Successful organizations of all types have the common goal of being vital and productive. This goal is as central to universities as to corporations. The essential function of universities -- producing and fostering distribution of "the free good of knowledge" -- sets them apart from corporations, however, and limits the relevance of "corporate models" for managing productivity (Engstrand, 1997). In universities, organizational vitality and productivity depend on an environment that attracts and sustains the most capable faculty, who in turn provide excellent educational programs, conduct significant research, and provide important service to the state.
The most important assets of colleges and universities are not their buildings but rather the intellectual capabilities of their faculty. The faculty is the driving force behind programs of teaching and research. The University is the one institution in the state specifically charged with and expected to make significant contributions through research, and its faculty bring in almost $300 million of non-state research monies. The University also provides education programs whose alumni constitute a highly capable work force essential to the economy and the quality of life in Minnesota. Alumni and faculty have founded or own more than 3,000 companies that employ over 100,000 Minnesotans. Its outreach and distance education programs bring the work of the faculty directly to the people of state. The University's contributions to the artistic and cultural life of the state range from the nurturing of major artistic organizations in the Twin Cities to performances in local communities across Minnesota.
The current climate in higher education threatens the University's ability to sustain the conditions that support these achievements. Increased demands on state and federal funding, a deteriorating physical infrastructure, increased pressure on undergraduate programs, and the removal of mandatory retirement have raised concerns about the continued capacity of universities to maintain teaching quality, research productivity, and service to the state.
What can be done to assure vitality and productivity into the next century? Research comparing productive university faculties to less productive ones shows that vitality is linked both to the most obvious indicator of support for faculty -- adequate compensation -- and less tangible features of working environments, as well as policies and programs attentive to the needs of maturing faculty. Although similar in many respects to the conditions of productivity in non-university settings, some of these conditions may be more critical to the continued productivity of faculty than to professionals in other organizations.
In the sections that follow, we discuss these conditions and the extent to which the University of Minnesota is providing the support needed for vitality and productivity in the future. Although all University faculty participate in teaching, service, and outreach, we emphasize one area of academic productivity -- research -- in part because of the University's distinct mission as the state's only research university. Additionally, however, we emphasize vitality in research because it is primary both to the University's role in the graduate education of future scholars and professionals and to its strength and uniqueness as an undergraduate teaching institution. We draw on the extensive literature on individual and group productivity to identify conditions associated with faculty vitality in research universities.
At a distance a vital, productive research institution, whether academic
or non-academic, looks robust. Closer inspection reveals a somewhat fragile
structure that is highly dependent on the existence and effective working of
numerous individual, organizational, and leadership characteristics (Bland
& Ruffin, 1992). Figure 1 depicts the components of productive academic
organizations. Tables 1 and 2 briefly expand on the lists of individual and
organizational characteristics from Figure 1. Although the research on
which these lists are based primarily has focused faculty in the biological
and social sciences, we believe the findings also pertain to faculty in other
disciplines.
Individual Characteristics
We highlight here only the first few individual characteristics listed in Figure 1. Effective research universities help to assure a vital faculty through establishing policies and practices that favor the appointment of highly able and motivated people and careful monitoring of progress during the faculty member's probationary period. Research institutions do not award tenure based on "time in rank." Rather, research universities award tenure only to those faculty members with records of exceptional achievement, and clear promise for future productivity, in research, teaching, and service. The University of Minnesota has been able to recruit and train faculty with these characteristics. In addition, the University generally has been successful in fostering socialization of young faculty into organizational and professional values and practices. Such socialization is a powerful predictor of current and later research productivity.
Although external observers often mention the danger of faculty "burnout" or decreased productivity as the average age of faculty increases, the age of faculty members has little impact on productivity. Researchers have found only a weak negative correlation between age and research productivity -- a finding readily attributable to age-related changes in assignments (for example, seasoned faculty often are asked to take on administrative duties or leadership roles, which reduce time for research). Generally, researchers who are highly productive in their early careers continue to be highly productive later (Finkelstein, 1996). Nevertheless, policies that support productivity and self-renewal are important, regardless of length of service.
