High Educ (2013) 66:325–340 DOI 10.1007/s10734-012-9607-3
The American faculty in an age of globalization: predictors of internationalization of research content and professional networks Martin J. Finkelstein • Elaine Walker • Rong Chen
Published online: 16 January 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract While there has been considerable policy discussion about the need to internationalize American higher education, our understanding of the internationalization in American faculty’s research remains limited. This study intends to investigate the extent of internationalization in American faculty’s scholarly work and what individual and institutional levers shape faculty decisions to engage internationally. The results of a 2007–2008 comparative international survey provide insights into these important issues and suggest implications for enhancing the international engagement of US faculty. Keywords Higher education Faculty Internationalization Engagement Scholarly work
Introduction Recent surveys by the International Association of Universities (IAU] highlight the increasing perception of internationalization as a top priority for universities worldwide (Knight 2003, 2006). Internationalization is recognized as a key to preparing students for a Earlier versions of this study were presented at a joint seminar sponsored by the NSF and the Council of Graduate Schools in Arlington, VA, May 2008, a seminar sponsored by the Institute for International Educational in Washington, DC in November, 2009, at an international seminar on the Changing Academic Profession at Hiroshima University, January 2009, and the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Vancouver, BC, November 5, 2009. The authors are grateful to Paul Umbach for his helpful feedback and criticism, although he bears no responsibility for the final version herein. M. J. Finkelstein (&) E. Walker R. Chen Department of Educational Leadership, Management and Policy, College of Education and Human Services, Seton Hall University, 400 South Orange Avenue, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA e-mail: martin.finkelstein@shu.edu E. Walker e-mail: elaine.walker@shu.edu R. Chen e-mail: rong.chen@shu.edu
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globalized workplace, to strengthening research and knowledge production in an increasingly global knowledge economy and to enhancing institutional prestige and access to global student markets (Knight 2006; Egron-Polak and Hudson 2010). But a recent study of the internationalization of US universities and colleges conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE) concludes that by 2006 institutional progress in promoting internationalization as compared to 2001 is rather modest (Green et al. 2008). Beyond a sharp increase in the share of surveyed institutions that offered study abroad programs (91 vs. 65 %) (Green et al. 2008), stated institutional commitments to internationalization had not noticeably increased. Both the share of institutions that have undergraduate foreign language requirements and that have an international or global course requirement have decreased (from 45 to 37 % and from 53 to 41 %, respectively). International work does not figure prominently in hiring and promoting faculty across all types of universities and colleges in the US (Green et al. 2008), even though international faculty collaborations and the incorporation of global perspectives in courses are believed to enhance the quality of teaching and research and subsequent faculty career development (Ray and Solem 2009). Given the heightened focus on internationalization reflected in the agendas of US national groups, such as the American Council on Education (ACE), and national security initiatives that promote critical languages learning, the internationalization efforts of the US universities and colleges, have been minimal. Faculty are, indeed, at the center of academic processes such as internationalization—as catalyst and initiators of international programs and collaborations and as the day-to-day implementers of new developments. Since the pioneering work of Goodwin and Nacht (1991), however, we have seen no major national studies of faculty internationalization in the United States. The Changing Academic Profession Survey, 2007–2008, provides the first current, nationwide individual level data on faculty international activities since the 1992 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s International Survey of the Academic Profession. It thus offers a unique opportunity to enhance our understanding of what leads faculty to, and deters them from, international teaching and research activities. This study addresses the factors that drive the decisions of academic staff to internationalize—whether that involves physical boundary crossing for study or professional work, the integration of international perspectives into one’s research (internationalization at home), or working with foreign students and colleagues. Specifically, it addresses two major research questions: (1) To what extent do individual personal or professional factors, including academic field, level of research orientation and activity, and personal background—including nativity and citizenship, gender, and age—shape faculty internationalization decisions? (2) Within a given set of structural constraints (reflected in a particular national context), to what extent do institutional factors—purposes and policies—drive faculty internationalization behavior? Our goal is to enhance our understanding of who the ‘‘internationalists’’ among the American faculty are, and what individual and institutional factors shape faculty decisions to engage internationally. Taken together, the findings can provide the grist for institutional policies to promote internationalization in research.
