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Bureaucratization in Academic Research Policy: What Causes It?

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Barry Bozeman at Arizona State University
Barry Bozeman
Jiwon Jung at International University of Japan
Jiwon Jung
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Abstract

Senior academic researchers and research administrators whose careers have spanned decades have witnessed a monotonic trend in the growth of bureaucratic rules and structures pertaining to research policy. The increase in administrative requirements takes many forms, some directly related to research and others tangentially related. While the onslaught of rules has increased administrative burdens, not all of these requirements are red tape; many are useful and even vital. But when taken together, the amount of administrative procedure and documentation associated with research conduct and administration becomes crushing. Others have well documented the bureaucratization of university research policy and administration. Our primary purpose is to explain why rules and regulations and the bureaucratic structures supporting them continue to grow, extracting an ever-greater toll on time and resources available for actual research. Absent an explanation of the growth of administrative burden, it is not possible to provide valid assessment of the effectiveness of rules and regulations pertaining to research policy. We examine the problem from the lens of a well-developed theory of organizational red tape specifically, applying it specifically to the problem of research administration red tape. The theory suggests that the increase in research policy bureaucratization can be explained chiefly by three different factors: crisis response, pressures for bureaucratic over-control, and the use of research policy for side-payments, both social side-payments (to achieve social goals not directly related to research) and political side-payments (conferring factor with political supporters by proving rules or policy symbols favored by them). To help elaborate the theory as well as to provide context, we provide case illustrations of ranging from the vitally important (research misconduct) to mundane bureaucratic requirements (standardization of required biosketches).
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Bureaucratization in
Academic Research Policy:
What Causes It?
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Bureaucratization in Academic
Research Policy: What Causes It?
Barry Bozeman
Center for Organization Research and Design
Arizona State University
USA
bbozeman@asu.edu
Jiwon Jung
Center for Organization Research and Design
Arizona State University
USA
jiwon.jung@asu.edu
Boston — Delft
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Annals of Science and Technology Policy
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The preferred citation for this publication is
B. Bozeman and J. Jung. Bureaucratization in Academic Research Policy: What
Causes It?. Annals of Science and Technology Policy, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 133–214, 2017.
ISBN: 978-1-68083-263-1
c
2017 B. Bozeman and J. Jung
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Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Annals of Science and Technology Policy
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2017
Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief
Albert N. Link
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
United States
Editors
David Audretsch
Indiana University
William Bonvillian
MIT
Barry Bozeman
Arizona State University
Kaye Husbands Fealing
Georgia Institute of Technology
John Hardin
North Carolina Board of Science and Technology
Mariagrazia Squicciarini
OECD
Wolfgang Polt
Joanneum Research Institute
Nicholas Vonortas
The George Washington University
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Editorial Scope
Topics
Annals of Science and Technology Policy publishes survey and tutorial articles
in the following topics:
•Literature reviews of technology and innovation policies
•Historical case studies of technology development and implementation
•
Institutional histories of technology- and innovation-based organizations
•
Analyses of policies attendant to technology development and adoption
and diffusion
•Studies documenting the adoption and diffusion of technologies and
subsequent consequences
•Studies of public and private research partnerships (cross sectional,
over time, or case based)
•Assessments and evaluations of specific technology and innovation
policies
•Analyses of ecosystems associated with the technology and/or
innovation development
•
Cross observational (e.g., cross-agency or cross-country) comparisons of
technology and innovation policies
Information for Librarians
Annals of Science and Technology Policy, 2017, Volume 1, 4 issues. ISSN
paper version 2475-1820. ISSN online version 2475-1812. Also available
as a combined paper and online subscription.