Environmental Support
The individual characteristics listed in Figure 1 and Table 1 are necessary, but not sufficient, to sustained faculty productivity. Researchers have found that, in higher education:
The place of employment is the single best predictor of faculty scholarly productivity.... Faculty [members] who come to productive surroundings produce more there than they did before they arrived and more than they will later if they move to a less productive environment. Resources, support, challenge, communication with producers on other campuses, all correlate with a professor's productivity. (Pellino et al., 1981)
In studies of scientists, the productivity of even the most productive scientists declined when they moved to organizations with less research-conducive environments than their previous organization (Long & McGinnis, 1981). This finding is not surprising. As one expert (Fox, 1991) has noted, research is a highly social and political process of communication, interaction, and exchange. To be productive, researchers in all fields must possess certain individual characteristics, but also must work in an environment conducive to research.
What are the features of such an environment? A review of the literature on productive research environments consistently revealed the features listed in Figure 1 and Table 2. The following highlights several of these features:
Rewards. Productive faculty members want to work at a highly respected institution that can compete successfully with other institutions to attract the best faculty and students. The University of Minnesota rightfully views itself as one of the nation's leading research universities. To sustain its leadership position, the University must match or exceed the competition on many dimensions. The University's reputation for excellence must be maintained or enhanced, where possible, and salaries at Minnesota must be competitive with faculty salaries at other top ranked research universities. This competition is not limited to universities in the midwest, but includes research universities across the country, both public and private.
The competition now facing the University is apparent from the National Research Council's (NRC) ranking of the quality of graduate programs. This ranking was determined by aggregating the rankings of individual programs (Webster, 1983). Using this indicator, the University of Minnesota has lost competitive advantage during the past decade. In 1983, Minnesota ranked 16th, tied with Texas, among the top 30 research universities (see footnote 1). In the most recent NRC rankings (1995), Minnesota was ranked 21st.
The University of Minnesota also suffers a competitive disadvantage in terms of faculty salaries (see footnote 2). Since 1980 the position of salaries at Minnesota has deteriorated steadily, relative to the other 30 top-ranked research universities (see Figure Two and footnote 3). In 1980 salaries for assistant professors at Minnesota were equal to the average of the other 30 top-ranked research universities. They have now slipped to 90% of the average salary, $3,200 below the mean of the comparison group. Salaries for associate professors at Minnesota had averaged about 97.5% of the average salary of the comparison group. They have now slipped to 85% to 86%, $6,400 below the mean of the comparison group. Salaries for full professors at Minnesota had averaged about 91% of the average salary of the comparison group. They have now slipped to about 81%, $12,900 below the mean of the full comparison group. When the comparison is restricted to top-ranked public research universities or to the Big Ten, Minnesota's relative ranking improves somewhat, but it is still true that its relative position has been eroding over the last decade. Adjustments for differences in the cost of living do not change our relative position (see footnote 4).
In summary, the competitive position of Minnesota has been seriously jeopardized by almost two decades of comparative erosion of salaries. With this decline has come increasing fears that the University is a less supportive environment for a vital, productive faculty.
Although essential to the long-term vitality of the institution, direct compensation to faculty is but one source of rewards for remaining vital and productive. Surveys of faculty satisfaction and studies of productive research groups have shown that faculty place high value on opportunities for responsibility, achievement, independent thinking, intellectually stimulating activities, and socially significant work; and availability of these opportunities is positively correlated with productivity. The University of Minnesota historically has provided many of these non-monetary rewards. In research conducted in the mid-1980's by Shirley Clark and Mary Corcoran (1985), the 63 "highly active" faculty members interviewed cited the following situations or factors in their success: stimulating colleagues, strong academically oriented administration, recognition by administration and colleagues, and resources. Currently, however, many faculty perceive an increasing disdain for faculty among some administrators and members of the Board of Regents that, if continued, could become a significant impediment to faculty vitality.
