Academic publishing and teaching effectiveness: an attitudinal study of AACSB accredited business school faculty.

INTRODUCTION

Historically the role of publishing in the academy has been to provide a venue for academic discourse and the dissemination of newly created knowledge, a role that is as valid today as it was fifty or one hundred years ago. There is, however, a new paradigm emerging in business schools that is changing what should be the legitimate purpose and contribution of academic research. This shift is especially evident in schools which are currently accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and in the process of seeking reaccreditation as well as candidacy schools seeking initial accreditation.

The new standards adopted by AACSB in 2003, specifically AACSB Standards 10 and 2 (AACSB, 2003), which address defining faculty as academically qualified (AQ) and professionally qualified (PQ), have caused academic publishing to become even more highly prioritized. Under the new standards the most important component for business faculty achieving and/or maintaining AQ status is the number of refereed journal publications. Although not specifically stated in the new AACSB standards, it is widely understood that the minimum requirements for a faculty member to maintain AQ status is that they have, at a minimum, two refereed journal publications within a five year period (Miles, Hazeldine & Munilla, 2004).

The new standards have caused candidacy schools, seeking initial AACSB accreditation, and those in the reaccreditation process to require a higher percentage of their faculty to actively engage in research, and, more specifically, publish their research in peer reviewed journals. This increased emphasis on quantity of publications has the potential to shift the focus of research, to a degree greater than it has been, from what should be its primary contribution, the dissemination of new knowledge, to a focus on publishing purely for the sake of publishing.

AN INCREASING EMPHASIS ON PUBLICATIONS

Business schools at doctoral granting institutions have always placed a priority on their faculty publishing in high quality, peer reviewed academic journals. Business schools at balanced, non-doctoral schools have, in the past, focused primarily on teaching, with a balanced emphasis on research and service. But, today's business school faculties, even in balanced non-doctoral schools, are under greater pressure to produce publishable research in order to maintain their academic qualifications. This increasing emphasis on research and, particularly, research resulting in publications (Pettijohn, Udell & Parker, 1991), has been the focus of much discussion among business academicians.

In Boyer's (1990) famous work Scholarship Revisited: Priorities of the Professorship, results were reported from a national 1989 Carnegie Foundation study that 45% of business faculty believed the number of publications is the primary indicator of research productivity. Additionally, Boyer cited that 45% of business faculty did not perceive that the quality of the journal was an important criterion for tenure. Since the time of this study it appears that an even greater emphasis has been placed on published research, especially for institutions who wish to obtain or maintain their accreditation through AACSB. In a study of finance faculty, Bures and Tong (1993) reported that the primary factor influencing performance evaluations was the number of journal articles published. Arlinghaus (2002) reported in a study of AACSB accounting programs that the number of publications expected has increased at the majority of institutions. Udell, Parker and Pettijohn (1995) noted that "discussions of the validity and desire for AACSB accreditation generally become discussions of the seeming dichotomies of teaching and research" (p. 108). These authors found a difference between faculty in AACSB accredited and non-accredited institutions. Not surprisingly, faculty in AACSB accredited institutions published significantly more journal articles than their counterparts at nonaccredited schools. This coincides with the earlier finding of Ethie and Karanthanos (1994) that accredited schools value intellectual contributions as more important and teaching contributions as less important than schools without accreditation.

More recently, Roberts, Johnson and Groesbeck (2006) examined the attitudes of new faculty hired at schools who were recently accredited by AACSB. Their study found that newly hired faculty at AACSB accredited institutions value research more than established faculty. In a study on the rise of co-authorship in business journal articles a primary reason cited was that "universities and colleges have had evolving missions with an increased emphasis on scholarly endeavors" (Manton & English, 2006, p. 86). In this study of business faculty at universities in Texas which did not offer doctoral programs in business, 70% of those responding said that AACSB had a significant or very significant influence on the research and scholarly endeavors of business faculty. Only 7% of the faculty who participated in the study said that AACSB had no impact. Not surprisingly, administrators also have increased publication expectations for their faculty with a trend toward more weight on scholarly activities (Alshare, Wenger & Miller, 2007).