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Contents
1 Introduction 3
2 Understanding Bureaucratization: The Conceptual Thicket 5
3 Evidence of Bureaucratization and Administrative Burden in
University Research 8
3.1 Findings from the Federal Demonstration Partnership Study 8
3.2
Findings from the Vanderbilt University/Boston Consulting
Group 2015 Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Findings from the National Science Board Study . . . . . . 9
3.4 Findings from the Survey of Academic Scientists Project .12
4 Rules and Red Tape Theory: A Lens for Understanding the
Bureaucratization of Research Policy and Administration 16
4.1 The Rule Objective Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2 Rule-Inception Red Tape and its Causes . . . . . . . . . . 19
5 Origins of Bureaucratization: Implications from Theory of
Rules and Red Tape 21
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
6 Explaining Administrative Burden and Bureaucratization in
Research Grants Policy 23
6.1 Crisis as a Cause of University Research Bureaucratization 25
6.2 Scientific Misconduct as a Case in Point . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.3
Political and Social Side-Payments as a Cause of University
Research Bureaucratization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.4
“Research Relevant” Social-side Payments and Administra-
tive Burden: Data Sharing as a Case in Point . . . . . . . 34
6.5
“Research Irrelevant” Social Side-Payments and Adminis-
trative Burden: Multiple Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.6
Political Side-Payments and Administrative Burden: The
Case of Research Earmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6.7
Bureaucratic Overlap as a Cause of University Research
Bureaucratization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.8
Bureaucratic Overlap and Administrative Burden: Multiple
Case Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7 Conclusions 51
7.1 Reform: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here? . . . . . 52
7.2 Learning from Red Tape Theory: Next Steps . . . . . . . . 54
Appendices 55
A 1991 to 2013 Federal Regulatory Additions or Changes Per-
taining to University Research Administration 56
B Scientific Misconduct Case Summary 66
Author Biographies 69
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Bureaucratization in Academic
Research Policy: What Causes It?
Barry Bozeman1and Jiwon Jung2
1Arizona State University, USA; bbozeman@asu.edu
2Arizona State University, USA; jiwon.jung@asu.edu
ABSTRACT
Senior academic researchers and research administrators
whose careers have spanned decades have witnessed a mono-
tonic trend in the growth of bureaucratic rules and structures
pertaining to research policy. The increase in administrative
requirements takes many forms, some directly related to re-
search and others tangentially related. While the onslaught
of rules has increased administrative burdens, not all of
these requirements are red tape; many are useful and even
vital. But when taken together, the amount of administra-
tive procedure and documentation associated with research
conduct and administration becomes crushing.
Others have well documented the bureaucratization of uni-
versity research policy and administration. Our primary
purpose is to explain why rules and regulations and the
bureaucratic structures supporting them continue to grow,
extracting an ever-greater toll on time and resources avail-
able for actual research. Absent an explanation of the growth
of administrative burden, it is not possible to provide valid
assessment of the effectiveness of rules and regulations per-
taining to research policy. We examine the problem from
the lens of a well-developed theory of organizational red
tape specifically, applying it specifically to the problem of
Barry Bozeman and Jiwon Jung (2017), “Bureaucratization in Academic Research
Policy: What Causes It?”, Annals of Science and Technology Policy: Vol. 1, No. 2,
pp 133–214. DOI: 10.1561/110.00000002.
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
2
research administration red tape. The theory suggests that
the increase in research policy bureaucratization can be
explained chiefly by three different factors: crisis response,
pressures for bureaucratic over-control, and the use of re-
search policy for side-payments, both social side-payments
(to achieve social goals not directly related to research) and
political side-payments (conferring factor with political sup-
porters by proving rules or policy symbols favored by them).
To help elaborate the theory as well as to provide context,
we provide case illustrations of ranging from the vitally
important (research misconduct) to mundane bureaucratic
requirements (standardization of required biosketches).
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
1
Introduction
In the U.S. and throughout most of the world, university research be-
comes increasingly bureaucratized (e.g. Schneider et al.,2014; National
Science Board, 2014). Along with increasing dependence on research
funding and increased expectations for more and more research-funds-
per-academic-researcher, the demands of political bureaucracy continue
to grow, reducing the proportions of time devoted to science and increas-
ing the amount of time demanded for administration, especially admin-
istrative assurances. The increasing bureaucratization and compliance
burden is not simply a matter speculation. In the United States, several
authoritative studies (e.g. American Council of Education, ACE, 2015)
have recently examined university administrative burden, including
specifically burdens associated with research policy and administration
(e.g. Decker et al.,2007; National Science Board, 2014).
Since no one seems to be rushing to the defense of more and more
rules, since no one is in the business of self-consciously creating red tape,
since nearly everyone acknowledges that it is important to devote as
many resources as possible to research and innovation and to not siphon
off funds unnecessarily from that enterprise we are left to contemplate
this question:
3
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
4Introduction
What explains the continual growth in rules and regulations
surrounding publicly funded research?