The study of faculty internationalization Historically, the term ‘‘internationalization’’ has most often referred to the physical mobility of faculty (and students) across national borders, (Rostan 2010; Teichler 2002). In the past, such border crossing has been traditionally supported by government sponsored programs, including the more general Fulbright Scholars program—through which
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annually nearly 1,000 US faculty travel for up to 1 year to teach and conduct research in 45 countries worldwide and through which 1,000 foreign scholars come to the US (O’Hara 2009)—more specialized government programs of technical assistance, such as agricultural assistance coordinated by federal agencies, e.g. USAID and institutionally based study abroad programs (Goodwin and Nacht 1991). Since at least the 1990s, internationalization initiatives in American higher education have broadened and localized to include not only physical mobility, but also what is referred to in the literature as ‘‘internationalization at home’’ activities, including the integration of international perspectives into the traditional content of college curricula (Crowther et al. 2000; Wa¨chter 2003; Joris et al. 2003), the revitalization of foreign language and area studies, and international knowledge transfer, i.e., international research collaborations and co-publication activity with foreign colleagues (Knight 2004; Huang 2007). These kinds of activities, rather than physical border crossing, now constitute the latest and in many respects the most, cost-effective and scalable strategies for faculty internationalization in the United States. Previous literature on faculty internationalization is mostly descriptive. One major descriptive study is the 1992 Carnegie Foundations for the Advancement of Teaching’s International Academic Profession survey. Based on those survey data, Altbach (1996) reported that only about 1/3 American faculty had taken at least one trip abroad for study or research, securing for the US a position in ‘‘last place’’ among the fourteen countries studied, just behind Russia and Brazil. Moreover, the United States was also last in the proportion of faculty reporting that ‘‘connections with scholars in other countries are very important to my professional work’’ (about half compared to more than 4/5 in all other countries except the UK). That macro-level portrait was corroborated and enriched with nuanced detail by Goodwin and Nacht’s concurrent study of the international experience of American academics, informed by field visits and interviews at 37 universities (Goodwin and Nacht 1991). Their research described a small, but motley group of faculty ‘‘internationalists’’, some of whom gravitated toward international experience for intrinsic disciplinary reasons (the need to mine resources, or access equipment, located overseas); and some in support of personal growth and development. The majority of the faculty, however, eschewed international experience because they believed that the best work in their field was being done in the US or they were ‘‘constrained’’ by their home responsibilities; were risk averse (both in terms of ‘‘personal’’ risks of foreign travel as well as ‘‘career’’ risks of taking time away from the department and the tenure clock). Nearly two decades have passed since the original 1992 Carnegie International survey and the Goodwin and Nacht study. O’Hara’s (2009) review of the field discovered only a single broad based investigation that addressed the international activities of American faculty (Finkelstein et al. 2009). That exploratory study, built upon the new international survey, the Changing Academic Profession, undertaken in 2007–2008 sought to estimate the extent of faculty international academic activity as well as identify potential predictors of international activity. Building on that work, the current study seeks to develop and test a theoretical framework for explaining faculty decisions to add an international dimension to their academic activity.
Theoretical framework This study conceptualizes faculty involvement in international research networks and in internationally oriented research topics as an individual faculty choice shaped by individual and organizational factors in the work environment. Previous research seeking to
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understand faculty behavior and performance (without internationalization as a focus) has tended to focus either on the characteristics of individual faculty members or on the organizational characteristics of colleges and universities, or of particular academic fields and their labor markets. More recently, spurred by the pioneering conceptual work of Robert Blackburn and Janet Lawrence (Blackburn and Lawrence 1995), and the pioneering analytical work of individual scholars such as Porter and Umbach (2001), researchers have sought to examine the interaction of individual and organizational factors in the shaping of faculty work activities. Blackburn and Lawrence (1995), drawing broadly on motivation theory, posit that faculty behavior is shaped by two broad sets of factors: individual, including sociodemographic characteristics, career characteristics, a set of professional predispositions and values that they label self-knowledge, and, secondly, what they label as social knowledge, which translates roughly into faculty perceptions of institutional values and expectations for what constitutes acceptable performance. More specifically, the model assumes that socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, career characteristics, such as type of institution at which employed, choice of discipline, faculty social knowledge, i.e. their perceptions of institutional priorities, pressures and rewards and faculty self-knowledge (teaching vs. research orientation, allocation of work effort, research involvement) shape faculty behavior. Faculty behaviors, in turn, yield tangible outcomes, including publication, grants, awards, etc. Based on the above, this study conceptualized faculty internationalization in the focus/ content of their research and in their collaboration and networking patterns as a function of socio-demographic and career characteristics, and as a function of their self and social knowledge. Detailed description of how the model is operationalized will be discussed later in the method section.