Clear goals and an emphasis on research. Commonly understood and widely shared goals are consistently present in productive organizations, both corporate and academic. Contrary to fears of interference in the solitary pursuit of research goals, a classic study of 10,000 scientists in 1,200 organizations in six countries clearly showed that some coordination of research goals is compatible with the enterprise and autonomy of individual researchers (Pelz & Andrews, 1966).
Culture. Organizational culture is the distinctiveness that sets a successful organization apart from other similar organizations. In highly productive research universities, the culture is characterized by shared values about academic freedom, participatory governance, and shared responsibility for the vitality of the institution (Rice & Austin, 1990). Many faculty fear that, at the University of Minnesota, these critical elements of the academic culture are gradually being diluted by alternative cultures (e.g., TQM, Responsibility Center Management) and by increasingly legalistic, adversarial relations. Although these alternative cultures have a place in some parts of the University, their increasing impingement on the academic mission of the institution, the associated weakening of the academic culture, and conflicts resulting from differences in underlying assumptions and values are likely to have a negative impact on faculty productivity.
The productive climate in the University has been severely impaired by the current tension among the Regents, administration, and faculty over the tenure code. The faculty believes that a strong tenure code embodies the aspects of academic culture that are essential to future vitality and productivity. Threats to traditional defenses of academic freedom undermine faculty members' willingness to take the risks inherent in pursuing new directions in their research and scholarship and in proposing new solutions to pressing problems. Moreover, insecure work environments are themselves detrimental to vitality in research. The lesson from studies of corporate downsizing is that surviving members of downsized companies become less creative and more adverse to risk. Further, on average, three years after downsizing, these companies are less profitable than similar companies in the same environment that did not downsize (Cascio, 1993). The impact on faculty vitality from attacks on the traditional defenses of academic freedom embodied in a strong tenure code is the greatest current threat to the long-term impact of the University of Minnesota on the state and beyond its boundaries.
Assertive, participative governance. Steven Kerr (1984), after reviewing the literature on leadership, concluded that "literally hundreds of studies have incontestably demonstrated the superiority of participative leadership and group decision making" in research universities. He suggests that participative leadership is most effective for the following reasons: (1) the requisite knowledge is too extensive, the conglomeration of needed skills too complex, and the simultaneity of the decisions too considerable for anything but participative leadership; (2) such leadership heightens members' morale and self-esteem; (3) it allows for diversity of perspective and variety of competencies that no one leader can possess; (4) it affords opportunities to focus on and develop commitment for the task at hand; (5) it allows subordinates to have information that increases their abilities to contribute, and (6) it reduces the opposition to decisions.
Colleges and universities with meaningful systems of shared governance are the ones that are most likely to have the strongest cadre of scholars. These individuals also are the faculty members most likely to continue to thrive amid the increasing sophistication in knowledge and complexity of universities. When these elements work successfully, as they have in the past at the University of Minnesota, the result is an institution that can make important contributions to its community.
Resources. Essential resources for faculty productivity include human resources (colleagues, assistants, technical consultants, graduate students, and leaders who understand the nature and importance of research and scholarship), time, funding, research facilities, and libraries (Creswell, 1985; Drew, 1985). Faculty colleagues not only serve as a source of knowledge, skill, expertise, emotional support, and stimulation, but they also nurture the individual's "spark" and commitment to research. Doctoral-granting institutions consistently have higher levels of research output than other types of institutions, attesting to the positive impact of able graduate students on productivity. Not surprisingly, adequate funding for research, for teaching materials, and for the technology needed for teaching and research also correlate positively with research productivity. Reductions in funding threaten these resources and undermine faculty vitality.