This question is the chief focus of the current paper and, remarkably,
there is almost no scholarly attention devoted to answering this question.
There have been many efforts to document the growth of rules and
administrative burden in research policy, blue ribbon panels have been
convened and made recommendations about reducing rules and their
costs, but the causes of this onslaught have generated little speculation,
much less systematic explanation. Our concern here is to explain the
reasons of bureaucratization. In doing so, we rely on theory and research
about red tape and bureaucratic pathology.
The organization of the paper is as follows:
•
In the next section we provide a brief, necessary preamble to
organizational analysis- a review and conceptual demarcation of
bureaucratization, red tape and formalization.
•
After clarifying closely related concepts, we review some of the
studies documenting the bureaucratization of research policy and
administration in the U.S. and the responses to the bureaucrati-
zation, both institutional responses and responses and attitudes
of individual investigators.
•
A next section introduces theory of rules and red tape, the theory-
base we use as a lens to asking the study’s key question concerning
the growth of rules in research policy and administration.
•
After providing a theory base, we turn to the core question of
the paper: What explains the continual growth in rules and regu-
lations surrounding publicly funded research? Here we provide a
conceptual model.
•
Finally, we examine key elements of our conceptual model in terms
of a variety of government rules and procedures promulgated,
ones that almost always have good intentions but, when taken
together, vastly increase administrative burden while only rarely
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
5
demonstrating the social value purchased by the administrative
burden.
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
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Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
Author Biographies
Barry Bozeman is Arizona Centennial Professor of Technology Policy
and Public Management and Director of the Center for Organization Re-
search and Design, Arizona State University. Bozeman is corresponding
author. Email: bbozeman@asu.edu. Website: https://cord.asu.edu/
Jiwon Jung is a doctoral student and senior research associate, Cen-
ter for Organization Research and Design, Arizona State University.
Her research interests lie in the fields of public personnel manage-
ment, science and technology policy, and public management. Email:
jiwon.jung@asu.edu.
82
Full text available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/110.00000002
... Senior academics and research administrators with careers spanning decades have observed a trend in the growth of bureaucratic rules, administrative workloads, a notion supported by interviewees in this study, and management structures relating to research policy and practice (Bozeman and Jung, 2017). Consequently, this growth has increased the administrative burdens of individual researchers and organisations, thereby affecting their ability to effectively perform research related activities (Coccia, 2019a;Bozeman and Jung, 2017;Woelert, 2020). ...
... Senior academics and research administrators with careers spanning decades have observed a trend in the growth of bureaucratic rules, administrative workloads, a notion supported by interviewees in this study, and management structures relating to research policy and practice (Bozeman and Jung, 2017). Consequently, this growth has increased the administrative burdens of individual researchers and organisations, thereby affecting their ability to effectively perform research related activities (Coccia, 2019a;Bozeman and Jung, 2017;Woelert, 2020). This increase in bureaucratic and administrative requirements is best encapsulated by the concept and process known as bureaucratisation. ...
... Bureaucratisation -especially administrative bureaucratisation-occurs in universities and public research institutions when administrative positions and administrative activities performed by non-research staff increase over time at a greater and more disproportionate rate than teaching or research activities and positions (Walsh and Lee, 2015;Bozeman and Jung, 2017). Another form of bureaucratisation also occurs in research bodies (particularly publicly funded research bodies), namely academic bureaucratisation (Coccia, 2009a;2009b;Woelert, 2020). ...