Methodology Sampling This study is based on a national survey of faculty stratified by institutional size/degree level (large, graduate; small, undergraduate) and control (public and private). A total of 80 institutions across these four size and control strata were selected and their faculty lists secured on-line. Having determined the proportion of full-time faculty in the population in each of the four institutional strata so defined, a random sample of faculty were selected within each institutional stratum so as to approximate in our sample their proportions in the population. This approach yielded a total sample of 5,772 faculties at 80 4-year colleges and universities across the United States. Instrument and data collection The Changing Academic Profession was undertaken in 2007–2008 as a 15 year follow-up to the original 1992 Carnegie Foundation International Faculty Survey involving nineteen countries (not all of whom had participated in the 1992 survey). The CAP survey instrument focused on three overarching themes—relevance, internationalization and managerialism. Relevance, broadly conceived, refers to increasing pressures globally for higher education to visibly support economic competitiveness as well as social progress. Internationalization refers to the increasing permeability of national boundaries in faculty
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research and teaching and the increasing mobility of students and faculty across borders. Managerialism refers to changes in governance that have increased the role of administrators and government entities at the expense of faculty. Most generally, the instrument sought to understand the changing demands experienced by faculty and their responses to those demands reflected in their work activities and career trajectories. The US team contracted with the Research Services Division of SPSS, Co. (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) to program and host the on-line American English version of the CAP survey. The survey link with an individually coded identifier was e-mailed to all 5,772 faculty on October 3, 2007. A total of five reminders were sent out electronically between October 15 and December 7, 2007. Completed responses were received from 1,170 respondents for an overall response rate of 23.1 %, which is reasonable, considering the range of documented response rates for on-line surveys in the United States (10–30 %).1 Dependent variables Our outcome variables included two dimensions of faculty research collaboration, including: (1) whether faculty reported collaborating with foreign colleagues on research in the past 3 years (yes–no dichotomy), and (2) the extent to which faculty characterized their research as ‘‘international in scope’’ (dichotomized as those somewhat or strongly agreeing vs. those who did not). These were conceived to reflect the social networks and content of faculty research. Independent variables Within the bounds of the core CAP survey instrument and guided by the conceptual model above, we selected a set of independent variables that operationalized each of the four components of the model predicting faculty internationalization in their research foci and scholarly networks. The independent variables in our study include: Socio-demographic • • • •
Male (yes or no) US citizen at birth (Yes or no) Years since First Faculty Appointment Years since first faculty appointment (squared)
Career characteristics • Years abroad post baccalaureate (1–2 years, 3? years, vs. 0 year, the reference category) • Discipline of current teaching unit (artistic, enterprising, investigative, vs. social, the reference category) • Institutional type (research/doctoral institutions or not) • Tenure status (tenured/tenure eligible or not) Social knowledge • Faculty drive campus international initiatives (yes or no) • Administration supports research (yes, no) 1
See, for example, Kalbfliesch (2005).
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• There is increased pressure to raise external research funds • Institution considers research quality in making personnel decisions. Self-knowledge • • • • • • • •
Level of students taught: primarily undergraduates (yes or no) Interest primarily in teaching (yes or no) Emphasis of primary research is basic (yes or no) Emphasis of primary research is commercially-oriented (yes or no) Emphasis of primary research is socially-oriented (yes or no) Emphasis of primary research is based in one discipline (yes or no) Emphasis of primary research is multi-disciplinary (yes or not) High involvement in research (yes or no)
Data analysis The data analysis proceeded in a descriptive followed by an inferential phase. The descriptive stage began with the running of basic frequencies and crosstabs on the independent and dependent variables. In the multivariate analysis stage, all independent variables were included into a logistic regression model for each outcome variable. The independent and dependent variables, with the exception of years since first faculty appointment, were dichotomized through a re-coding procedure. Because the variable indicating years since first faculty appointment can be non-linearly related to the outcomes (Fairweather 2005), we added a square term into the model. To deal with the missing data issue, multiple imputation, as recommended by Allison (2001), was conducted by employing Stata. Multiple imputation can be used with virtually any kind of data and any kind of regression model and produces unbiased estimates of the statistics (Allison 2001). As a result of this procedure, five datasets were generated for the logistic regression analysis on each outcome. Findings from the analysis of each outcome that we will report in the study are based on the combined results across the five datasets. A word needs to be said about the coding of academic discipline as a predictor variable. Goodwin and Nacht (1991) documented tremendous variation not only across the traditional disciplines, but even among sub-fields within a particular discipline in the intrinsic motivation/imperative to look outward to artifacts, scholars and scholarship outside the US. Since there were too few cases to allow for the introduction of these sorts of very fine subcategories of academic discipline into the analysis, and preliminary initial analyses based on aggregating academic fields into traditional categories (life and medical sciences, physical sciences and engineering, social sciences, humanities and the arts, and the professions) yielded inconsistent and not easily interpretable findings, we turned to the previous work (Smart and Umbach 2007; Umbach and Milem 2004) that has constructively pressed into service John Holland’s concept of six disciplinary clusters defining environments that match the six personality types identified in the latter’s pioneering work on career choice in young adults (Holland 1997).2
2
Holland posited the existence of six personality types and six analogous academic environments—largely reflecting the characteristics of clusters of academic fields—the Investigative, Social, Enterprising, Realistic, Conventional and Artistic. For a more detailed explanation of each personality type and academic environment, please see Smart and Umbach (2007) as referenced above.
