Working Paper No. 12
Organizational Responses to the Labor Market: A Study of Faculty Searches in Comprehensive Colleges and Universities

Ted I.K. Youn and Zelda F. Gamson

Abstract

As faculty shortages loom in American higher education, how do comprehensive colleges and universities adapt themselves to labor market shifts and the increased level of  competition for new faculty? This paper is based on our extensive fieldwork, which involves interviews and observations at four institutions. We focus on 20 faculty searches and examine the processes and outcomes.  We chose the comprehensive institutions, partly because of their vulnerability to changes in higher education. Sociologically they represent the institutional sector that is formed in weakly held values and  cultures. These institutions, although predominantly for undergraduate education, are not in the family of Amherst, Williams, and Oberlin, nor are they identified as research and doctorate-granting universities, as  most offer graduate degrees.

Recruitment strategies of these institutions are governed primarily by status competition: less prestigious institutions tend to conform to the rules of more prestigious and more  legitimate forms of organizations. We observe that the search-related practices among these institutions therefore are organized around rituals of conformity to more prestigious research institutions and elite  liberal arts colleges. Search and recruitment practices often reflect preoccupation with ritualized control of credentials, specialties, and procedures. Often practices are less concerned with outcomes, but are  attentive to the processes.

Spring 1992

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