A mixed method approach towards the evaluation and assessment of integrative research programme outputs: The case of the Invasive Alien Plant management programme Working for Water
Thesis
Full-text available
  • Mar 2022
The pervasiveness of threats posed by biological invasions presents significant challenges to human well-being, biodiversity conservation, and natural resource management, which has contributed to the growth of invasion science as a discipline. However, several studies have shown that the social-ecological complexity of invasions, the compartmentalisation of knowledge into disciplines and the lack of integrative research approaches, current invasion research has not informed management decision making effectively. Thus, to maximise the impact of research investments, there is a need to explore and evaluate how research informs management practices and processes linked to biological invasions. Accordingly, this dissertation outlines the state of invasion management-related research in South Africa, using the internationally recognised Working for Water (WfW) programme as a case study. Drawing on insights from science studies and evaluation research, a mixed-method approach is used to assess the processes, conditions and outputs associated with research produced under the programme’s auspices. The research comprised two areas of inquiry 1) the exploration of textual information (journal articles, grey literature, and their content), and 2) the social dimensions of research and decision making linked to invasion science and management, with a specific focus on collaborative relationships amongst scientists and decision makers. It sought to determine the extent to which published research aligned with the programme’s needs, research and management strategies. The research also aimed to identify effective ways for organising and producing knowledge relevant to decision making; and to provide insights into how the social dimensions, the people and organisations, their interactions and impact, have shaped research and decision-making processes. Findings suggest that there are significant gaps in the knowledge base particularly in relation to the social dimensions of biological invasions, which were poorly represented and aligned with the mandate and priorities set by the programme. This research showed significant deficiencies in knowledge management and the uptake of research funded by the programme, despite its potential relevance to decision making as evidenced by the recommendations presented in the research. Moreover, research produced under WfW’s auspices was authored by a handful of key researchers who fulfil a significant role in shaping research collaborations both across disciplines and institutions. The loss of these key individuals, including those involved in management-related decision making, would be detrimental to the stability of collaboration networks and research productivity. Finally, findings show that research productivity, collaborative relationships between scientists within and across research organisations, and between research and decision-making processes are positively influenced by collegiality and cooperation between actors, while increased competition and bureaucratisation in the workplace negatively influence research productivity. To address the shortcomings concerning the invasion research and management identified in this dissertation, efforts towards improving the relationship between researchers and decision-makers and building more resilient collaboration networks need to be implemented. Firstly, institutions must engage in and fund more targeted, long-term transdisciplinary or integrative research that incorporates appropriate structures that foster collaboration, knowledge coproduction and knowledge sharing. Secondly, systems and strategies for monitoring and evaluating research, including the use of bibliometric indicators, social network analyses and qualitative assessments, should be developed to ensure that research relevant to managing biological invasions is not lost to the decision-making process. Such an undertaking would in turn require the development of an integrated research strategy and action plan that accounts for both the knowledge management and the social processes underpinning research and decision making.
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... Almost all studies (e.g., Davison & Ou, 2013;Ferneley & Sobreperez, 2006;Strong & Miller, 1995) relate to solving problems posed by flows in computer-based information systems and, of course, these problems are not unique to the IT field. Many workarounds in nursing and in university research administration (Bozeman & Jung, 2017) related directly to computer-based information systems. However, some of the questions in this field are more intrinsic to the field. ...
... In doing so, the researchers often bear material and sometimes psychological costs, ergo administrative burden. 1 Below we consider some leading issues in administrative burden in university research administration. Readers interested in more detailed analysis of administrative burden in the context of university research administration may wish to consult (Bozeman & Jung, 2017). ...
... A great many factors seem to be driving ever-increasing research administrative burden. One meta-review (Bozeman & Jung, 2017) of research on university administrative burden in the United States identified bureaucratic overlap and limited coordination as one chief culprit. Funding agencies have surprisingly different requirements and different processes. ...
Death by a Thousand 10-Minute Tasks: Workarounds and Noncompliance in University Research Administration
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  • Aug 2020
The article examines administrative workarounds in the context of university research administration. The empirical results from 116 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers with active National Science Foundation awards are framed by a “Rules Response” model positing relationships among rules compliance requests, administrative burden, red tape, and response choices, including compliance, appeal, rule bending, rule breaking, and workaround behaviors. Propositions are presented and reviewed in light of empirical results. The article concludes the implications of empirical results for improving the Rules Response model and a more general discussion of research needed to improve the understanding of both rules compliance and workarounds.