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Findings Before undertaking the descriptive and multivariate analyses, we tested for sample bias employing the approach suggested by Groves (2006) and Groves and Peytcheva (2008). Specifically, we examined the following variable values in our focal study in both unweighted and weighted data files and compared their values to the population estimates obtained from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, 2004: gender (% female), institutional type (% research university), academic rank (% associate and full professors) type of appointment (% tenured or tenure-eligible), academic field (% natural sciences and engineering). The findings are presented in Table 1. The findings in Table 1 suggest that the weighted sample of respondents for this study approximates the parameters of the national faculty population as estimated by the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty 2004 (US Dept. of Education 2008) with respect to institutional type, gender, academic field, type of appointment and academic rank. We conclude that the weighting procedures employed in the study corrected for potential bias that might have occurred. We turn now to a report of the findings of the descriptive data analysis. Descriptive analysis results Tables 2 and 3 below display the descriptive statistics on the outcome and predictor variables examined in this study. The tables show that 34 % of the faculty members in the sample collaborated with international colleagues in research, and about 58.3 % described their primary research as international in scope. Because the two samples for the two models are similar in size and characteristics, we describe the predictor variables using the sample for the first model only. As indicated in Table 2, there are some distinct socio-demographic characteristics among the sample: 64.8 % are males, 81.7 % are US citizen at birth, the average years since first faculty appointment is 10.1 with large variations (SE = 0.539). Regarding their career characteristics, 63.9 % did not have any experience abroad post baccalaureate, 14.5 % had some experience abroad (1 or 2 years), and 21.6 % had 3 or more years of experience abroad; about 45 % work in investigative disciplines, while relatively smaller percentages of them work in other disciplines; a majority of the faculty members in the sample work in research or doctoral granting universities (77.5 %), and a similar large percentage of them are tenured or tenure-eligible (74.5 %). In terms of their social knowledge, a little less than half of the sample thought that faculty drove campus international initiatives (45.3 %), and a majority of them (76.1 %) agreed that administration had supportive attitudes toward research, or there is increased pressure to raise external Table 1 CAP sample values and NSOPF04 population estimates on weighting variables CAP (Unweighted)
CAP (Weighted)
NSOPF 2004
Gender (percent female)
41.9
37.8
37.4
Institutional type (percent research ? PhD)
74.0
67.0
65.1
Academic field (percent natural science ? engineering)
23.0
28.2
29.9
Appointment type (percent on-track)
82.9
72.0
75.6
Rank (percent full ? associate)
64.9
55.0
54.5
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Table 2 Descriptive statistics for the variables in the model of ‘‘collaborate with international colleagues in research’’ (N = 919) Mean/percentage Collaborate with international colleagues in research
SE
0.340
0.020
Male
0.648
0.020
US citizen at birth
0.817
0.015
Years since 1st faculty appointment
0.101
0.539
145.443
6.865
Socio-demographic
Years since 1st faculty appointment (squared) Career characteristics Years abroad post baccalaureate (0 year)
0.639
0.020
Years abroad post baccalaureate (1 or 2 years)
0.145
0.013
Years abroad post baccalaureate (3? years)
0.216
0.018
Discipline: social
0.206
0.015
Discipline: artistic
0.220
0.016
Discipline: enterprising
0.124
0.017
Discipline: investigative
0.450
0.022
Institutional type: research or PhD university
0.775
0.017
Tenure status: tenured or tenure eligible
0.745
0.023
Faculty drive campus international initiatives
0.453
0.023
Administration has supportive attitude towards research
0.761
0.017
There is increased pressure to raise external research funds
0.873
0.018
Institution considers research quality in making personnel decisions
0.749
0.019
Primarily teach undergraduates
0.502
0.022
Orientation primarily to teaching
0.427
0.021
Primary research is ‘‘basic’’
0.754
0.019
Primary research is ‘‘applied/practically-oriented’’
0.855
0.013
Primary research is ‘‘commercially-oriented/for technology transfer’’
0.311
0.022
Primary research is ‘‘socially-oriented for the betterment of society’’
0.708
0.021
Primary research is based in one discipline
0.507
0.021
Primary research is multi-disciplinary
0.801
0.020
High involvement in research
0.581
0.021
Social knowledge
Self knowledge