The inevitable result can only be that business faculty will generate a greater quantity of publishable research in order to meet the increased publication expectations, regardless of the value or relevance of that research. Although many rationales can be provided for the increased emphasis on peer reviewed journal publications, one of the primary justifications often given for this increased emphasis is that research and publishing results in more effective teaching; the premise given that faculty members who are actively engaged in research, resulting in publications, are more likely to remain current in their discipline and that, in turn, results in enhanced teaching effectiveness and student learning (AACSB, 2008). Not all agree with this viewpoint, however. "The dirty little secret at most of today's best business schools is that they chiefly serve the faculty's research interests and career goals, with too little regard for the needs of other stakeholders" (Bennis and O'Toole 2005, p. 103). Some argue that an increased emphasis on research and publications comes at the price of placing less value on teaching (Roberts, Johnson & Groesbeck, 2004).

THE VALUE OF RESEARCH ON TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

There appears to be no clear empirical evidence to support the value of research and publishing and the role it plays in enhancing teaching effectiveness. A substantial body of literature exists which has analyzed, debated and theorized about the value of a professor's research and publishing to teaching success and effectiveness. The majority of studies have concluded that there is some, albeit not strong, correlation between the quantity and/or quality of journal articles published and teaching success or effectiveness. Allman (1988) stated that research activities of faculty are related to the amount of time a faculty member devotes to teaching, and as more time and energy is devoted to research, less emphasis is placed on teaching. Kasten (1984) is therefore speculating that there is a negative relationship between research and teaching. DeYoung (1985) stated that faculty are encouraged by their departments to be highly visible. He defined high visibility as attending professional meetings and having research articles accepted for publication rather than quality teaching or students' career success after graduation. Webster (1985) also attempted to address the issue of whether there was a correlation between research and effective teaching. He found 10 empirical studies on the relationship between research and teaching success. None of the studies found a high positive correlation between research productivity and teaching success.

Over the years several scholars have conducted meta-analyses of studies examining the relationship between teaching and research. Feldman (1987) examined 42 studies and concluded that "the likelihood that research productivity actually benefits teaching is extremely small ... the two, for all practical purposes, are essentially unrelated." Hattie and Marsh (1996) conducted a meta-analysis of 58 studies exploring the correlation between teaching outcomes and measures of research productivity and their conclusion was that for teaching and research "the relationship is zero."

Tanner, Totaro and Hotard (1992) in a study of management faculty, using student opinion surveys as a measure of teaching performance and the number of papers published as the measure of research productivity, found little relationship between the two activities. Tanner, et.al. (1999) in a later study of MIS faculty concluded that any relationship that might exist between teaching and research was very weak or convoluted at best. Noser (1996) in a nationwide study of economics faculty using teaching evaluations and self reported measures of research output found only a marginal relationship between teaching and research. Bell, Frecka & Solomon (1993) in a study of accounting faculty found generally positive associations between teaching effectiveness and research publications, but also noted one of the reasons such a relationship might exist is that people who are good at research are also good at teaching because they excel at most everything they do. Tang and Chamberlain (1997) in a broad based study of six regional state universities in Tennessee compared the attitudes of administrators versus faculty in terms of the supportive relationship between teaching and research. Their study showed that administrators tended to believe that research and teaching are mutually supporting activities and that both are missions of the universities while faculty were less inclined to agree that research and teaching were essential parts of their jobs. Faculty were also more inclined to believe that research interfered with their teaching.

More recent studies have not provided additional support for the role of research in effective teaching or career success of business school graduates, at either the undergraduate or MBA level, in fact many argue that the continued emphasis on research-based knowledge has led to an "academic-practitioner divide" (e.g. Ottesen and Gronehaug 2004; Thomas 2006). Jenkins (2004) conducted a review of the literature through 2004 and also failed to find persuasive evidence that research improves teaching.

In a comprehensive study on the state of business school education and success after graduation, Pfeffer and Fong (2002) found little correlation between graduates' career successes and research output by their business faculty. While the authors acknowledged that business faculty research output is positively related to the prestige of a school/university and that graduates of the top business schools such as Wharton, Stanford, MIT, etc. tend to advance further career-wise than graduates from less prestigious institutions, they attributed this to the quality of students admitted. Pfeffer and Fong's (2002) study did not show evidence that prestigious business schools provide students with a superior education because of the faculty's research focus or output.