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... These include, for example, requiring PIs who have no lab animals to verify that they are not mistreating these nonexistent animals; requiring postdoctoral mentoring plans before researchers are hired or have been given duties about which to mentor; and mandating regular attestations to work hours and assignments-all this despite the fact that the most important research work, idea development, may well occur as one is hiking, driving, or taking a bath. One of our favorites is the congressionally mandated requirement that researchers attest that they are doing nothing that abridges gun rights under the Second Amendment, regardless of the focus of their work (for a fuller explanation and other examples of the breadth of research administration regulations, see Bozeman and Jung 2017). Most of these rules are vexing, not life-altering, but, as so well described by one of the PIs we interviewed, taken together, they represent "death by a thousand 10-minute tasks." ...
... In some cases, administrative burden is sufficient to represent a problem on its own, and in others, it is a leading indicator of possible red tape. The sheer volume of regulations concerning university research is creating an unsustainable administrative burden (for an overview, see Bozeman and Jung 2017). Anyone in the United States who has a federal research grant is responsible, along with their institution, for complying with a voluminous set of federal government research regulations. ...
Robotic Bureaucracy PAR Published 16557315
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Full-text available
  • Apr 2020
  • PUBLIC ADMIN
This Viewpoint essay examines university research administration and the use of software systems that automate university research grants and contract administration, including the automatic sending of emails for reporting and compliance purposes. These systems are described as "robotic bureaucracy." The rise of regulations and their contribution to administrative burden on university research have led university administrators to increasingly rely on robotic bureaucracy to handle compliance. This article draws on the administrative burden, behavioral public administration, and electronic communications and management literatures, which are increasingly focused on the psychological and cognitive bases of behavior. These literatures suggest that the assumptions behind robotic bureaucracy ignore the extent to which these systems shift the burden of compliance from administrators to researchers.
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... These include, for example, requiring PIs who have no lab animals to verify that they are not mistreating these nonexistent animals; requiring postdoctoral mentoring plans before researchers are hired or have been given duties about which to mentor; and mandating regular attestations to work hours and assignments-all this despite the fact that the most important research work, idea development, may well occur as one is hiking, driving, or taking a bath. One of our favorites is the congressionally mandated requirement that researchers attest that they are doing nothing that abridges gun rights under the Second Amendment, regardless of the focus of their work (for a fuller explanation and other examples of the breadth of research administration regulations, see Bozeman and Jung 2017). Most of these rules are vexing, not life-altering, but, as so well described by one of the PIs we interviewed, taken together, they represent "death by a thousand 10-minute tasks." ...
... In some cases, administrative burden is sufficient to represent a problem on its own, and in others, it is a leading indicator of possible red tape. The sheer volume of regulations concerning university research is creating an unsustainable administrative burden (for an overview, see Bozeman and Jung 2017). Anyone in the United States who has a federal research grant is responsible, along with their institution, for complying with a voluminous set of federal government research regulations. ...
Robotic Bureaucracy_Public Adm Review_ in press
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2019
This Viewpoint essay examines university research administration and the use of software systems that automate university research grants and contract administration, including the automatic sending of emails for reporting and compliance purposes. These systems are described as "robotic bureaucracy." The rise of regulations and their contribution to administrative burden on university research have led university administrators to increasingly rely on robotic bureaucracy to handle compliance. This article draws on the administrative burden, behavioral public administration, and electronic communications and management literatures, which are increasingly focused on the psychological and cognitive bases of behavior. These literatures suggest that the assumptions behind robotic bureaucracy ignore the extent to which these systems shift the burden of compliance from administrators to researchers.
View
... These qualitative examples of virtues in physician practice arrangements only begin to grasp the benefits of freedom and the ability to shape the path of the profession. Future discussions on virtue and physician ownership could address more empirical economic data and case studies of these virtues being exercised, and further insights may emerge from comparisons with existing worker cooperatives and universities' treatments of professors (see Bozeman and Jung 2017). As younger physicians and trainees approach their future practice sites with imagination and courage, churches, families, and intentional communities should be ready to support and benefit from them with new ways of partnership. ...