"Brokered" Opportunities. Vital faculty, like other creative people, sometimes get "stuck," but typically manage either to create new opportunities themselves or are fortunate to have colleagues or department heads who alert them to or encourage them to find ways to overcome barriers and continue to be productive (e.g., apply for a fellowship or sabbatical, try a different role, team teach a related course). When organizations do not provide the necessary flexibility or opportunities for these "course corrections," the result may be disillusionment and declining productivity (Finkelstein, 1996). Fostering faculty vitality thus requires policies that afford -- and administrators who actively devise and support -- opportunities for faculty members to renew themselves, to keep up with the continual knowledge and technology explosion, and to find new directions as other options decrease (Lovett, 1984).
Leadership
Leadership clearly is the most critical feature of vital organizations, as documented in the literature on research productivity. Leaders must have an understanding and appreciation of the processes of scholarship and creativity. The profile of the effective academic leader revealed by research findings is one who encourages identification and pursuit of shared goals and fosters highly participative governance (Bensimon, Neumann, & Birnbaum, 1989; Birnbaum, 1992; Hemphill, 1995; McCarthy, 1972; Knight & Holen, 1985). Sustaining and enhancing faculty vitality means selecting and supporting administrative leaders who can nurture the diverse strengths of faculty members.
In the words of higher-education experts M. LaCelle Peterson and Martin J. Finkelstein (1993), the continued success of universities "...depends on the faculty. What is too frequently overlooked, however, is [that] ... faculty members' success ... depends on the support of their institutions." Because the primary producers of knowledge in universities are faculty members, the most direct pathway to a vital, productive organization is maintaining a stable environment in which vital faculty can do their best work.
The most effective research universities have developed strategies for linking individual to organizational goals. They place a high value on the
research productivity of their faculty, have a distinctive culture, maintain a climate of respect paired with intellectual jostling, and consciously socialize new members. Effective research universities house a critical mass of scholars, including those at both junior and senior, but who convey excitement through active communication among each other and to other groups. Effective research universities have sufficient resources, particularly human capital, and a relatively flat organizational structure with leaders who facilitate group productivity through participative governance, who understand scholarship, who keep the organizational goals visible, and who carefully attend to recruitment.
What is the match between these ideal conditions and the working environment of faculty at the University of Minnesota? For decades, the match has been very good indeed, but current conditions are undermining it. Faculty salaries now compare poorly with salaries at competitor institutions. This is especially true for relatively more senior faculty who account heavily for the external funds attracted to the institution and for its relatively high rankings in many fields. Moreover, an atmosphere of disruption, tacit authoritarian disregard of participative governance, and fears for the future of the institution have engendered a crisis in morale among faculty, many of whom have devoted their professional lives to the institution and who are largely responsible for the degree of eminence and productivity it now enjoys. Many of these faculty no longer see themselves as remaining at the University of Minnesota throughout their careers, and others doubt that losses of leading faculty can be replaced by equally promising faculty at any level. Because the University's strongest programs compete with distinguished institutions on the East and West coasts, the loss of the favorable working conditions that once distinguished this university from its competitors is increasingly an obstacle to maintaining and improving the quality of the institution.
Recommendations
Keeping the faculty as vital in the future as it is now requires that not only the Board of Regents and the Central Administration, but decision-makers at every level, work consistently and in concert toward several key goals:
Some of these actions require only greater resolve by the Board of Regents and the University administration to establish priorities and re-direct policies, effort, and resources to maintain and enhance the vitality of the faculty. Other objectives, particularly that of improving salaries, growth opportunities, and resources to support faculty efforts, require new financial commitments. Failing to make such an investment threatens a sizable and immediate loss to the people of Minnesota in income, innovation, and the irreversible decline in the University of Minnesota. Happily, the record shows that maintaining and enhancing faculty vitality is an investment with a potential for payback to the people of Minnesota that is unmatched by virtually any other commitment of public will and public funds.
