meritorious work and faculty rewards: an empirical test of the relationship

MERITORIOUS WORK AND FACULTY REWARDS: An Empirical Test of the Relationship

M a r v i n J o h n s o n a n d K a t h e r i n e K a s t e n

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Previous research that tested the relationships between faculty performance in research, teaching, and service and faculty rewards has been inconclusive for several reasons. This case study of a large department at a midwestern research university examines these relationships. In this department, teaching quality was found to be a significant determinant of salary, though teaching quantity was not. While research, as measured by publications and presentations, had a significant effect on one year's salary increment, it did not affect salaries over several years. Administrative service was found to be significantly related to salary, as was public service. Implications of the study for research and practical applications of the methodology are examined.

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Distribution of rewards in the university traditionally has been based on the merit principle. However, pressures for other reward systems have grown in the last two decades. Collective bargaining among faculty, for example, has encouraged rewards based on seniority or longevity. Grade inflation has decreased the degree to which high grades reflect meritorious work on the part of students. Despite forces toward egalitarianism for both faculty and students, the essentially meritocratic character of intellectual pursuits is hard to overcome (Wilson, 1979). The research reported hefe is an empirical test of the assertion that meritorious performance by faculty is still rewarded within the university. The first section of the paper summarizes previous research. The next section describes the salient features of a large department in a major midwestern research university. In a third section, five basic research questions are specified and the data available on the relevant variables for the department are summarized. The regression results are presented and discussed in the fourth section. The implications of this work, as weil as the applicability of its methodology in broader contexts, are considered in the final section.

Marvin Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Katherine Kasten, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Research in Higher Education © Agathon Press, Inc. Vol. 19, No. 1, 1983

49

50 JOHNSON AND KASTEN

THE LITERATURE

All research in this area has been limited by the degree to which faculty work can be empirically described. Rewards that might be available to faculty for performance are diverse. Tuckman (1979) listed four kinds of rewards available to faculty: (1) salary increments or merit raises; (2) direct nonmone- tary satisfactions such as acclaim from students and peers and feelings of self-satisfaction and self-worth; (3) promotions to a higher rank; and (4) in- ternal and external career options such as positions in administration, access to research grants, outside consulting, and government jobs. Tuckman's list was not exhaustive. For example, reduced teaching loads, more favorable hours, and access to more graduate students were explicitly excluded because monetary equivalents are hard to obtain. Other possible incentives can be suggested. Smart (1978) described family incentives (such as geographic loca- tion and job and educational opportunities for spouses and children) and interpersonal incentives (such as collegial relationships) that might be part of the reward system for faculty. Additional quantifiable incentives such as leaves of absence, travel and research funds, parking privileges, and admis- sions to university activities were suggested by Fenker (1977). However, most researchers have used the most easily identifiable and quantifiable rewards- salary or salary increments, promotion, and r a n k - a s dependent variables.

Similarly, factors that might affect salary, promotion, and rank have been limited to quantifiable variables. Professors' work traditionally has been defined in terms of research or scholarship, teaching, and service to the institution, the profession, and the larger community. Wilson (1979), f o r example, reported that a study of factors affecting promotions at the Univer- sity of Minnesota between 1913 and 1931 found the following issues relevant: teaching, scholarship, student counseling, administrative work, and public service. Subkoviak and Levin (1974) found that faculty in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were described by respondents from the department primarily in terms of research, teaching, and service. A study of faculty allocations of time at the Univer- sity of Illinois (DeVries, 1975) reported the following time distribution: teaching, 44O7o; research, 29°70; and service or other, 15070. A similar study (Dornbusch, 1979) reported similar time aUocations for faculty at Duke, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin, and Yale. However, substantial differences in the ways these aspects of faculty work have been operationally defined have made it difficult to compare results across studies and have severely limited inter- pretations of findings.