research funds (87.3 %), or their institution considered research quality in making personnel decisions (74.9 %). Regarding self-knowledge, almost half of the sample primarily taught undergraduates (50.2 %), a little less than half of them were primarily oriented toward teaching, a majority of them characterized their primary research as basic, applied/ practically-oriented, and multi-disciplinary; a little more than half of the sample were highly involved in research (58.1 %). Multivariate analysis results What individual and institutional factors shape American faculty’s decision to cross borders in their research and publication networks? In addressing this question, as indicated
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Table 3 Descriptive statistics for the variables in the model of ‘‘primary research is international in scope’’ (N = 925) Mean/percentage Primary research is international in scope
SE
0.583
0.021
Male
0.646
0.020
US citizen at birth
0.818
0.015
Years since 1st faculty appointment
0.005
0.540
146.985
6.766
Socio-demographic
Years since 1st faculty appointment (squared) Career characteristics Years abroad post baccalaureate (0 year)
0.643
0.020
Years abroad post baccalaureate (1 or 2 years)
0.148
0.014
Years abroad post baccalaureate (3 ? years)
0.209
0.017
Discipline: social
0.209
0.015
Discipline: artistic
0.225
0.016
Discipline: enterprising
0.119
0.016
Discipline: investigative
0.447
0.021
Institutional type: research or PhD university
0.781
0.016
Tenure status: tenured or tenure eligible
0.743
0.023
Faculty drive campus international initiatives
0.456
0.023
Administration has supportive attitude towards research
0.760
0.018
There is increased pressure to raise external research funds
0.881
0.013
Institution considers research quality in making personnel decisions
0.758
0.018
Primarily teach undergraduates
0.510
0.022
Orientation primarily to teaching
0.427
0.020
Primary research is ‘‘basic’’
0.756
0.018
Primary research is ‘‘applied/practically-oriented’’
0.851
0.013
Primary research is ‘‘commercially-oriented/for technology transfer’’
0.310
0.021
Primary research is ‘‘socially-oriented for the betterment of society’’
0.708
0.021
Primary research is based in one discipline
0.506
0.021
Primary research is multi-disciplinary
0.799
0.019
High involvement in research
0.580
0.022
Social knowledge
Self knowledge
earlier, we examined two categories of outcome variables: (1) whether faculty collaborated with foreign colleagues in research; and (2) whether the substantive content of faculty research was international in substance or scope. The results of the logistic regression analyses demonstrate whether each cluster of predictors are significantly related to each of the outcomes of interest. Collaborate with international colleagues in research Reported in Table 4 are the logistic regression results for the outcome ‘‘collaborate with international colleagues in research.’’ The results confirm the relatively fewer significant effects of socio-demographic factors and the importance of both social and personal
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knowledge on cross-border collaboration patterns—although the effects of personal knowledge appear more pervasive. The only socio-demographic predictor found to be significant is the years since 1st faculty appointment: the longer the time serving as a faculty member, the more likely to collaborate with international colleagues in research. It should be noted, however, that the negative squared term of this variable indicates that the appointment year effect decreases as the duration of faculty service increases. There is a large and persistent effect of career characteristics, such as number of years spent abroad post baccalaureate, discipline, and tenure status, in predicting research collaboration. For example, the odds of international collaboration in research for those US faculty who reported spending between 1 and 2 years abroad post receipt of their undergraduate degree were almost three times that of faculty who had not spent any postbaccalaureate time abroad for study and/or research (odds ratio = 2.817, p \ 0.001). For those faculty spending three or more years abroad, the odds of international collaboration was somewhat less than 2.5 times that of non-border crossers, suggesting that beyond a certain threshold, incremental border crossing experience brought diminishing returns (odds ratio = 2.364, p \ 0.005). There is also a disciplinary effect on the odds of international collaboration in research. Those who work in investigative fields (e.g. physical and life sciences) tended to be more likely to collaborate with international scholars than Table 4 Results for the model of ‘‘collaborate with international colleagues in research’’ Coef.
SE
Exp (B)
Male
-0.150
0.198
0.861
US citizen at birth
-0.083
0.290
0.921
0.029
0.011
1.029
**
-0.002
0.001
0.998
**
Years since 1st faculty appointment Years since 1st faculty appointment (squared)
Sig.