* * * *
Footnote 1
The top 30 research universities identified by Webster include 14 public universities and 16 private universities. Besides Minnesota, the list of schools include Brown, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Illinois, Indiana, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, North Carolina (Chapel Hill), NYU, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Purdue, Rochester, Stanford, Texas, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Yale. Although there has been some movement of schools in and out of the group of top-ranked research universities, a core of 27 schools appears on both the 1983 and the 1995 list of top-ranked research universities. The salary data cited in this paper uses the 1983 group of top-ranked research universities, because it was the group for which long term data was most readily available to us.
Footnote 2
In principle faculty compensation, salaries plus fringe benefits, also would be an appropriate comparison. However variation in budgeting practices across universities for fringe benefits means that a comparison of compensation can end up comparing apples to oranges. We have chosen to focus on salaries, as they are reported consistently across institutions and are what show up in an individual's paycheck.
The AAUP also reports something it calls average salary for all ranks. For some universities, the AAUP data on average salary for all ranks includes individuals with academic but non-professorial appointments. Practice on such appointments varies widely across universities and makes a comparison of the all ranks average salary less meaningful. The all-ranks average can also be affected by differences in the age structure of the faculty in ways that can give a misleading impression of an institution's competitiveness for individual faculty.
Footnote 3
Although comparing faculty compensation across these institutions is difficult (see footnotes 2 and 3), we can draw on comparisons of take-home pay to show how faculty members at different levels (assistant professor, associate professor, professor) are faring. The source of information is the longest and most comprehensive survey of faculty salaries available: the annual salary survey of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Footnote 4
One of the most comprehensive and recent studies of relative cost of living is the 1996 Geographic Reference Report of the Economic Research Institute. This report, covering living costs, wages, salaries and human resource statistics, for the United States and Canada, includes usable data for all but four of the top-ranked research universities. Using these data, Minnesota's comparative salary position is essentially unchanged as a result of two offsetting adjustments. On the one hand, salaries at research universities on the west coast and selected east coast cities tend to be adjusted downward due to higher cost of living estimates, but those tend to be schools with substantially higher salaries to begin with. On the other hand, salaries at research universities in the midwest and smaller cities tend to be adjusted upward, as these are often locations with lower cost of living estimates than the Twin Cities. Thus while there is movement in the relative position of particular schools, on balance these two adjustments tend to cancel out and leave the relative position of Minnesota unchanged.
* * * *
Bensimon, E. M., Neumann, A., & Birnbaum, R. (1989). Making sense of administrative leadership: The "L" word in higher education. Washington, D. C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education.
Birnbaum, R. (1992). How academic leadership works: Understanding success and failure in the college presidency. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bland, C. J. (1996). Faculty and institutional development from a university-wide perspective. Academic Medicine,
Bland, C. J., & Ruffin, M. T., IV. (1992). Characteristics of a productive research environment: Literature review. Academic Medicine, 67, 385-397.
Cascio, W. F. (1993). Downsizing: What do we know? What have we learned? Academy of Management Executive, 7, 95-104.
Clark, S. M., & Corcoran, M. (1985). Individual and organizational contributions to faculty vitality: An institutional case study. In S. M. Clark & D. R. Lewis (Eds.), Faculty vitality and institutional productivity: Critical perspectives for higher education (pp. 112-138). New York: Teachers College Press.
Creswell, J. W. (1985). Faculty researfch performance: Lessons from the sciences and social sciences. Washington, D. C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education.
Drew, D. E. (1984). Strengthening academic science. New York: Praeger.
Finkelstein, M. J. (1996). Faculty vitality in higher education. In Integrating Research on Faculty: Seeking new ways to communicate about the academic life of faculty (pp. 71-80). Washington, D. C.: National Center for Education Statistics, U. S. Department of Education.
Fox, M. F. (1991). Gender, environmental milieu, and productivity in science. In H. Zuckerman, J. R. Cote, & J. T. Bruer (Eds.), The outer circle: Women in scientific community (pp. 188-204). New York: W. W. Norton.
Hemphill, J. K. (1995). Leadership behavior associated with the administrative reputation of college departments. Educational Psychology, 46, 385-401.
