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A GROUP PAY INCENTIVE PROGRAM IN ACADEME:
IMPACT ON FACULTY WORK AND ATTITUDES

By

Lynne Zelenski

A DISSERTATION
. Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education

2008

ABSTRACT

A GROUP PAY INCENTIVE PROGRAM IN ACADEME:
IMPACT ON FACULTY WORK AND ATTITUDES

By

Lynne Zelenski

This study explores the effects of a group pay incentive system as a strategy for
motivating faculty to meet department goals at a large research institution. Generally
speaking, faculty work at these types of institutions is individually oriented and this
investigation explored whether an alternative pay scheme can inﬂuence faculty behavior
and motivate them to work cooperatively to meet established group goals.

Group incentive systems are common in business but not in higher education. The
research on group incentive systems in business settings together with research on faculty
provided the research and theoretical foundation for-the study. The heuristic framework
utilized by Bullock and Lawler (1984) to study 33 gainsharing (a type of group incentive
contract) cases was utilized to analyze this incentive system. This framework encourages
a holistic investigation of the phenomenon through an analysis of the structural
components of the incentive system (what was done), an examination of the
A implementation factors (how it was done), and looking at the situational or contextual
aspects of the organization (where it was done). As evident by the literature, these
factors can contribute to the success or failure of a group incentive system.

This investigation utilized a case study approach to provide an in-depth
understanding of the department’s incentive system and explore its inﬂuence on how

individual faculty members approach their work. Data collection involved multiple

sources of evidence including interviews with the department chairperson, review of
appropriate department documents, interviews with the faculty, review of performance
data as it relates to the established unit goals, and participant observation.

The analysis of the data revealed several key findings. The department did not
meet the established goals and few faculty members reported behavior changes as a result
of the incentive system. The examination of the incentive system uncovered several
critical factors that contributed to these end results: the faculty did not feel as though
they were involved in the development of the incentive system; they were uncomfortable
with the ﬁnancial bonus; the implementation of the program and performance feedback
were not timely; there was uncertainty over the goals; and elements of the incentive
system were not congruent with key organizational practices and norms. Based upon the
literature, the researcher believes these were serious ﬂaws in the DIS and in combination

contributed to the program’s failure.

Cow/right by
LYNNE ZELENSKI
2008

This dissertation is dedicated to my Dad, Jack Rudolph, who passed away April 28, 2007.
My daughters always said that I was smart because of Grandpa.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I want to thank my husband, Paul, and daughters, Jill and Jamie, for all of
their love and support. I know it has sometimes been difﬁcult to manage all of our family
activities with me in school. I additionally want to thank Paul for his listening ear and
editing. I know reading drafts of my papers was not always on the top of his to-do list,
but he always did it without hesitation or complaint. By the way, I appreciate all of the
A+’s.

Although I dedicated my dissertation to my Dad, I must acknowledge and thank
both of my parents. My parents instilled in me a strong work ethic and this has served
me well. I am appreciative of all of their love, encouragement and support over the
years.

I also must acknowledge my three brothers. Having to keep up with them was not
always easy and I must admit they were not always the best of company. This said
however, they toughened me up and taught me some very valuable lessons that have
helped me along the way. Although I often complain about you guys, it’s all in good
humor and believe me, I know how lucky I am to have you.

I want to thank my dissertation committee members- MaryLee Davis, Ph.D.,
Marilyn Amey, Ph.D., Roger Baldwin, Ph.D., and Bob Banks, Ph.D. Thank you for
having faith in me and supporting me through this endeavor. I also need to thank Lou
Stamatakos, Ph.D. for planting the seed in my head that I ought to pursue doctoral

studies.

vi

I want to recognize my doctoral program cohort for their friendship, inspiration,
and support. Meeting this group of people was one of the best things about my PhD.
program. I want to especially thank Jamie McClintock and Steve Poulios for their
unwavering support and their availability for gripe sessions whenever the need presented
itself.

I want to thank the faculty that I interviewed for their participation. I appreciate
your time and your open, honest responses to my inquiries.