Years abroad post baccalaureate (1 or 2 years)
1.036
0.272
2.817
***
Years abroad post baccalaureate (3 ? years)
0.860
0.272
2.364
**
Discipline: artistic
-0.393
0.317
0.675
Discipline: enterprising
0.442
0.385
1.555
Discipline: investigative
0.878
0.282
2.405
Institutional type: research or PhD university
0.081
0.299
1.084
Tenure status: tenured or tenure eligible
0.696
0.244
2.005
**
Faculty drive campus international initiatives
0.678
0.239
1.970
**
Administration has supportive attitude towards research
0.091
0.253
1.096
There is increased pressure to raise external research funds
0.277
0.307
1.319
Institution considers research quality in making personnel decisions
0.123
0.275
1.131
Primarily teach undergraduates
-0.056
0.201
0.945
Orientation primarily to teaching
-1.008
0.214
0.365
0.265
0.232
1.304 0.831
Primary research is ‘‘basic’’ Primary research is ‘‘applied/practically-oriented’’
**
***
-0.185
0.285
Primary research is ‘‘commercially-oriented/for technology transfer’’
0.656
0.224
1.928
Primary research is ‘‘socially-oriented for the betterment of society’’
-0.006
0.228
0.994
Primary research is based in one discipline
0.179
0.212
1.195
Primary Research is multi-disciplinary
0.659
0.298
1.933
*
High involvement in research
1.054
0.211
2.871
***
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001
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those working in social fields (e.g. social sciences) (odds ratio = 2.405, p \ 0.005). However, institutional type did not emerge as a statistically significant predictor, suggesting that affiliation with a research university did not relate to the odds of cross border research collaborations. One dimension of social knowledge is found to significantly predict collaboration with international colleagues: the extent to which faculty (rather than administrators) drove campus internationalization initiatives. The odds ratio for this predictor is 1.97 indicating that for faculty affiliated with institutions in which the faculty drives internationalization initiatives, the odds of collaborating with international colleagues on research is nearly two times that of faculty working in institutions where internalization initiatives are administratively driven. The emergence of this ‘‘faculty leadership’’ predictor is a key distinguishing feature. In terms of personal knowledge, one finds that the odds for collaboration across borders for those who describe themselves as primarily oriented to teaching was less than half of those faculty who are primarily oriented to research. Moreover, one finds that the odds for collaborating across borders for those participants whose research is more commercially—oriented and those whose research is more basic were twice that of their counterparts not engaged in basic or commercial research. Finally, the odds of international collaboration in research for those US faculty who are highly involved in research were nearly three times that of faculty who are not so involved (odds ratio = 2.871, p \ 0.001). Primary research emphasis this year is international in scope The results of the logistic regression model for the outcome variable, ‘‘The emphasis of your primary research this year is international in scope’’ are presented in Table 5. Unlike the first dependent variables, this outcome explicitly focuses on the substantive content rather than the social network development and maintenance aspects of US faculty internationalization. As such, it may provide a window on understanding the similarities and differences in factors shaping the content of faculty work as distinguished from the social networks in which faculty work is embedded. A review of Table 5 reveals both common and distinctive elements. In terms of commonality, the analysis demonstrates that socio-demographic characteristics are only to a limited extent significantly related to this outcome. Those who had a longer career since 1st faculty appointment tended to be more likely to characterize their research as international in scope. The results also demonstrate the powerful shaping influence of faculty’s years abroad and faculty personal knowledge on internationalization activity. Those whose primary orientation is not in teaching, whose primary research is basic, whose primary research is applied/practically oriented or socially-oriented, whose primary research is multi-disciplinary, and who are highly active in research are more likely than their peers to bring an international focus to the content of their research. This synergy seems entirely sensible in light of the increasing globalization of the knowledge industry: more research than ever is driven by economic concerns and passed seamlessly across national and disciplinary borders. What is distinctive about faculty infusion of international content and perspectives into their research in contradistinction to their scholarly networks is twofold. First is the virtual disappearance of major career characteristics including disciplinary differences. In part that likely reflects the fact that while discipline (defined as whether or not one is a natural scientist) shapes the social context of research, i.e. propensity to cross borders to work with colleagues working on similar problems, it does not affect the substantive content of their research —science is simply ‘‘science’’, with no particular national or ‘‘international’’ flavor to the content. Second, a different dimension of social knowledge emerged as a significant predictor of internationalization of research content—
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Table 5 Results for the model of ‘‘primary research is international in scope’’ Coef. Male
SE
Exp (B)
0.098
0.198
1.103
-0.028
0.326
0.972
Years since 1st faculty appointment
0.025
0.009
1.025
Years since 1st faculty appointment (squared)
0.000
0.001
1.000
US citizen at birth
Sig.