Research that addresses the question of what is rewarded in faculty work has taken two general approaches. Several studies have been based on data collected across hundreds of institutions and thousands of faculty. Results

FACULTY PERFORMANCE AND REWARDS 51

of some of these studies are summarized in Table 1. The studies generally support what most faculty members assume to be true about research and faculty rewards: research is highly rewarded in academic communities. The relationship between teaching and rewards is not clear from the studies reported here. Marsh and Dillon (1980) reported negative correlations, though teaching was measured through faculty reports of personal interest and time spent. The Tuckman studies (Tuckman, 1979; Tuckman, Gapinski, and Hagemann, 1977; Tuckman and Hagemann, 1976) generatly report nonsig- nificant relationships between teaching and rewards. Again, the measure of teaching used is problematic. The American Council on Education data, which the Tuckman studies used, included only receipt of an outstanding teaching award as a measure of teaching effectiveness. Since some institutions do not offer this award, salary increments offered to good teachers at those institutions would not be recognized under this operational definition. Thus, though these studies together suggest that gõod teaching is not rewarded in academic institutions, the evidence does not clearly support that conclusion. When service was defined as service to the university in an administrative position, research indicates that the rewards to faculty are substantial. The rewards for external service were found to be significant but less substantial. In other words, the service of a typical faculty member is likely to have a small but significant effect on rewards.

Other studies of faculty rewards have analyzed the reward structure in particular departments, disciplines, and universities. Katz (1973) studied the reward structure across 11 departments at the University of Illinois. The dependent variable was salary for the 1969-1970 academic year. The independent variables measuring research were total books published, total number of articles published, and number of articles published in excellent journals in the discipline. Teaching performance was measured by whether the professor ranked in the top 50% on student evaluations and number of dissertations supervised. Service was indicated by the number of hours per week devoted to public service activities and the number of hours per week devoted to committee work. Additional variables indicating department, quality of undergraduate and graduate education, administrative assignment, sex, and length of yearly appointment were included. The resulting regression equation explained 68% of the total variation in salary, and all variables were significant at the .01 or .05 level with the exception of the teaching rating and two variables related to quality of undergraduate institution. Katz concluded that publications and dissertations supervised were important determinants of salary. Teaching ability as measured by student evaluations was inconse- quential. Public service and committee work were modestly rewarded.

Koch and Chizmar (1973) conducted their research on faculty rewards at Illinois State University, an institution that they described as "a predomi-

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nantly undergraduate institution which contends that teaching competence is the primary goal of its academic faculty" (p. 27). The research used peer evaluations of research, teaching, and service as independent variables re- flecting performance in these areas. Additional variables included rank, years since receipt of the Ph.D., sex, race, and an assessment of the market de- mand for faculty in a particular area. Absolute salary and salary increment 1972-1973 were used as dependent variables. The researchers found that few of the peer judgment variables attained statistical significance as predictors of absolute salary. Nonmerit variables such as years of experience, market conditions, and sex were significant, as was rank. In contrast, the peer evaluation variables related to research, teaching, and service were significant predictors of salary increment, with teaching competence identified as the most important determinant and service work as least important. Koch and Chiz- mar concluded that the reward structure at Illinois State University was, indeed, different from that at major research institutions such as that examined by Katz (1973).

Siegfried and White (1973a, 1973b) examined the reward structure in the Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The researchers looked at the relationship between gross salary for the academic year 1971-1972 and years of experience, publications in four categories, teaching measured by adjusted scores on a single item from the student evaluation form used by the department, and whether or not a professor had held a major administrative position at the university. They found that all of the independent variables were statistically significant at the .01 level with the exceptions of teaching performance, which was significant at the .10 level (Siegfried and White, 1973b), and monographs, which was not statistically significant. Eighty-eight percent of the variation in salary levels was explained by the independent variables. Rewards for journal publications were greater than rewards for experience, but experience was more highly rewarded than other publications. By far the greatest rewards in terms of salary accrued to those professors who had held major administrative positions.

Results of these three studies are compared in Table 2. The studies done at large public research institutions (Katz, 1973; Siegfried and White, 1973a and 1973b) indicated significant effects of publications on absolute salary. The results for teaching were more equivocal, though it should be noted that faculty evaluations as used to evaluate teaching by Koch and Chizmar (1973) are likely to be more highly correlated with salary than student evaluations if faculty participate in salary decisions, a factor that Koch and Chizmar did not address. Service was operationally defined too diversely across the three studies to permit comparison.