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  • Jul 2023
The shift from physicians as owners or shareholders of practices to being employees of corporations is now a widespread trend with over 50% of physicians now considered employees. If continued, this trend will have profound effects on the medical profession and on physicians’ personal lifestyles and sense of agency. However, ownership is not a morally neutral consideration but is important for safeguarding the traditions of virtue in the medical profession. Virtue develops within localized communities of practice and thrives in settings that embody principles such as solidarity, subsidiarity, and participation found in Catholic social teaching. Ownership increases physicians’ investment in moral communities where they practice, affording physicians greater agency to benefit these communities according to their best judgment. This ownership can vary by type of organization and degree of shareholding. Because moral communities are the settings in which physicians form virtue, and ownership increases physicians’ commitment and investment in communities, I make a principled argument that physicians who value developing virtue should consider having ownership of their practices when planning their careers. Ownership will be an important aspect of any medical ethics based on virtue rather than on principlism.
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... Red tape can also be seen in the case of "rule redundancy" (Bozeman & Jung, 2017) resulting from bureaucratic overlap, where administration such as explanations of data sharing arrangements is duplicated across platforms (e.g. for funding applications, ethics applications, and journal requirements), but often with different specifications. Another example of rule redundancy is with preregistrations, documents which may closely mirror elements of existing research administration, such as research protocols required for ethical review. ...
The Invisible Workload of Open Research
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2023
It is acknowledged that conducting open research requires additional time and effort compared to conducting ‘closed’ research. However, this additional work is often discussed only in abstract terms, a discourse which ignores the practicalities of how researchers are expected to find the time to engage with these practices in the context of their broader role as multifaceted academics. In the context of a sector that is blighted by stress, burnout, untenable workloads, and hyper-competitive pressures to produce, there is a clear danger that additional expectations to engage in open practices add to the workload burden and increase pressure on academics even further. In this article, the theories of academic capitalism and workload creep are used to explore how workload models currently exploit researchers by mismeasuring academic labour. The specific increase in workload resulting from open practices and associated administration is then outlined, including via the cumulative effects of administrative burden. It is argued that there is a high chance that without intervention, increased expectations to engage in open research practices may lead to unacceptable increases in demands on academics. Finally, the individual and systematic responsibilities to mitigate this are discussed.
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... The evidence gathered in our research shows that, in effect, there are differences in the way public and private university institutions have transformed their governance and management models. In particular, public universities have resorted relatively more to standardisation, coinciding with some forecasts (Walsh and Lee 2015;Bozeman and Jung 2017), while private universities have resorted to other mechanisms of co-ordination between teachers and university departments. ...
Different Preferences or Opposite Directions? Reforms and Job Satisfaction at Public and Private Universities in Spain
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2022
Recent decades have witnessed how both in Spain and elsewhere, legal reforms have helped to transform the management and governance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). These transformations have changed the conditions in which academics work, with a knock-on effect on their job satisfaction. Although these legal developments in Spain have basically been the same for both the public and private sectors in Higher Education, the evidence gathered in this article shows that the rate of cases of loss of job satisfaction is higher in public institutions than in private ones. The article provides an initial explanation for this situation, whereby the legal reforms have been met with different organisational solutions in these two kinds of institutions.
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... The rule density experienced by various individuals in the same organization may differ a good deal, not only because of differences in perception (Jacobsen and Jakobsen 2018) but also because persons in different parts of any organization may be subject to very different set of rules. For example, in universities, faculty who are active in obtaining government research grants almost always experience a high level of rule density, due to numerous government regulations related to grants, whereas faculty members who are not grants-active may have a much lower individual rule density (Bozeman and Jung 2017). ...
Rules Compliance Behavior: A Heuristic Model
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2022
Few studies focus on the full array of employees' responses to the formal rules governing their work. This article develops a set of propositions as to why employees comply fully with rules, comply in part, or disobey rules. The primary goal of the article is to stimulate further development of theory and research about rules-based behaviors. The article sets forth a Heuristic Model of Rules Compliance Behavior, "heuristic" because it aims less at explanation than the development of concepts and propositions about organizational employees' rules compliance behavior. The model's dimensions include the sources of rules, the characteristics of rule arbiters, the compliance requirements of rules, characteristics of sanctions for noncompliance, and rule density. The article concludes with suggestions for future research and argues that greater knowledge of rules compliance could provide a theory-enabling "scaffolding' for several research topics related to organizational rules.