**
Years abroad post baccalaureate (1 or 2 years)
0.962
0.281
2.618
**
Years abroad post baccalaureate (3 ? years)
1.000
0.398
2.717
*
Discipline: artistic
0.361
0.314
1.434
-0.039
0.359
0.961
Discipline: investigative
0.008
0.240
1.008
Institutional type: research or PhD university
0.126
0.246
1.134
-0.193
0.253
0.824
Discipline: enterprising
Tenure status: tenured or tenure eligible Faculty drive campus international initiatives Administration has supportive attitude towards research There is increased pressure to raise external research funds Institution considers research quality in making personnel decisions Primarily teach undergraduates Orientation primarily to teaching Primary research is ‘‘basic’’ Primary research is ‘‘applied/practically-oriented’’
0.370
0.202
1.448
-0.030
0.249
0.970
0.171
0.439
1.186
-0.729
0.279
0.483
0.374
0.211
1.454
-0.685
0.214
0.504
**
0.478
0.242
1.613
*
-0.437
0.256
0.646
*
Primary research is ‘‘commercially-oriented/for technology transfer’’
0.715
0.255
2.045
**
Primary research is ‘‘socially-oriented for the betterment of society’’
0.721
0.230
2.057
**
Primary research is based in one discipline
0.401
0.212
1.493
Primary research is multi-disciplinary
0.851
0.290
2.341
**
High involvement in research
0.607
0.205
1.835
**
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001
whether institutions consider research quality in making personnel decisions. At first glance, it is unexpected that those who reported their institutions to consider research quality in personnel decision-making tended to have lower probabilities of characterizing their research as international in focus or scope (odds ratio = 0.483, p \ 0.05). Our speculation is that this may reflect the tendency to prefer English-language and American -based research journals as the desideratum of ‘‘quality’’ and a concern about the ranking of journal venues.
Discussion and conclusion The above analyses suggest that while the majority of American faculty continues to eschew international activities there is a significant segment of the academic professions in the US that is integrating international perspectives into their research and reaching out to networks of colleagues worldwide. This augurs well for maintaining the leadership of American research universities at a time when their historic accumulative advantage is being threatened by the rapid globalization of the market for research and scholarship in English and the declining investment of the US public sector (vis-a-vis East Asia and Europe) in scientific research and development (Clotfelter 2010). The bulk of this paper
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has sought to identify and illuminate the determinants of such incipient globalization of American scholarship. A few overarching conclusions seem to be warranted by the analyses reported here. As predicted by the Blackburn and Lawrence (1995) framework, socio-demographic factors, including gender and nativity, were largely insignificant when controlling for faculty career characteristics, personal and social knowledge—suggesting that the internationalization of academic work does not automatically proceed from the increasing internationalization of the birth origin of US faculty. This finding becomes particularly significant as we witness the increasing presence of women in newly entering academic career cohorts across most fields and as, too, those women, are more likely than ever to be married and have primary responsibility for child (and later elder) care. It is not clear how American higher education’s drive to internationalize, especially insofar as that may require increased border crossing and extended stays abroad, will take into account (accommodate) the realities of the growing corps of married academic women. To date, however, all things being equal, gender has not served as a primary obstacle. If demographics are not destiny, neither are career characteristics. While research on American academics since at least Burton Clark’s oft-quoted ‘‘small worlds, little worlds’’ has been founded on the premise that institutional and disciplinary affiliation are the major arbiters of academic work and careers, the Blackburn and Lawrence framework is singular in arguing that both impact faculty behavior indirectly through their mediating effects on personal and social knowledge. Affiliation with a research or PhD granting university was only modestly predictive of faculty internationalization. To some extent, the relatively minor discernable impact of institutional type per se may be understood in the context of the powerful role of institutional expectations as perceived by faculty, and reflected in Blackburn and Lawrence’s terms, in their social knowledge. Among institutional expectations, one surprisingly strong predictor was the extent to which faculty, rather than administrators, drive campus internationalization. It appears that research intensive universities—quite beyond their place in any Carnegie taxonomy—differ in that regard. Much like institutional type, the impact of academic field on the internationalization of faculty work was largely limited to research collaboration. In that regard, faculty associated with more investigative fields, i.e. those fields emphasizing empirical observation, quantitative analysis and precision, were more likely to collaborate internationally than those in other fields. It should be noted, however, that the minimal significance of discipline may be attributable as much to the fairly gross taxonomy employed in this study. Earlier research has shown that disciplinary effects on internationalization activities of American faculty are extremely localized and nuanced with substantial variation in the intrinsic motivation for international activity even among sub-fields of a single discipline. This suggests that a finer categorization of academic fields and subfields might have uncovered effects that were, in effect, camouflaged by our gross taxonomic categories. The generally muted impact of career characteristics boasts two exceptions. First, is the matter of career age. ‘‘Years of professional service’’ was modestly, if significantly, associated with a broadening in the scope of faculty research content-wise and in terms of collegial networks. Senior faculty were more likely to lend an international focus to their research while newer entrants were less likely to do so. It is not clear to what extent this finding represents a developmental maturation process—as they age and mature as scholars, faculty turn their sights outward and broaden their perspectives, a trend noted in the literature (Finkelstein 1988; Baldwin and Blackburn 1981; Hermanowicz 2009) or rather the operation of the ever more narrow academic reward system that is in effect deterring