Research that cuts across institutions, disciplines, and departments has the advantage of generating results that indicate general trends. However, studies

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that include a variety of institutions and disciplines presume homogeneity across a variety of faculty work patterns, funding sources, and governance models (Baldridge et al., 1977). This assumption is rarely justified. These studies also require comparable data across institutions and disciplines, a limitation that has been noted above. Research conducted in a single department has advantages that large-scale studies lack. It permits a faculty to analyze the reward structure in operation and to test whether pay increases and other rewards are, in fact, allocated on the basis of merit. Though this analysis can be done only in departments of substantial size in which data on relevant factors have been collected, the benefits to faculty and administrators responsible for salary aUocations should be clear. Moreover, accumula- tion of many of these studies across departments and institutions would permit generalization while avoiding the problems of large-scale studies. The research reported below illustrates how data about faculty work and faculty rewards can be used to analyze the reward structure in a single department.

THE RESEARCH SETTING

This study uses data collected over a 10-year period in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study includes professors who held active appointments in the department as of July 1, 1980:25 full professors, 4 associates, and 3 assistants. Thirty of the faculty had been continuously employed in the department since 1976; two joined the department in 1980. As of January 1981 faculty ranged in age from 26 to 69 with a median age of 50. Faculty earned their terminal degrees between 1947 and 1980. Half the faculty had served at least 15 years at Wis- consin at the time of the study. Eight professors had won major awards from professional groups outside the university. The faculty included in 1981 three former chairs of the department, the current chair, and a former dean in extension. One member of the department is a Vilas Professor, a university title that carries a $10,000 per year stipend.

All faculty members in the department are on 12-month contracts. Salaries in fiscal 1981 ranged from $24,000 to $56,762, with a median of $35,049. Between 1980 and 1981 faculty received raises of between $1,859 and $4,579 (median = $3,000) and between 6.54% and 14.95°/0 (median = 9.00%) of their 1980 salaries. Faculty members who were continuously employed from 1977 through 1981 earned raises of between $5,574 and $13,162 (median = $9,224) and between 25.4% and 53.6% (median = 35.4°70) during these 4 years.

Academic work for agricultural economists at Wisconsin includes teaching, research, extension activities, and service. During the calendar years 1976-1979, the 30 continuously employed faculty members in the department wrote 52 refereed journal articles, 14 refereed comments and replies, 26

FACULTYPERFORMANCE AND REWARDS 57

research bulletins and reports, 16 book reviews, 4 books, 28 book chapters, 90 papers for presentation, 120 manuscripts that received some review, and 297 other manuscripts. During the same years faculty members taught between 0 and 3.5 courses per year. The median teaching load was one course per year. Extension activities accounted for about 36°7o of the budgeted time of faculty.

The department determines merit raises in a democratic fashion. Early in each calendar year all faculty members submit summaries of their accomplishments in recent years to the department chairman. The chairman in turn provides each faculty member with a packet of materials that includes summaries of the accomplishments of each faculty member, the total amount of money to be distributed, and the percentage to be allocated as an across- the-board increase. The packet also includes a sheet for the faculty member's salary recommendations. Each faculty member evaluates the performance of all others in the department and pencils in recommended salary increases. The chairman collects individuals' numerical salary recommendations and listens to faculty members' reasons for making the assignments. The chairman weighs all the evidence and prepares a synthesized version of the salary recommendations that is presented to the department's executive committee (all tenured professors). The executive committee has typically approved the recommended increases without discussion or amendment. The recommendations then go to the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who occasionally has made adjustments using discretionary funds. In theory, then, salary increases reflect the consensus of the faculty about individual accomplishments.

Our general hypothesis is that excellence in research, teaching, extension, and service is rewarded by higher salaries and bigger raises. Specifically, our hypotheses are that 1981 salary levels are statistically related to the quality of professors' performance in the four areas over the long term, that raises from 1977 to 1981 depended on performance during a shorter period of approximately 5 years, and that raises from 1980 to 1981 depended on performance in the year preceding 1981 salary recommendations. In sum, our major hypothesis is that performance affects raises in the short and middle run and that, over a career, differences in performance affect salary levels.

