Institutional Climate and the Quality of the Academic Workplace

Abstract

The Review o f Higher Education Fall 1993, Volume 17, No. 1, pp. 69-93 Copyright © 1993 Association for the Study of Higher Education All Rights Reserved (ISSN 0162-5748) Institutional Climate and the Quality of the Academic Workplace Theodore H. White, Melinda G. Spencer and Marvin W. Peterson The “New ” Focus on Quality Discussions of institutional and academic quality in higher education literature date back over a century (Fairweather and Brown 1991; Kuh 1981; Lawrence and Green 1980; Webster 1986); but since the early 1980s, issues relating to quality in education have climbed steadily higher on public, government, and higher education agendas. The current em­ phasis on quality is punctuated by external calls for faculty and admin­ istrator accountability and for “proof’ that institutions provide quality environments for faculty teaching and student learning (Lenth 1990; Mayhew, Ford, and Hubbard 1990). A growing number of institutions see quality management as a means for controlling their costs internally while enhancing their “product”— their academic offerings (Chaffee 1991; Deming 1986; Massy 1989; Scherkenbach 1991; University of Michigan Theodore H. White is Assistant Professor of Educational Administration in the Pro­ gram for Adult and Higher Education at the University of South Dakota. Melinda G. Spencer is Director of Research and Education with the Society for College and University Planning and a doctoral candidate in Higher Education Administration at the University of Michigan. Marvin W. Peterson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Michigan. He serves as Chairperson for the Program in Higher and Adult Continuing Education as well as Director of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. 70 The Review of Higher Education Fall 1993 1990). Quality has even been viewed as the central defining issue for higher education (Marcus, Leone, and Goldberg 1983; Sherr 1990). Research on quality in higher education is confusing and contradic­ tory for several reasons. First, “quality,” like “effectiveness,” is difficult to define explicitly because it is a perceptual construct that is formulated at the individual level (Peterson, Cameron, Mets, Jones, and Ettington 1986). Not only do different constituencies use different definitions of quality but individuals within constituencies do not agree on common definitions. For this reason, studies purporting to study quality often focus on very different phenomena (Garvin 1988). This confusion is compounded when the units of organizational analyses vary or are not made explicit, and findings are generalized beyond the scopes of their studies (Webster 1986; Fairweather 1988). Finally, the greater part of the writing about quality is theoretically, not empirically, based. Thus, many assumptions regarding quality improvement remain untested. Interest in better performance by higher education institutions has brought increased attention to higher education work environments and institutional quality from both internal and external constituencies. This focus emerges from the centrality of the academic workplace to the ac­ ademic functions of the institution and to such related outcomes of a high quality workplace as innovativeness, excellent teaching, high mo­ rale, improved communication, and quality scholarship (Austin and Gamson 1983; Peterson 1988). Although no set of variables is “necessary and sufficient” for defining quality (Cameron 1987), certain organiza­ tional dimensions have become widely accepted as important quality indicators. One way to begin developing our understanding of quality improve­ ment is to examine some of the dimensions associated with quality within a defined context such as the academic workplace. Based on a review of the literature, we found that generally accepted dimensions of quality in the academic workplace include support for academic innovation, chal­ lenging work, and professional treatment of faculty and their work ac­ tivities. The purpose of this study is to use these critical dimensions to study relationships of quality by examining the following question: How are institutions’ organizational and administrative climates related to the perceived innovation, challenge, and professionalism in the academic workplace when individual and organizational characteristics are held constant? The Quality o f the Academic W orkplace For the reasons just described, the research literature varies consid­ erably regarding the key characteristics of a high-quality workplace. De­ White, Spencer, & PerERSON/Institutional Climate 71 spite this variation, we find that studies focused on improving academic organizational quality repeatedly call for the creation of a flexible work...