Public administration faculty commitments to academia and their professions, professional programs, and universities.

Abstract

This study's primary purpose was to identify institutional characteristics that predict professional program faculty's commitments to academia, the profession, the employing university and the program. Those characteristics included perceptions of program and institutional environments, and faculty roles. The public administration profession, a relatively new field, was chosen for the study. Commitment definitions, derived from prior research, included an intensity rating and dimensions of identification with values, willingness to exert effort, and intent to stay. The study's secondary purpose was to examine whether faculty referred to these dimensions when asked for indicators of commitments. Data were obtained from a sample of 184 faculty members in graduate programs of public administration in 48 universities, using a mailed survey instrument designed for the study. The study used regression analyses to identify commitment predictors, and content analyses to explore faculty members' indicators of commitments. Predictors of commitment varied by type of commitment, with some overlap. Faculty's perceptions that their program was highly important to the university were related to higher commitment to all entities except the profession, as was interaction of faculty rank with program importance. High ranking faculty who reported high program importance also had high commitment levels. Commitment to the profession was primarily explained by faculty role characteristics, and commitments to academia and the university by faculty role characteristics and perceptions of the institutional environment. Commitment to the program was explained primarily by faculty role characteristics and perceptions of the program environment. The study's model explained 18% of the variance in commitment to academia; 30% of professional commitment variance; 48% of university commitment variance; and 64% of program commitment variance. When asked for activities as indicators of commitment, faculty referred to research efforts most often as indicators of commitment to academia; to professional organization service efforts as indicators of commitment to the profession; to institution level service efforts as indicators of commitment to the university; and equally to teaching and program level service efforts as indicators of commitment to the program. Results suggest that faculty distinguished among academia, the public administration profession, the program and university, and their commitment to each.