THE ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK

We consider three major research questions:

1. What determines 1981 salary levels? 2. What determines raises in a single year (fiscal 1980 to fiscal 1981)? 3. What determines raises over 4 years (fiscal 1977 to fiscal 1981)?


The variables that summarize performance and empirical measures of these variables are described in this section. The actual regression equations are summarized in the Results section.

The major hypothesis is that salaries and raises depend on professional performance. Measuring the professional performance of a professor, like measuring the productivity of nearly all public sector employees, is difficult. To test the hypotheses, empirical measures of each faculty member's performance in teaching, research, extension, and service and identification of the dependent variables were needed.

Dependent Variables

To address the three research questions, the following dependent variables were identified:

Research question

Determinants of salary? Determinants of annual raises?

In dollars In percentages

Determinants of Four-Year Raises? In dollars In percentages

Dependent variable definition

1981 Annual Salary

Dollar Raise 1980-1981 Percentage Raise 1980-1981

Dollar Raise 1977-1981 Percentage Raise 1977-1981

The summary statistics for these five dependent variables, as weU as all the independent variables, are presented in Table 3.

Teaching Variables

Teaching performance is measured by two independent variables, one for quantity and another for quality. Both are based on the written course evaluations administered each semester in all classes offered by the department with enrollments greater than seven. Teaching quantity is measured simply by the number of courses in which a professor was evaluated per year (#T). This measure neglects small classes, advising, and other teaching activities and, therefore, understates the amount of teaching done by some professors. The measure overstates the quantity of teaching done by professors who teach classes jointly. More important, the measure counts all kinds of classes (graduate seminars, undergraduate lectures, and short courses) as one unit of teaching. While imperfect, out measure of teaching quantity is an un- ambiguous, reproducible, and reasonable proxy for teaching effort.

The measure of teaching quality also is simple in concept and imperfect

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but plausible in practice. The quality index is based on student responses to a single question on the department's standard evaluation form about the professor's overall performance in the course. Though the evaluation form used in the department includes 21 items related to the course and instruc- tor, this item provides an overall assessment of quality and thus, as Centra suggested, gives the best overall index of teaching quality (Centra, 1979, p. 46). Responses range from 5 to 1, excellent to poor. Teaching quality is measured by the mean score reported for this question across all classes taught by a professor (QT) . The resulfing Q T variable shares the strengths and weaknesses of #T. Unlike #T, the QTvariable needs to be adjusted to account for professors who do not teach. Instead of eliminating nonteachers and excluding an important part of the department's faculty, an adjusted teaching quality index for each professor (an AQTi) was assigned in the study using the following system:

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is the mean teaching evaluation among teachers. In effect, the adjusted teaching quality variable embodies assumptions that only differences from average teaching quality matter and that nonteachers are rewarded like average teachers. The latter assumption is justified in this department because approximately a third of the faculty do not teach but have similar appointments and status as other members of the department.

Finally, the appropriate time period for observing teaching quality and quantity needed to be specified for each of the research questions. Decisions on fiscal 1981 salaries are based on teaching evaluations available in January 1980, specifically those for classes taught in calendar year 1979. Decisions for salaries for fiscal years 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981 were based on teaching evaluations for calendar years 1976 through 1979. The department began formal course evaluations in 1971; all evaluations from 1971 through 1979 are relevant in explaining career salaries. The two people who joined the faculty after 1979 were assigned teaching quantity and quality indexes of zero, even though both taught in calendar 1980, because the department had no chance to evaluate their teaching before the fiscal 1981 salaries were determined. Other faculty members were assigned adjusted teaching quality


indexes and teaching quantity indexes based on the mean number of courses they taught per year during the relevant period.

During the 4 calendar years from 1976 through 1979, the present faculty taught 132 courses, between 0 and 14 classes each. Dividing by number of calendar years between 1976 and 1979 (inclusive) each person on the faculty was yielded a quantity index for the period. During the 1976-1979 period, faculty members taught between zero and 3.5 courses per year, with a mean teaching load of slightly more than a course per year. Mean student assess- ments of a professor's performance during 1976 through 1979 ranged from 1.85 to 4.60, with a mean of 3.65. These quality indexes were adjusted by subtracting 3.65 (to center all the values on zero) and assigning all nonteachers a zero for teaching quality. The adjusted teaching quality indexes for 1976 through 1979 ranged from - 1.80 to .95. Similar measures of teaching quantity and quality were formed for the period 1971 to 1979 and for caten- dar 1979.