Beyond the failure to find a strong positive correlation between teaching and research several scholars are of the opinion that much of the research published is of dubious value and that the result of the increased emphasis has even had a negative impact on business education. Allman (1988) in an article published 20 years ago delineated what he considered several abuses of the use of research findings. The abuses included flawed research, the listing of inordinate numbers of authors on a research paper, studies with inflated results, and publishing what he called the 'minimum publishable unit,' i.e. publishing the results of a research project in small incremental units in order to maximize the quantity of publications. The current emphasis by the AACSB on quantity of publications will most likely lead to an increase in the types of abuses cited by Allman twenty years ago.

One of the most critical statements about academic research and publishing, in general, came from Cornell physicist N. David Mermin who said "many of the papers written today contain trivial and uninteresting results. If 80 percent of them weren't written, the progress of science wouldn't be affected at all" (Allman, 1988). Charles J. Sykes (1988) offered an equally critical analysis of research by stating:

"A bill of indictment for the professors' crimes against higher education would be lengthy. Here is a partial one: They have created a culture in which bad teaching goes unnoticed and unsanctioned and good teaching is penalized. They have cloaked their scholarship in stupefying, inscrutable jargon. This conceals the fact that much of what passes for research is trivial and inane. In tens of thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of journal articles, they have perverted the system of academic publishing into a scheme that serves only to advance academic careers and bloat libraries with masses of unread, unreadable, and worthless pabulum."

Warren G. Bennis, one of today's leading scholars on leadership and James O'Toole, research professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Effective Organizations contend that there is a crisis in management education, especially in graduate education, in today's business schools. Bennis and O'Toole (2005) state:

"During the past several decades, many leading B schools have quietly adopted an inappropriate--and ultimately self-defeating--model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculties understand important drivers of business performance, they measure themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. They have adopted a model of science that uses abstract financial and economic analysis, statistical multiple regressions, and laboratory psychology. Some of the research produced is excellent, but because so little of it is grounded in actual business practices, the focus of graduate business education has become increasingly circumscribed--and less and less relevant to practitioners."

From an institutional point of view the research productivity of a university's faculty has some very obvious beneficial outcomes. The two most obvious benefits are increasing the status of the institution and securing grant dollars. However, good teaching takes place in the classroom between the individual faculty and students and the evidence on the benefit of research to teaching effectiveness does not generally support the proposition that research enhances that interaction or outcome. Based on the current empirical evidence on the hypothesized relationship between teaching and research at best there would appear to be little or no effect on teaching effectiveness, at worst it could be an impediment to improving teaching.

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY

In light of the lack of any clear evidence that increasing levels of research and publishing leads to enhanced teaching outcomes and student learning, are business schools, especially those at balanced nondoctoral schools, and the AACSB on the right track by placing greater emphasis on their faculty's research and publishing and determining academic qualification almost exclusively on the number of published research papers? The purpose of this study is not to confirm nor discredit prior conclusions about the value of research and publishing or its correlation with teaching/learning outcomes. That debate will be left to those more concerned with the pedagogical aspects of the role of research on teaching effectiveness in general. This study is an attitudinal study and is designed to examine the more narrow issue of how business administration faculty themselves perceive the value of research and publishing as it relates to increased teaching effectiveness and their opinions about the role of research. Specifically the major research questions of interest are:

1. Do business administration faculty, at AACSB accredited schools, who engage in research and publishing perceive that their teaching effectiveness is enhanced by their research and publishing?

2. To what extent to business professors feel that research and teaching are mutually supporting activities versus conflicting activities?