Kerr, S. (1984). Leadership and participation. In A. P. Brief (Ed.), Productivity research in the behavioral and social sciences (pp. 229-251). New York: Praeger.
Knight, W. H., & Holen, M. C. (1985). Leadership and the perceived effectiveness of department chairpersons. Journal of Higher Education, 56, 678-690.
LaCelle-Peterson, M., & Finkelstein, M. J. (1993). Developing senior faculty as teachers. New Directions for Teaching and learning, 55, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Long, J. S., & McGinnis, R. (1981). Organizational context and scientific productivity. American Sociological Review, 46, 422-442. Pelz, D. C., & Andrews, F. M. (1966). Scientists in organizations: Productive climates for research and development. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lovett, C. M. (1984). Vitality without mobility: The Faculty Opportunities Audit. Washington, D. C.: The American Association for Higher Education.
McCarthy, M. J. (1972). Correlates of effectiveness among academic department heads:Report of the Office of Educational Research. Manhattan, KS: Kansas State University.
Pellino, F. R. et al. (1981). Planning and evaluating growth programs for faculty (Monograph Series 14). Ann Arbor, MI: Center for the Study of Higher Education.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A PRODUCTIVE RESEARCHER*
2. In-depth Knowledge of Their Research Area: Familiar with all major published works in the area, current major projects being conducted, differing theories, key researchers, predominant funding sources.
3. Basic Research Skills as Well as Advanced Ones Applicable to Their Research Area: For example, comfortable with basic statistics, study design, data collection methods, and with specific advanced statistics design and data collection strategies commonly used in their area.
4. Socialization: The process of learning the values, norms, expectations, and sanctions affecting established faculty researchers. Dominant values of scientists include, for example, serving society through objectivity, truthfulness, beneficence, and academic freedom.
5. Advisor/Mentor Functioning: A process of receiving assistance from and collaborating with established scientists, who teach beginning and mid-level researchers how to do research and connect them with the relevant research establishment. Such help is tangible and specific, and occurs before, during, and after training.
6. Work Habits: The establishment of productive scholarly habits early in one's career. Evidence suggests that unless such habits take hold within the first five years of a junior faculty member's appointment, they are unlikely to be developed later.
7. Professional Network: The maintenance of contact with a network of research colleagues both within and outside the institution. These networks enable researchers to build their knowledge base, to critique and replicate work, to insure the quality of work in the field, to referee journals, and to make conference presentations.
8. Productive Local Peer Support: The productivity of peers sets the norms for others. Continued reinforcement and recognition of work by colleagues stimulates productivity. That is, the same researcher publishes more when placed among productive researchers than when in a department where colleagues publish less.
9. Simultaneous Projects: Evidence suggests that scientists are more productive if engaged in multiple simultaneous projects. If one project stalls or fails, another may proved successful, and faculty are thus buffered against the disillusionment that can occur when tackling a difficult research project.
10. Sufficient Work Time: Uninterrupted time to devote to scholarly activities. Productive research faculty should devote approximately 10-80% of their total time to research, with the ideal being about 40%.
11. Orientation: Productive faculty are committed to both external and internal activities. External orientation involves attending regional and national meetings and collaborating with colleagues. Internal orientation requires involvement within one's own organization, including curriculum planning, institutional governance, and similar activities.
12. Autonomy/Commitment: Productive researchers have academic freedom, plan their own time, and set their own goals. But they also have a meaningful role within their organization and are valued as important contributors to the organization.
13. Supportive Environment: Research productivity requires an environment that provides necessary resources including: sufficient time allotment for faculty to do research, computers and/or computer time and expertise, research assistants, statistical consultants, secretaries, and dollars for travel to professional meetings. It also requires a clear group of goals, a knowledgeable and supportive leader, and a group climate that could be described as "creative--supportive--tension." See Table 2 characteristics of productive research environments.