Extension Variables

Performance in extension work is difficult to measure quantitatively. In- stead, subjective evaluations of the performance of all faculty with extension appointments were solicited from four people whose positions allow them to make recommendations to the dean about salaries. Each of the four evaluators received a form listing the 19 faculty members with extension appointments, the percentage of each member's salary paid from extension funds, and the years each member had been on the faculty. All four evaluators rated each faculty member's performance on a 10-point scale, with high scores indicating excellent ratings, for the three periods relevant to the study. To generate a single index of extension performance for each faculty member during the three different periods, we first found the simple mean evaluation of the member by the evaluators for each period

MXRj= ~XRü/n - ( 4 )

where n is the number of evaluations offered, j is the period evaluated, and i is the individual faculty members. These mean evaluations were centered about zero by subtracting the mean over all faculty with extension appointments:

CMXRj = MXRj- MXR) (5)


Finally, the indexes of extension performance for the three periods were adjusted by assigning the 13 faculty members with no extension appointments a zero value:

AXRj = CMXRj if member has extension appointment (6) --- 0 otherwise (7)

Using this index of extension performance in the regression analysis implies an assumption that only differences from average extension performance affect salary decisions.

Research Variables

Quantifying research is difficult. All publications reported in Faculty Publications and Major Papers, a summary document compiled by the department, were sorted into nine categories: refereed journal articles, research bulletins and reports; comments and replies in refereed journals; book reviews in refereed journals; books; chapters in books; testimony, papers presented at professional meetings, and other presentations with some outside review; papers with some review; and other publications. Each category was then sorted by professor, treating publications the same regardless of length. Jointly authored manuscripts were assigned to all authors. All of an author's publications were classified according to year of publication: calendar years 1979, 1976-1979, and 1971-1979. Finally, for the 1976-1979 and 1971-1979 periods, the number of publications per faculty member was divided by the number of calendar years on the faculty during those years to adjust for differences in tenure.

Since all nine categories of research publications could not be used as independent variables without introducing severe multicollinearity and loss of too many degrees of freedom, the nine proxies for research output were con- solidated into two independent variables, (1) refereed journal articles and (2) other reviewed publications. Papers without any formal review were ignored.

Other Independent Variables

Several factors besides teaching, research, and extension influence faculty salaries. Seniority was measured by years since the terminal degree because that definition seemed to capture length of professional service as an agricultural economist. While salary level may be influenced by rank, raises are more likely influenced by promotion from one rank to another; promotions were measured by dummy variables (PROM= 1 if promoted; 0 otherwise).


Honors was included as a dummy variable to indicate whether or not a professor had received external recognition (HONO = 1 if honored; 0 otherwise). Vilas was included to designate the orte person in the department who had received this major university award. Five faculty members have held positions in university administration; the dumrny variable ADMIN= 1 for people with such experience. Finally, as part of the deliberations over the fisca11981 salaries, the department was provided with data on the ratio of annual salary to age for each faculty member. Part of the fiscal 1981 raises were to be based on this factor, with faculty having low Salary-Age Indexes (SAIX) to receive more compensation than those with higher indexes.

In addition, base salary might affect raises over any period. Specifically, the conventional wisdom among department members is that, other things equal, those with high salaries tend to get relatively high dollar raises and low percentage raises. The variable takes the value of a professor's salary at the beginning period (fiscal 1980 for annual and 1977 for midterm).

REGRESSION RESULTS

Three research questions are addressed here: For agricultural economics faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison what factors influence

1. Salary levels in fiscal 1981? 2. Raises from fiscal 1980 to 1981? 3. Raises from fiscal 1977 to 1981?

Each of the three questions is answered using ordinary least-squares regres- sions involving the variables described above. Two equations, one using dollar increases and the other using percentage increases, are used to analyze the determinants of raises. The empirical findings are presented in Table 4 and summarized below.

