Is There Coherence Between University Missions and Promotion Criteria? the Role of the Preferences of Academics

Over the past decades policy discourses and normative models proposed for the universities have promoted the integration of the different missions of universities: teaching, research and knowledge transfer. Previous research has suggested the potential disruption of these changes in universities; the transformation into an “entrepreneurial university” (Etzkowitz et al. 2000) or the movement of universities and industry “from separate systems to hybrid order” (Owen-Smith 2003).

Expanding university missions increases the complexity of human resource management. Most universities worldwide that have adopted this strategic approach now confront the challenge of hiring and selecting staff that could cope with the potential problem of role strain. Additionally, rapid change in institutions increases the complexity of the university environment and faculty members’ professional lives become more difficult with the need to accept multiples roles

Our paper recovers the role theory, initially developed by Merton (1957) and applied to the situation of researchers working in industry (Box and Cotgrove 1966), to empirically analyze the opinions and personal preferences of academics regarding the university missions. We also compare the adherence of academics to the different missions and their opinions and coherence regarding the evaluation criteria for hiring and promotion.

Our research is based on data coming from a survey carried out in 2015 among more than 5000 Spanish academics in a representative sample of universities across the national territory.

Controlling for some relevant variables such as gender or age, this research will provide novel evidence on the differences in preferences and opinions of academics regarding university mission and the role of some critical variables of their careers such as national and international mobility, participation and coordination of research projects, supervision of PhD students, participation in committees, productivity, etc. We also explore the existence of differences among academics across fields and types of universities.