Faculty Research Incentives and Business School Health: A New Perspective from and for Marketing

Stefan Stremersch,Russell S Winer,Nuno Camacho

doi:10.1177/00222429211001050

Abstract

Grounded in sociological agency theory, the authors study the role of the faculty research incentive system in the academic research conducted at business schools and business school health. The authors surveyed 234 marketing professors and completed 22 interviews with 14 (associate) deans and 8 external institution stakeholders. They find that research quantity contributes to the research health of the school, but not to other aspects of business school health. The r-quality of research (i.e., rigor) contributes more strongly to the research health of the school than research quantity. The q-quality (i.e., practical importance) of research does not contribute to the research health of the school but does contribute positively to teaching health and several other dimensions of business school health. The authors conclude that faculty research incentives are misaligned: (1) when monitoring research faculty, the number of publications receives too much weight, while creativity, literacy, relevance, and awards receive too little weight; and (2) faculty feel that they are insufficiently compensated for their research, while (associate) deans feel they are compensated too much for their research. These incentive misalignments are largest in schools that perform the worst on research (r - and q -) quality. The authors explore how business schools and faculty can remedy these misalignments.

Highlights

Grounded in sociological agency theory, the authors study the role of the faculty research incentive system in the academic research conducted at business schools and business school health
Prior literature has hinted that the faculty research incentive system of business schools, composed of monitoring and compensation instruments, may be responsible for the main concerns on rigor and practical importance
We find that badly designed incentive systems are more prevalent in schools that perform below the median on research quality—that is, r-quality and q-quality

Summary

55 Consequences of research for business schools

Data snooping may be prevalent among strategy researchers, even though evidence is lacking. We hypothesize: H4a: The teaching health of a business school increases as research faculty produce a higher quantity of research. We hypothesize: H7: The institutional integrity of a business school increases as research faculty produce research of higher r-quality. We empirically explore the effects of the research task of the faculty on the managerial level of business school health, for which we did not posit ex ante expectations. We allow for correlated error terms when we estimate the effects of the research task of the faculty on the different dimensions of business school health. To test H1, we first generated a 2 Â 2 matrix according to a median split of respondents as below median or above median in terms of the performance on research quantity and r-quality of their business school (Figure 4, Panel A). Fisher–Hayter’s test is a revised version of the LSD test proposed by Hayter to overcome the weaknesses of the LSD test

B: Compensation Instrumentsb

Discussion

Findings

Limitations