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Gender and Academic Career Development in Central and Eastern Europe
Book
Full-text available
  • Mar 2023
The nature of academic institutions is inherently gendered. This is because higher education institutions (HEIs) do not operate in a void but, rather, are part and parcel of patriarchal social structures. This book offers a comprehensive presentation of the gendered and gendering academic career development. It explores various scholarly roles that academics face throughout their careers and how they are gendered in their nature. The book connects relevant literature on the topic with novel empirical studies to increase the understanding of how gender is played in academia across different roles and different career stages. The empirical context is conducted in Central and Eastern Europe and sheds new light on the gendered and gendering nature in academia in the region. The book also offers propositions on how to undo gendered academia to make it a more inclusive workplace for all. Dedicated to the academic reader employed in HEIs, particularly among those who are involved in the management of such institutions, this volume will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of human resource management, organizational studies, higher education, and gender studies.
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The distribution of indirect cost recovery in academic research
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  • Mar 2021
Research universities rely heavily on external funding to advance knowledge and generate economic growth. In the USA, tens of billions of dollars are spent each year on research and development with the federal government contributing over half of these funds. Yet a decline in relative federal funding highlights the role of other funders and their varying contractual terms. Specifically, nonfederal funders provide lower recovery of indirect costs. Using project-level university-sponsored research administrative records from four institutions, we examine indirect cost recovery. We find significant variation in the amount of indirect funding recovered—both across and within funders, as well as to different academic fields within a university. The distribution of sponsors in the overall research funding portfolio also impacts indirect cost recovery. The recovery variation has important implications for the sustainability and cross-subsidization of the university research enterprise. Together, our results show where universities are under-recovering indirect costs.
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To Share or Not to Share? A Survey of Biomedical Researchers in the U.S. Southwest, an Ethnically Diverse Region
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Background: Cancer health disparities research depends on access to biospecimens from diverse racial/ethnic populations. This multimethodological study, using mixed methods for quantitative and qualitative analysis of survey results, assessed barriers, concerns, and practices for sharing biospecimens/data among researchers working with biospecimens from minority populations in a 5 state region of the United States (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas). The ultimate goals of this research were to understand data sharing barriers among biomedical researchers; guide strategies to increase participation in biospecimen research; and strengthen collaborative opportunities among researchers. Methods and population: Email invitations to anonymous participants (n = 605 individuals identified by the NIH RePORT database), resulted in 112 responses. The survey assessed demographics, specimen collection data, and attitudes about virtual biorepositories. Respondents were primarily principal investigators at PhD granting institutions (91.1%) conducting basic (62.3%) research; most were non-Hispanic White (63.4%) and men (60.6%). The low response rate limited the statistical power of the analyses, further the number of respondents for each survey question was variable. Results: Findings from this study identified barriers to biospecimen research, including lack of access to sufficient biospecimens, and limited availability of diverse tissue samples. Many of these barriers can be attributed to poor annotation of biospecimens, and researchers' unwillingness to share existing collections. Addressing these barriers to accessing biospecimens is essential to combating cancer in general and cancer health disparities in particular. This study confirmed researchers' willingness to participate in a virtual biorepository (n = 50 respondents agreed). However, researchers in this region listed clear specifications for establishing and using such a biorepository: specifications related to standardized procedures, funding, and protections of human subjects and intellectual property. The results help guide strategies to increase data sharing behaviors and to increase participation of researchers with multiethnic biospecimen collections in collaborative research endeavors. Conclusions: Data sharing by researchers is essential to leveraging knowledge and resources needed for the advancement of research on cancer health disparities. Although U.S. funding entities have guidelines for data and resource sharing, future efforts should address researcher preferences in order to promote collaboration to address cancer health disparities.