3. To what extent do professors actually incorporate their research and published findings into the classroom?

METHODOLOGY

A survey was developed to gather attitudinal information about various aspects of the research and teaching activities of faculty and their perceptions about the value of their research and publishing relative to their teaching effectiveness. One thousand business faculty members from the list of AACSB accredited schools were randomly chosen. E-mail addresses for these faculty members were obtained from their respective university's web site. Each faculty member selected was sent an e-mail asking for their participation. The e-mail included a link to the questionnaire that could be accessed online. A follow-up email request was sent to non-respondents two weeks after the initial request. Ten e-mails were blocked with an additional 44 undeliverable, leaving a remaining sample of 946 business faculty. A total of 136 faculty responded to the survey, resulting in a 14.4% response rate. Although the response rate was lower than desired, it is fairly typical of online surveys (Deutskens et al. 2004; Porter and Whitcomb, 2003). In an effort to rule out non-response error, the respondents were compared based on when they completed the survey. Respondents who completed the survey within 24 hours of receipt of the initial e-mail were compared to respondents who responded two weeks later as previous research has shown that those who respond less readily, late responders, are similar to non-respondents (Armstrong and Overton, 1977). Because no differences were found demographically, attitudinally or behaviorally, it can be concluded that the data did not suffer from non-response issues.

PROFILE OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS

A profile of the survey respondents is summarized in Table 1. In terms of rank, one-third of those responding (33.6%) were full professors, 31.3% were associate professors, 23.7% were assistant professors, 6.1% were instructors, and the remaining 5.3% were in other categories to include lecturer, executive/professor in residence, etc. With regard to tenure status, 58.8% of those responding were tenured, while the remaining 41.2% were not tenured. Slightly more than one-half of those responding, 54.2%, said they had no administrative duties in addition to their role as a faculty member. The respondents represented the breadth of business disciplines where 24.4% were from marketing, 20.6% were management, 13% were finance, 12.2% were information systems, 10.7% were accounting, 7.6% were economics, and 4.6% were operations. In terms of credit hour teaching load per academic term, the majority of those responding, 43%, taught nine credit hours per term. An additional 21.9% taught twelve credit hours, while 18% taught six credit hours. Almost two-thirds of the survey respondents were male (64.1%).

RESULTS

Responses to the statements regarding faculty attitudes on the impact of research on teaching are provided in Table 2. Table 3 provides information on the statistically significant differences between the respondents' demographic groupings where applicable. For the purposes of presentation, the statements are not listed in the order presented in the survey but, rather, grouped into two areas: personal perspectives on teaching and research and the perceived impact of research on teaching.

Faculty almost overwhelmingly agreed with the statement "if receipt of tenure and promotion were not contingent on research and publishing, most business faculty would devote less time and effort to this activity". More than four-fifths of those responding (83.8%) either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. The mean rating of 4.10 was the highest in the survey. This also leads one to believe that faculty would produce fewer publications if this were not a criterion for tenure and promotion.

An interesting but not surprising result is represented by the item regarding the primary reason for conducting research. The mean for the statement "for most business faculty, the primary reason for conducting research is to secure a publication rather than advance the body of knowledge" was 3.93 with two-thirds (67.4%) of the respondents either agreeing or strongly agreeing with this statement. Only 11.1% disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement. It was also not surprising that faculty with higher teaching loads were more likely to agree with this statement. This result seems to reinforce the findings from previous studies and is concert with the notion that an increasing emphasis on the number of publications may indeed lend itself to an emphasis on the output from scholarly activity rather than the outcome. One-half of those responding (50%) also agreed with the statement "business schools place too much emphasis on research" The remaining one-half either disagreed (28.1%) or neither agreed or disagreed (21.3% with this statement. Interestingly, female faculty were more likely to agree with this statement than males and accounting faculty were more likely to agree than were economics faculty.

While many faculty agreed or strongly agreed (60.3%) with the statement "teaching and research are mutually supportive activities", an almost equally high percentage of faculty agreed or strongly agreed (57.1%) that "teaching interferes with my research productivity". Male faculty were more likely than female faculty to agree with that teaching and research are mutually supportive. Assistant professors are more likely to agree that teaching interferes with research than were instructors. This makes intuitive sense since assistant professors are typically on the tenure-track and are under pressure to have a specified publication record in order to be tenured and promoted. Interestingly, only one-third (33.1%) of those responding agreed with the statement "research interferes with my teaching effectiveness". However, assistant professors were far more likely to agree with this statement than were full professors. Again, this intuitively is sound given the pressures for assistant professors to have adequate records in both teaching and research at most balanced institutions.