Career Salary Levels

The basic model is

where

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X3 = adjusted evaluation of extension performance, career X4 = number of refereed journal articles per calendar year, 1971-1979 X5 = number of other reviewed manuscripts per calendar year, 1971-1979 X6 = 1 if person was chairman or dean during career; 0 otherwise X7 = number of outside honors won during career )(8 =years since date of terminal degree 3(9 = 1 if person is Vilas Professor; 0 otherwise Ui = a disturbance term with all the classical properties

The null hypothesis is that none of these factors matter (Ho:Bi= 0 for all i); the alternative set of hypotheses is that each of the factors has a positive impact (Hl:Bi>O) on salary levels in 1981. Based on 32 observations and nine independent variables, the results have 22 degrees of freedom. Using a 5 %, one-tailed test for significance, an estimated coefficient is statisticaUy significant if it is positive and generates a t-value zreater than 1.717.

All coefficients have the expected sign. Four coefficients are statistically significant. The point estimates of the significant coefficients indicate that, other things equal,

1. Each year of seniority in the profession is worth $467 2. Having been an administrator is worth $5,019 3. Each point above (below) average in teaching evaluation is worth

( - ) $1,814 4. A Vilas professorship is worth $12,079

The remaining five coefficients (except for teaching quantity) have the expected signs and reasonable magnitudes. All combined, the nine independent variables explain 92.3% of the variation in Fiscal 1981 salaries (89.20/o after adjusting of degrees of freedom) and generate a standard error of regression of $2,124.

Raises from FY 1980 to FY 1981

The career model was modified by excluding factors (seniority and Vilas professorship) that would not be expected to influence annual raises and in- cluding others (base salaries, promotions, and the Salary-Age Index) that would. The resulting models both take the form

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where

x2= x3= x4= x»= xó= XT= xs= Xg=

adjusted index of teaching quality, calendar 1979 number of evaluated courses taught, calendar 1979 adjusted evaluation of extension performance, calendar 1979 number of refereed journal articles appearing in calendar 1979 number of reviewed manuscripts published in calendar 1979 1 if chairman in 1979; 0 otherwise 1 if earned outside honor in calendar 1979, Õ otherwise base salary (in $1,000) during fiscal 1980 1 if promoted in fiscal 1980; 0 otherwise

)(10 = salary-age ratio as of January 1, 1980 U/= disturbance term Y= dollar increase in salary fiscal 1980 to fiscal 1981

or Y= percentage increase in salary fiscal 1980 to fiscal 1981

For all coefficients except Bs and B10, we test Ho:Bi=O vs. Hl:Bi>O, using a 5°70 one-tailed significance levet. With 21 degrees of freedom, the t-values are compared to a critical value of 1.721. For B~0, the alternative hypothesis is H~:B~0<0. For Bs, the alternative hypothesis is Bs >0 for dollar raises and Bs <0 for percentage raises.

Consider dollar raises first. All coefficients take the anticipated sign, and six coefficients are statistically significant. The point estimates of these si× indicate that in the 1980-1981 competition for dollar raises, other things equal, the following were so:

1. Being chairman was worth $1,243. 2. Winning an outside honor was worth $771. 3. Each thousand dollars earned in 1980 translated into $39 in raises ($1,170

in raises for someone earning $30,000 in 1980). 4. Each dollar per year in SAIX cost $1.52. 5. Each point above average in extension evaluation was worth $141. 6. Each reviewed manuscript was worth $62.

The remaining four independent variables-teaching quality, teaching quantity, refereed journal articles, and promoted-have statistically insignificant coefficients. The estimated regression equation explains 75.9o70 of the variation in dollar raises (64.4°70 after correcting for degrees of freedom) and has a standard error of regression of $371.40.

The results on the determinants ofpercentage raises are quite similar. The same six factors-extension performance, reviewed manuscripts, being chair-


man, earning outside honors, base salary, and Salary-Age Index-are all statistically significant. However, the coefficient on base salary is now negative: big bases mean small percentage increases, other things being equal. One additional factor is now statistically significant: refereed journal articles. The estimated regression explains 77.9°70 of the variation in percentage raises (67.3070 after correcting for degrees of freedom) and has a standard error of regression of 1.25 percentage points.