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junior faculty from engaging in international activities and cultivating international relationships insofar as that may require extended stays abroad—something that may be incompatible with pre-tenure pressures as well as family obligations (Fairweather 1996). More than institutional type and expectations (social knowledge) and discipline, however, it was faculty self-knowledge—the professional values, orientations and self-concept developed over a career within particular institutional contexts that emerged as the most powerful and pervasive predictor of the two dimensions of faculty internationalization. High faculty research involvement and involvement in a synergistic intersection of basic, multidisciplinary, and commercially oriented research (the driver of the global knowledgebased economy) significantly predicted not only the participation of faculty in international research networks (the social aspect of internationalization), but also the focus on international elements in the substantive content of faculty research. This reinforces that basic truism of a half century of research on the modern American faculty: that academic behavior is disproportionately shaped by deeply ingrained individual values and predilections and amenable only at the margins to the shaping influence of institutions (Finkelstein 1988) and academic fields.3 It may be that time spent abroad following receipt of the baccalaureate degree (i.e. as an adult)—while strictly speaking a career characteristic in the Blackburn and Lawrence framework—constitutes one such deep desideratum of ingrained values and predilections. It was somewhat surprising that adult years spent abroad trumped all but high research involvement as perhaps the most pervasive and powerful predictor of US faculty internationalization in research content and networks. While we were unable either to specify the nature or timing of such border crossing, what is clear is that such sustained border crossing experience as an adult is key and that such experience requires some substantial duration to have an impact (at least 1 year). Such a finding provides some solid quantitative empirical support to the value of national initiatives such as the Fulbright Scholars program. It provides as well a solid justification for institutional and extra-institutional initiatives to provide graduate students and faculty with extended border crossing experiences. The Internet may not be an adequate ‘‘generic’’ substitute for such a place-bound experience.4 A few suggestive implications for policy, practice and research seem warranted. It is clear that institutionally channeled pressures to internationalize are not likely to drive faculty. There appears indeed to be some kind of ‘‘governance factor’’—reflected in the distinction between those universities where faculty report administration rather than colleagues as ‘‘driving’’ internationalization—that contributes to international research collaboration. Moreover, the powerful role of faculty personal knowledge suggests that the surest road to internationalizing the US faculty is to make sure that they receive some international experience. That suggests that merely importing foreign-born faculty—on a permanent or temporary basis—is not likely to suffice. While the precise nature of that international experience is not clear, what is clear is that it needs to be sustained (more than a few weeks or months in duration), that it is quite distinctive in its effects from those of birth or early residence in a foreign country, and that institutions need to build upon that experience to engage their faculties in charting the trajectory of internationalization. 3
Although to be sure there is an element of self-selection of faculty into relatively ‘‘compatible’’ academic fields and institutional settings.
4
Just how research and study abroad affect faculty values and worldviews, what durations seems necessary and the relative substitutability of simulated digital experiences constitutes an important arena for future research.
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From a research perspective, perhaps the most suggestive implication of this study is that the predictors of the internationalization of faculty work differ—even substantially— across different dimensions of faculty work: the arbiters of research collaborations differ from the arbiters of research content. If this is so for dimensions that relate substantively to research activity, it seems fair to assume that they will differ as well for dimensions of internationalization related to teaching and/or service activity. Future investigators will, we hope, be emboldened by our effort to move aggressively into the realm of internationalization of curriculum and teaching. One final implication is related to theory and research on American faculty. This study has built on the theoretical foundations of Blackburn and Lawrence’s empirical research based framework for understanding faculty professional behavior (Blackburn and Lawrence 1995). Since its initial formulation in 1995, we have uncovered no large-scale empirical studies that have sought to apply and test the framework. It departs in several ways from the conventional wisdom in faculty research that looks invariably to two objective variables—institutional type and academic field—as the central concepts for understanding faculty behavior. Blackburn and Lawrence provide a much more nuanced framework that suggests that both of these ‘‘objective’’ characteristics are filtered through faculty professional and personal experience and, more precisely, provide the foundations for the development of perceptions of self and the enterprise that are not simply coterminus with institutional type and academic field. The results of this study seem to confirm the greater power of perceptual over objective variables. While our dataset could not provide a comprehensive test of the Blackburn and Lawrence framework, it did provide a sufficiently robust test to warrant more systematic applications in the future. One final, macro level, note. Over the past 10–15 years, a veritable revolution in information technology driven by the advent of the ubiquitous computing and the Internet has transformed global communication and re-shaped our ‘‘connectivity’’ as a species—no less than how we do our research and communicate our findings. Many journals now publish in a single lingua franca, English; moreover, they also publish or make their content available on-line. The CAP survey on which these analyses are based did not focus systematically on this information technology revolution and does not allow us explicitly to enhance our understanding about how this communication revolution is changing how we do research as a social process. This constitutes an unfortunate, but real, limitation in the analyses reported here; and argues for future efforts—perhaps even qualitative ones— to begin to chart how the traditional arbiters of academic work—including institutional type, academic field, and career stage—may be re-aligning themselves in the new context.
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