The largest percentage of faculty responding, 55.6%, neither agreed or disagreed with the statement "the practice of business has been greatly advanced due to the volume of published academic research over the past 10 years". An additional 25.6% disagreed or strongly disagreed, while 18.8% agreed or strongly agreed. It is likely that most faculty have no real knowledge of the merit of most academic contributions on practice which may account for such a high percentage responding in the neutral category. Faculty typically did not agree that "the most highly rated professors, by students, in my department are those who are the most prolific publishers". Only 11% of those responding said they either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, while 62.5% either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

The items regarding the perceived impact of research on students/teaching also reported mixed results. While almost two-thirds of those responding agreed with the statements "by researching and publishing, I am a better teacher" (61.8%) and "business students' educational experience is enhanced by the research activities of their professors" (61.5%), the majority of faculty disagreed that "securing publications in prestigious academic journals contributes more to teaching excellence than publications in less prestigious journals" (66.9%). It should be noted, though, that faculty with administrative assignments and faculty with a lower teaching load, were more likely to believe that researching and publishing makes a faculty member a better teacher. Administrative faculty were also more likely to agree that the educational experience of students is enhanced by a professor's research activities. This may be because faculty serving in an administrative role are the ones typically charged with setting the research expectations and, as these expectations continue to increase, espousing the notion that teaching benefits from increased research makes the concept more salient to faculty.

While faculty appeared to support the idea that research benefited teaching, this was not evidenced by how faculty perceived the impact of their research on students. Only 33.3% of faculty responding agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "my students are generally aware of my current research projects". More than one-half, 52.2%, in fact, disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement. Only 16.2% agreed or strongly agreed that "my students have an appreciation for my contributions to my academic discipline resulting from my publications", while 69.1% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Results as to how faculty meshed research activities with teaching and learning were mixed. Almost one-half of those responding, 47.8%, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "I regularly use published research from academic journals or conference proceedings when preparing for my classes". An additional 37.5% indicated they did use their research to help prepare for class. When asked to react to the statement "students would not be as well prepared, academically, to enter the business world if their professors did not publish in academic journals", 48.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed while 30.1% agreed or strongly agreed.

DISCUSSION

This study examined the perceived impact of research and publishing on teaching effectiveness. Results revealed that faculty in non-doctoral granting business colleges say that their research activities actually make them better teachers. Faculty also perceived that their research enhances the educational experience of their students. Perceptions, however, did not appear to reflect actual behavior. Most faculty who participated in the study acknowledged that their students were unaware of their research and that publishing in prestigious publications did not contribute to teaching excellence any differently than less prominent outlets. More importantly, the majority of faculty in this study did not use published research when preparing materials for class. If students are unaware of faculty research efforts, publication outlets do not enhance teaching, and published research is not used in class preparation, it begs several questions. How does or can research enhances the overall educational experience of business students? What specific elements of a faculty member's research improves his/her instructional quality? Why do faculty typically not use published research in preparing course materials? There seems to be a disconnect between how faculty think and act. Is it possible that faculty believe that research enhances teaching because it provides them with a sense of self efficacy? If faculty truly desire to bridge the gap between thought and action, they should examine mechanisms for bringing their research into the classroom environment.

Faculty also sent conflicting messages about their personal perceptions of research. While the majority said that teaching and research are mutually supportive activities, a large number also noted that their teaching obligations interfered with their research agenda. They did not, however, typically think that research interfered with their teaching. More telling is that an overwhelming number of the faculty surveyed said they would spend less time in research and publishing activities if it were not expected for tenure and promotion. Many also acknowledged that most faculty publish to secure a publication rather than advance the body of knowledge in their discipline or, more plainly, many faculty publish for the sake of publishing. If research is simply a means to an end--the publication--how do disciplines, business practice and students benefit? This is an important question for faculty, administrators and accrediting bodies to examine. If no one other than the author of the research benefits, it seems as business schools have lost their compass. It is imperative that accrediting bodies begin to evaluate research less on numbers and more on how it will impact the various stakeholders of the business school, most importantly, the future business leaders who are sitting in today's classrooms. It is up to everyone involved to make research relevant, not only to other researchers, but to enhance the teaching and learning experience as well.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

