remarkably stable faculty retention rates have been nationwide and how little they vary across broad categories of institutions. Analyses of variations in faculty retention rates across individual institutions stress the role that faculty compensation levels play. Higher levels of compensation appear to increase retention rates for assistant and associate professors (but not for full professors) and the magnitude of this effect grows larger as one moves from institutions with graduate programs, to four-year undergraduate institutions, to two-year institutions.
Since unification, the debate about Germany's poor economic performance has focused on supply-side weaknesses, and the associated reform agenda sought to make low-skill labour markets more flexible. We question this diagnosis using three lines of argument. First, effective restructuring of the supply side in the core advanced industries was carried out by the private sector using institutions of the coordinated economy, including unions, works councils and blockholder owners. Second, the implementation of orthodox labour market and welfare state reforms created a flexible labour market at the lower end. Third, low growth and high unemployment are largely accounted for by the persistent weakness of domestic aggregate demand, rather than by the failure to reform the supply side. Strong growth in recent years reflects the successful restructuring of the core economy. To explain these developments, we identify the external pressures on companies in the context of increased global competition, the continuing value of the institutions of the coordinated market economy to the private sector and the constraints imposed on the use of stabilizing macroeconomic policy by these institutions. We also suggest how changes in political coalitions allowed orthodox labour market reforms to be implemented in a consensus political system.