Mixed effects of system design for university faculty hiring based on institutional theory

Abstract

Developing a system for attracting world-class talents is a primary step towards building a world-class university. The success of some existing world-class universities proves that developing such a system is the key to retaining a world-class faculty of talents. One of the major problems that have been held accountable for the underdevelopment of China's higher education is that Chinese universities are deprived of their autonomy in decision making in the process of staff hiring and fail to encourage fair competition among applicants. The highly competitive faculty hiring system that American universities employ can be a good example for universities in China to follow in their reform of faculty hiring system. This paper proposes a model of a mixed hiring system, whose positive effects on the endeavor to retain a high-level university faculty have been confirmed by an empirical study, which compared various hiring systems and their organizational performances,. This paper also suggests that universities in China can choose those hiring systems in this model that suit their own specific situations, with a view to increase their comprehensive strength.