One limitation of this study was that the low response rate resulted in a smaller than expected effective sample size. While the test of early versus late respondents did not reveal any significant differences, a larger sample size would have allowed for closer examination of differences by some of the classification variables, particularly discipline. A follow-on study focused on discipline with a sufficient sample size within discipline would provide an interesting comparison to better understand the impact of research on teaching and learning. Additionally, the sample included only AACSB-accredited schools. Future research could include both AACSB candidacy schools as well as schools non-accredited institutions in order to determine the impact of the accreditation factor. Another direction for future research might be a cross-cultural examination of business schools in multiple countries in order to understand how research is used in various cultural settings. Finally, a study examining behavioral variables related to research and teaching coupled with faculty altitudinal variables would provide an interesting mechanism for determining how what faculty say about research and teaching translates into what they actually do.

REFERENCES

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Robert L. Taylor, Radford University 

Angela D'Auria Stanton, Radford University

Table 1: Profile of the survey respondents

Faculty Rank

Rank                             % Responding

Instructor                            6.1
Assistant Professor                  23.7
Associate Professor                  31.3
Full Professor                       33.6
Other                                 5.3

Teaching Load Per Academic Term

Credit Hours Taught              % Responding

Less than 6                         10.9
6                                   18.0
7-8                                  4.7
9                                   43.0
12                                  21.9
More than 12                         1.6

Gender

Male                                64.1
Female                              35.9

Business Discipline

Discipline                       % Responding

Accounting                          10.7
Business Law                         2.3
Economics                            7.6
Finance                             13.0
Information Systems/MIS             12.2
Management                          20.6

Marketing                           24.4
Operations                           4.6
Other                                4.6

Tenure Status

Status                           % Responding

Tenured                             58.8
Not tenured                         41.2

Administrative Duties in Addition to Faculty Role

No                                  54.2%
Yes                                 45.8%

Table 2: Faculty attitudes toward the impact of research on teaching

                                                 Percentage
                                                 Responding

                                                 Agree /
                                                  Strong
       Attitudinal statement            Mean      Agree

Personal perspectives on teaching and research

Teaching and research are mutually
  supportive activities                 3.52       60.3
Research interferes with my
  teaching effectiveness                2.85       33.1
Teaching interferes with my
  research productivity                 3.41       57.1
Business schools place too much
  emphasis on publications              3.38       50.0
For most business faculty, the
  primary reason for conducting
  research is to secure a
  publication rather than advance
  the body of knowledge                 3.93       67.4
If receipt of tenure and promotion
  were not contingent on research
  and publishing, most business
  faculty would devote less time
  and effort to this activity           4.10       83.8
The most highly rated professors,
  by students, in my department
  are those who are the most
  prolific publishers                   2.15       11.0
The practice of business has
  been greatly advanced due to the
  volume of published academic
  research over the past 10 years       2.88       18.8

Perceived impact of research on students/teaching

Business students educational
  experience is enhanced by the
  research activities of their
  professors                            3.54       61.5
Securing publications in
  prestigious academic journals
  contributes more to teaching
  excellence than publications in
  less prestigious journals             2.20       11.8
Students would not be as well
  enter the business world
  if their professors did not
  publish in academic journals          2.66       30.1
My students are generally aware
  of my current research projects       2.71       33.1
My students have an appreciation
  for my contributions to my
  academic discipline resulting
  from my publications                  2.21       16.2
By researching and publishing,
  I am a better teacher                 3.57       61.8
I regularly use published research
  from academic journal or
  conference proceedings when
  preparing for my classes              2.81       37.5

                                      Percentage Responding

                                      Neither    Disagree/
                                      Agree or   Strongly
       Attitudinal statement          Disagree   Disagree