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Biomedical Data Sharing and Reuse: Attitudes and Practices of Clinical and Scientific Research Staff
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Background: Significant efforts are underway within the biomedical research community to encourage sharing and reuse of research data in order to enhance research reproducibility and enable scientific discovery. While some technological challenges do exist, many of the barriers to sharing and reuse are social in nature, arising from researchers' concerns about and attitudes toward sharing their data. In addition, clinical and basic science researchers face their own unique sets of challenges to sharing data within their communities. This study investigates these differences in experiences with and perceptions about sharing data, as well as barriers to sharing among clinical and basic science researchers. Methods: Clinical and basic science researchers in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health were surveyed about their attitudes toward and experiences with sharing and reusing research data. Of 190 respondents to the survey, the 135 respondents who identified themselves as clinical or basic science researchers were included in this analysis. Odds ratio and Fisher's exact tests were the primary methods to examine potential relationships between variables. Worst-case scenario sensitivity tests were conducted when necessary. Results and discussion: While most respondents considered data sharing and reuse important to their work, they generally rated their expertise as low. Sharing data directly with other researchers was common, but most respondents did not have experience with uploading data to a repository. A number of significant differences exist between the attitudes and practices of clinical and basic science researchers, including their motivations for sharing, their reasons for not sharing, and the amount of work required to prepare their data. Conclusions: Even within the scope of biomedical research, addressing the unique concerns of diverse research communities is important to encouraging researchers to share and reuse data. Efforts at promoting data sharing and reuse should be aimed at solving not only technological problems, but also addressing researchers' concerns about sharing their data. Given the varied practices of individual researchers and research communities, standardizing data practices like data citation and repository upload could make sharing and reuse easier.
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Reforming Regulation of Research Universities
Article
  • Jun 2011
  • ISSUES SCI TECHNOL
A more balanced approach towards regulatory and reporting requirements in research universities is required. The Congress sent a letter to nearly 200 companies, trade associations, and other organizations, requesting information on existing and proposed regulations that have negatively affected job growth, and soliciting suggestions on reforming regulations and the rule-making process. Eliminating outright or exempt universities from the regulation, harmonizing the regulation across agencies to avoid duplication and redundancy, and tier the regulation to levels of risk rather than assuming that one size fits all, are some of the steps in this direction. Nonproduction research laboratories with similar chemical use patterns located at noncommercial, nonprofit research organizations such as colleges and universities should be regulated differently.
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A Budget Size in a Democracy: A Review of the Arguments
Article
  • Apr 1975
  • Publ Finance Rev
There is no lack of opinion whether the public sector in the United States is too large or too small and there may even be a few who would argue that the present public-private mix is the correct one. While different individuals inevitably have different opinions given their underlying preferences and economic, political, and social positions, one can examine the systematic forces at work in the U.S. political and economic system to determine if they bias the mix of public versus private spending from what the average voter-consumer desires. Such examinations were pioneered by Pigou, Galbraith, Downs, Buchanan, and Tullock, among others. In this review their analyses are critically compared and extended especially with respect to what bench mark for “correct” budget size each author takes as relevant in his discussion. The question of possible systematic biases in the composition of public spending as well as in the public-private mix is addressed.
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A Conceptual Framework for Analysis of Goal Ambiguity in Public Organizations
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  • Jan 2015
Prominent authors have claimed that government organizations have high levels of goal ambiguity, but these claims have needed clarification and verification. We discuss the complexities of organizational goals and their analysis, and review many authors' observations about public agencies' goal ambiguity and its good and bad effects. Then, we propose a conceptual framework to organize and make explicit the observations, as a set of interrelated propositions about relations among concepts that influence organizational goal ambiguity and that are influenced by it. Then, to verify or falsify these propositions, one needs to define and measure organizational goal ambiguity and other concepts in the framework. We describe research that has done so and that supports propositions in the framework, with emphasis on research that has analyzed organizational goal ambiguity using measures of three dimensions of goal ambiguity. We describe research using these dimensions, as well as other studies and translate these findings into additional propositions that extend the conceptual framework.
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Goal Ambiguity and Conflicting Standards: An Approach to the Study of Organization
Article
  • Dec 1958
The approach to the study of organization which is advanced in this paper is based on the explicit assumption of ambiguity among the goals, and conflict among the standards of conduct for members, of the social system studied.1 As such, the present analysis differs from traditional approaches to the study of organization which, explicitly or implicitly, incorporate assumption of single or non-ambiguous system goals and non-conflicting member standards into their analysis. The plan of the paper is as follows: The process of decisionmaking and managerial conduct in Soviet industry is described first. Then, regarding Soviet industry as a separate social system, a formal analysis of aspects of that system's organization follows. Finally, that analysis is used to suggest hypotheses about organization which, it is hoped, will be fruitful in the study of other social systems. Not the examination of Soviet industrial organization, but the development of what might be called "conflicting standards analysis" for th...
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