MYTHS AND REALITIES OF ACADEMIC LABOR-MARKETS

This study examines national data on 4481 full-time faculty in 4-year colleges and universities to develop a model of faculty pay derived from competing propositions about the role of pay in faculty rewards. The traditional view of faculty pay is one based on market segmentation, where teaching-oriented institutions reward teaching productivity and research-oriented universities reward scholarly productivity highly. A competing school of thought holds that pay reflects a single national market for faculty, where the same type of faculty behavior is valued across different types of schools. This perspective is consistent with sociological research, which claims that pay reinforces a dominant cultural norm, prestige achieved through research and publishing, rather than reflecting variation in institutional markets. A third perspective is that pay reflects incentives to reinforce these internal norms rather than to reflect differences in markets. Findings suggest that some form of market segmentation exists, although the segmentation does not follow purported differences between institutional missions. Instead, research-oriented behaviors are valued across most types of institution, lending support to the national market perspective.