Personal perspectives on teaching and research

Teaching and research are mutually
  supportive activities                 16.2       23.5
Research interferes with my
  teaching effectiveness                18.4       48.5
Teaching interferes with my
  research productivity                 14.8       28.1
Business schools place too much
  emphasis on publications              21.3       28.7
For most business faculty, the
  primary reason for conducting
  research is to secure a
  publication rather than advance
  the body of knowledge                 21.5       11.1
If receipt of tenure and promotion
  were not contingent on research
  and publishing, most business
  faculty would devote less time
  and effort to this activity           7.4        8.8
The most highly rated professors,
  by students, in my department
  are those who are the most
  prolific publishers                   26.5       62.5
The practice of business has
  been greatly advanced due to the
  volume of published academic
  research over the past 10 years       55.6       25.6

Perceived impact of research on students/teaching

Business students educational
  experience is enhanced by the
  research activities of their
  professors                            18.5       20.0
Securing publications in
  prestigious academic journals
  contributes more to teaching
  excellence than publications in
  less prestigious journals             21.3       66.9
Students would not be as well
  enter the business world
  if their professors did not
  publish in academic journals          21.3       48.5
My students are generally aware
  of my current research projects       14.7       52.2
My students have an appreciation
  for my contributions to my
  academic discipline resulting
  from my publications                  14.7       69.1
By researching and publishing,
  I am a better teacher                 18.4       19.9
I regularly use published research
  from academic journal or
  conference proceedings when
  preparing for my classes              14.7       47.8

Table 3: Statistically significant differences in faculty attitudes

                                Statistically Significant
Attitudinal Statement                  Differences

Personal perspectives on teaching and research

Teaching and research       * Males were more likely to
are mutually supportive       agree with this statement than
activities                    females (p [less than or equal
                              .007) to] .035)

                            * Economics faculty were more
                              likely to agree with this
                              statement than accounting
                              faculty (p [less than or equal
                              to] .007)

Research interferes         * Faculty at the instructor rank
with my teaching              were more likely to agree with
effectiveness                 this statement than those at
                              the associate professor (p
                              [less than or equal to] .019)
                              or full professor rank (p
                              [less than or equal to] .007)

                            * Faculty at the assistant
                              professor rank were more
                              likely to agree with this
                              statement than those at the
                              full professor rank (p [less
                              than or equal to] .027)

                            * Accounting faculty were more
                              likely to agree with this
                              statement than economics
                              faculty (p [less than or equal
                              to] .039)

Teaching interferes         * Faculty at the instructor rank
with my research              were less likely to agree with
productivity                  this statement than those at
                              the assistant professor rank
                              (p [less than or equal to]
                              .05)

Business schools place      * Females were more likely to
too much emphasis on          agree with this statement than
publications                  males (p [less than or equal
                              to] .04)

                            * Accounting faculty were more
                              likely to agree with this
                              statement than economics
                              faculty (p [less than or equal
                              to] .008)

For most business           * Faculty who teach 12 hours
faculty, the primary          were more likely to agree with
reason for conducting         this statement than those who
research is to secure a       teach fewer than 6 credit
publication rather than       hours (p [less than or equal
advance the body of           to] .05)
knowledge

Perceived impact of research on students/teaching

Business students'          * Faculty with administrative
educational experience        duties were more likely to
is enhanced by the            agree with this statements
research activities of        than those without
their professors              administrative duties (p [less
                              than or equal to] .007)

Students would not be       * Males were more likely to
as well prepared,             agree with this statement than
academically, to enter        females (p [less than or equal
the business world if         to] .045)
their professors did
not publish in academic
journals

By researching and          * Faculty with administrative
publishing, I am a            duties were more likely to
better teacher                agree with this statements
                              than those without
                              administrative duties (p [less
                              than or equal to] .031)

                            * Faculty at the instructor rank
                              were less likely to agree with
                              this statement than those at
                              the assistant (p [less than or
                              equal to] .049), associate (p
                              [less than or equal to] .007)
                              or full professor rank (p
                              [less than or equal to] .005)

                            * Faculty who teach 12 credit
                              hours were less likely to
                              agree with this statement than
                              those who teach fewer than 6
                              credit hours (p [less than or
                              equal to] .042), 6 credit
                              hours (p [less than or equal
                              to] .048), and 9 credit hours
                              (p [less than or equal to]
                              .013