Raises from FY 1977 to FY 1981

The model for raises over a 4-year period is similar to that used to study 1980-1981 raises, except the Salary-Age Index is omitted. Specifically,

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where

X1 = adjusted teaching evaluations, 1976-1980 X2 = number of courses taught per year, 1976-1980 )(3 = adjusted extension evaluations, 1976-1980 X4 = refereed journal articles, 1976-1980 )(5 = other reviewed manuscripts, 1976-1980 X6 = 1 if chairman in fiscal 1977-1980; 0 otherwise X7 = outside honor awarded 1976-1980 X8 = base salary (in $I,000) in fiscal 1977 X9 = 1 if promoted during fiscal 1977-1981; 0 otherwise U i = disturbance term Y= dollar increase in salary fiscal 1977 to fiscal 1981

or Y= percentage increase in salary fiscal 1977 to fiscal 1981

Four factors have statistically significant coefficients in both models:

1. Being chairman was worth $2,246, or 10.2 percentage points. 2. Each point of above average teaching evaluation was worth $685, or

about 2.4 percentage points. 3. Each point of above average extension performance was worth $257, or

about 1.0 percentage points. 4. Each $1,000 of salary in fiscal 1977 was worth about $105 in additional

salary-anO obout a .8 percentage point reduction in percent raise.


The other coefficients (except promotion in one case) have the expected sign but are statistically insignificant.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The following conclusions can be drawn about the reward system in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Teaching quality has been rewarded in the department, though quantity of teaching done has not been reflected in salary. While teaching quality did not affect the single-year raise (1980-1981), it was significant in determining long-term salary and salary over the 4-year period-perhaps indicating a lag between teaching performance and its recognition. Quality of work in extension activities was similarly reflected in salaries, though here the effect on career salaries was not statistically significant. Outside honors resulted in larger salary increments from 1980 to 1981, but it did not affect salaries over several years. Research productivity as measured by publications had a small effect on salary increment from 1980 to 1981 but did not affect salaries over several years. Large salary increases, both in a single year and over several years, have been given to those who have held administrative positions. Seniority affects salary levels and base salaries affect raises.

Together, these conclusions indicate that meritorious work is partially rewarded in the department. Research or scholarship is undervalued when these findings are compared to other research done in similar institutions, though this result may be due in part to the operational definitions of scholarship used in this study. Higher base salaries have resulted in larger dollar increases and smaller percentage increases, a trade-off typical of systems in which increases are allocated on the basis of percentage. Analysis also indicates that the administrative decision to consider the Salary-Age Index when assigning pay increases in 1980-1981 had the intended effect. These findings have value for faculty and administrators in the department and in the Col- lege of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

This research also illustrates a procedure by which the reward system in a college, university, or institutional subgroup can be analyzed. Institutions have available most of the information used in this analysis: salaries and salary increases, faculty publications and presentations, and specific salary policies. Students evaluations have been incorporated into evaluation procedures in many colleges and universities. Variables of interest on which sufficient data are available can be defined as appropriate. The analysis requires a department or subgroup of sufficient size to permit the use of regression analysis and independent variables that are relatively independent and limited in number.

Finally, this research can be used for comparison with other research that


has been done on faculty rewards. Generalizations made on the basis of this study are limited, of course, by constraints introduced through operational definitions of the variables, by the time period in which the study was done, and by the nature of the research setting. Though the results cannot be generalized to other departments or other institutions, the study does indicate that faculty work in areas other than research are rewarded in at least one department at one major research university. The measures of faculty work used in this study are quantifiable, reproducible, and conceptually sound. As similar research is done in other departments and institutions, a finer pic- ture of the reward systems in operation for university faculty can be con- strued than those that have been formulated from large-scale studies that cut across departments and institutions.

Acknowledgment. William Dobson, former professor and chairman of the De- partment of Agricultural Economics at Wisconsin, now head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue, helped in the early stages of this research by dis- cussing just how salaries were determined in the department and by providing data.

REFERENCES

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Received July 22, 1982

meritorious work and faculty rewards: an empirical test of the relationship

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