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* Taken from "Characteristics of the Successful Researcher: Implications for Faculty Development: Bland CJ, Schmitz CC. Journal of Medical Education, Vol. 61, No. 1, 1986.
misc\char-res.hdo
1. Clear Goals that serve a coordinating function: Productive groups have clear organizational goals and people within them who have articulated personal goals that are compatible with the organizational ones. Unit goals serve to coordinate unit activities as well as significantly influence the other characteristics of the environment such as recruitment, climate, and culture.
2. Research Emphasis: The unit places priority on research or puts no less emphasis on research than on other goals. This emphasis or priority on research mission serves to bring together the climate, culture, resources, and faculty of high research potential as well as guide the communication, collaboration, and service responsibilities of the faculty.
3. Culture: The unit has a distinctive organizational culture that bonds members, provides a group identity with common values and practices, and provides a "safe" home in which to experiment.
4. Group Climate: Productive units are more likely to have high morale and a positive climate. Indicators of a positive climate include: spirit of innovation, dedication to work, receptivity to new ideas, frequency of interactions, high degree of cooperation, low faculty turnover, good leader/member relationships, and open discussion of disagreements.
5. Assertive Participative Governance: Productive units have formal mechanisms and expectations for all members to contribute to decision-making, high quality information is readily available, members feel their ideas are valued and have a sense of ownership and role in the future of the organization.
6. Decentralized Organization: Flat, decentralized structures are correlated with productive research groups. This does not mean anarchy, however. The effectiveness of decentralization was found in the context of leadership that uses assertive participative governance and has feedback systems to track quasi-autonomous parts, and where there are clear, commonly understood goals.
7. Communication: Unit members have frequent, substantive (not merely social) impromptu and formal, inter- and extra-unit communication.
8. Resources: Essential resources include humans (colleagues, assistants, technical consultants, graduate students, research knowledgeable leaders), time, funding, facilities, and libraries. However, the key feature to adequate resources is the members' perception of there being accessible, useable resources.
9. Size/Age/Diversity: In general, productivity increases with size of group. As for age, it helps to have a group together for quite a while. The trend is toward more productivity when the group includes members with different: approaches to problems, degree levels, and discipline backgrounds.
10. Rewards: Money is only one motivating factor, but it particularly operates under circumstances such as great inequities or low salaries compared to other unit members or other units. Other critical rewards include: being part of a highly regarded organization, seeing one's work applied; recognition by superiors or peers; public recognition; promotion; opportunities for responsibility, intellectual stimulation, and socially significant work. Conducive environments not only have the preferred rewards but also rewards researchers differently when their reward needs change.
11. Brokered Opportunities: "Stuckness" results in low productivity, disillusionment, and engagement. Getting stuck early in a career has a particularly negative impact on productivity. But it is also a concern for senior faculty who see their options decreasing and need to continually upgrade their knowledge and technical skills. Productive organizations facilitate continued success by proactively creating and brokering opportunities for professional development,(e.g., fellowships, sabbaticals, team teaching, non-traditional assignment, opportunities for specific training on new research equipment).
12. Recruitment and Selection: Units spend extraordinary time and effort recruiting members with specific training, socialization, commitment, and goals that match their organization.
13. Leadership: This is a critical environmental factor since the leader affects all of the other organizational characteristics. The effective leader is highly research oriented and is or was a highly skilled scholar/scientist. He or she uses this background to provide technical help to members facilitate members' contacts and networks, maintain a positive climate and strong academic culture, build a shared vision, and develop effective career ladders and reward systems. This experience also establishes a basis of power or influence built on competence, experience, and admiration. The leader facilitates group productivity through the pairing of: 1) common goals and some structure with 2) highly assertive participative governance.
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* Adapted from "Characteristics of Productive Research Environment: Literature Review" Bland CJ, Ruffin VI MT. Academic Medicine. Vol 67, No. 6, 1992. The studies reviewed in this article were done primarily in life and social sciences. Thus, the generalizability to arts and humanities is unclear.
S:\USERS\STAFF\SHARED\BLAND\SENATE\FCCPROD.T2 Tuesday, February 04, 1997