James C. Hearn

The ascendance of market-based pressures in higher education has prompted core organizational shifts in public research universities in the US. Since the 1980s, neoliberal observers have increasingly viewed these social institutions as entities generating economic returns from investments by attracting students and securing research and development (R&D) funding. PRUs’ evolving strategic and managerial orientations, as well as formal structures and processes, have thus come to reflect corporatized theories of action (i.e., logics). In this chapter, we highlight three critical organizational shifts along these lines: (1) restructuring academic labor, (2) adopting strategic enrollment management and market-relevant curricula, and (3) redesigning organizational structures and funding streams. Each change is vital to contemporary economic imperatives, yet each further stratifies professors, students, disciplines and fields, and institutions. We apply sociological theories attending to the origins, nature, and outcomes of each shift and to their collective implications for PRUs’ organizational character in terms of their integrity and trustworthiness. This chapter shows the ways in which PRUs are highly constrained in holding together the enterprise as a whole and in prioritizing public values and purposes over narrow self-interests. We observe some comparable patterns in US and UK higher education and discuss sociological implications that apply to the broader Anglo-American context.

Numerous observers and critics of higher education, including some policymakers, have suggested that hiring and maintaining faculty on tenure lines is a primary source of inefficiency in colleges and universities. These “disrupters” argue that reducing commitments to tenure will lead to cost savings and more effective adaptations to changing markets for various degrees. Does increasing hiring of “contingent” (non-tenure-line) faculty indeed bring financial benefits? In this analysis, we use longitudinal data to examine that hypothesis in financially stressed public master’s and doctoral institutions over the period 2003 to 2014. The analysis provides no support for the hypothesis. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

National tertiary-education systems are in a period of transition worldwide. Numerous systems have grown dramatically in enrollments and many have undergone structural reforms. Often, these organizational changes flow in the direction of greater privatization in association with increased accountability for performance on various dimensions. This essay outlines the growing movement in that direction in the U.S. and examines the trends’ implications for management, enrollment, stratification, pay, and staffing in that country. Conclusions focus on broader questions of the public good.

By 2010, all but 12 U.S. states had adopted some form of research and development tax credits. The forces driving the rapid rise and spread of this policy remain unclear. This event history analysis finds adoption to be associated with higher state unemployment levels, supporting the notion of “policy-making from disadvantage.” Yet higher patenting activity is also associated with adoption, suggesting that having a strong preexisting research and development (R&D) infrastructure facilitates adoption. In the 1980s, having a Republican governor apparently propelled adoption, but partisan influences disappeared in later years. Having a governorship with constitutionally strong budgetary power and having a centralized governing board for higher education are associated with adoption, and interaction analyses indicate that the combination of a centralized board and a higher number of research universities are especially positive forces in adoption. The socioeconomic, political, and structural influences found in this article suggest several potentially fruitful directions for future analyses.

Over the past two decades, state governments have increasingly invested in programs to recruit accomplished scientists from elsewhere to university positions. This event history analysis suggests that an intriguing mix of comparative state disadvantage and leveragable existing research resources is associated with the likelihood of states adopting such programs.