Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2011

Abstract

The 21st century has started out with an almighty university that has been evolving to the point of believing in the metamorphosis of people and society through the creation of powerful inventions. And society seems to expect that too. Universities around the world are experiencing an increasing pressure for producing revolutionary ideas that can be translated into publications, patents, business, and the like. As a way of welcoming the third mission for universities, elite winners of this tough game are gathering prestige, visibility, and all kind of human and financial assets. Training and doing research (first and second missions) is not longer enough, universities are in a race for resources expressed in rankings that tend to model the whole higher education system. But, what about the small and middle size universities? They are watching the game and want to be part of it. This book is concerned with that group, especially private higher education that is looking for ways to become visible and attract more resources. Leadership at this institutions is everyday more entrepreneurial and after the steps of highly research productive schools. Changes like these do not come without resistance from, among others, faculty members that see these shifts as threatening their traditional teaching mission. In short, this wave of producing inventions has set an incredible amount of stress on human resources and funding at small institutions. The book portraits the perceptions professors have about producing knowledge and their organizational environment. This study seeks, through a mixed-method, to unveil organizational and personal characteristics of faculty members most relate to research productivity at 12 small- to medium-sized not-for-profit, private, doctorate-granting universities in the United States of America. As an additional contribution, the author taps into alternative models of higher education that should be consider for the broad society. This is a scholarly work that is oriented to both policy makers and scholars of private universities that are evolving from a teaching oriented culture to one more research intense.

Download

Share

COinS