Lastly, I want to thank Michigan State University and all of the students, faculty
and staff who make this a truly great university. The completion of this project could not
have been accomplished without the support and encouragement of a long list of

individuals who have helped and guided me along the way.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE- INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
Research Problem Statement ...................................................................................... 6
Signiﬁcance of the Study ............................................................................................ 7
Overview of the Study and Research Questions ......................................................... 7
Deﬁnition of Terms ..................................................................................................... 8
Limitations .................................................................................................................. 9
Overview of the Dissertation .................................................................................... 10

CHAPTER TWO- REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 12
Group Pay Incentive Systems ................................................................................... 12
Socio-Psychological Research ...................................................................... 13
Organizational Research ............................................................................... 18
Economic Research ....................................................................................... 19
Group Incentive Systems in Other School Settings .................................................. 20
Literature Summary .................................................................................................. 22
Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................. 22

CHAPTER THREE- RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 26
Research Strategy ...................................................................................................... 26
The Unit of Study ...................................................................................................... 27
Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 28
Study Organization ................................................................................................... 30
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 32
Study Timeline .......................................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER FOUR- RESEARCH FINDINGS
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 35
What Was Done? (Structural Factors) ...................................................................... 36
Origin of the Program ................................................................................... 36
Description of the Incentive System ............................................................. 40
The Goals ...................................................................................................... 41
Participation in the Development of the Program ......................................... 45
The Bonus ..................................................................................................... 47
How Was It Done? (Implementation Factors) .......................................................... 48
Timing and Communication ......................................................................... 48
Faculty Perception of their Involvement 1n the Development of the DIS. 5.2
Faculty Perception of the Goals .................................................................... 54
Perception of the Financial Bonus ................................................................ 57
Perceived Barriers ......................................................................................... 59

viii

Where Was It Done? (Situational Factors) ............................................................... 62

Governance ................................................................................................... 63
Faculty Motivation ........................................................................................ 67
Rank and Career Stage .................................................................................. 69
Research Questions ................................................................................................... 70
Did the Faculty Approach their Work Differently ........................................ 70
Research ............................................................................................... 70
Teaching ............................................................................................... 71
Faculty Motivation and the DIS .................................................................... 72
Personal Reputation ............................................................................. 72
Disappointing Colleagues .................................................................... 72
Group Goals ......................................................................................... 72
Goal Achievement ........................................................................................ 73
Research Goals ..................................................................................... 72
Service Goal ......................................................................................... 72
Teaching Goals .................................................................................... 74
Findings Summary .................................................................................................... 74
CHAPTER FIVE- DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY
Introductions ............................................................................................................. 77
Employee Participation. ............................................................................................ 78
Finanacial Rewards ................................................................................................... 80
Timing ....................................................................................................................... 82
Goals ......................................................................................................................... 83
Incongruence with Organizational Practices and Culture ......................................... 85
Discussion Summary ................................................................................................ 89
Implications for Practice ........................................................................................... 9O
Implications for Policy .............................................................................................. 91
Limitations ................................................................................................................ 93
Recommendations for Future Research .................................................................... 95
REFLECTIONS. ..................................................................................................... 96
What Happened to the DIS after the Initial Year ...................................................... 95
Lessons Learned ........................................................................................................ 97
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Case Study Protocol ........................................................................... 99
Appendix B: Participant Consent Form ................................................................. 103
Appendix C: SIRB Approval Letter ...................................................................... 105
Appendix D: Department Faculty .......................................................................... 107
Appendix E: . Department Incentive System 2005-06 ............................................ 108
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 1 11

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table A: Bullock and Lawler Model ....................................................................... 23

Table B: Adapted Bullock and Lawler Model ......................................................... 25

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction and Problem Statement
Introduction
Evidence is growing that institutional survival in the 19903 and beyond
will require that colleges sharpen their priorities, focus their energies, and
redeﬁne how they contribute to the collective good. These goals cannot be
accomplished in a culture made up of fragmented, isolated bands of academic
entrepreneurs, beholden only to the scholarly standards imposed by their

disciplines. Academic departments should be treated as teams, which collectively
are held responsible for carrying out the mission of the institution (Braskamp &

Ory, 1994).

This study explores the effects of a group pay incentive system as a strategy for
motivating faculty to meet department goals at a large research institution. Generally
speaking, faculty work at these types of institutions is individually oriented and
promotion and pay have reinforced this individual approach to work (Braskamp & Ory,
1994; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986). This investigation explores whether an alternative pay
scheme can inﬂuence faculty behavior and motivate them to work cooperatively to meet
established group goals.

As institutions of higher education struggle with funding challenges and calls for
accountability, attention has often focused on the work of the faculty. Some perceive a
mismatch between the interests of the faculty and those of policy makers and the general
public. As noted by Fairweather (1996) faculty have been criticized for being too
narrowly focused on individual research interests with little concern for teaching or the
welfare of the general public. In responding to this growing consumerism, as noted by
Braskamp and Dry (1994) above, colleges and universities will need to establish
appropriate goals and priorities and rally the faculty around these. Education scholars,

institutional leaders and policy makers have posited that the traditional and individual

approach that faculty have taken toward their work will no longer be sufﬁcient in meeting
the demands placed on higher education.

Faculty work has not always been under such close scrutiny, but over the years
changes in both society and academe have inﬂuenced changes in the job responsibilities
of the faculty. This study takes place in an academic department within a large, research
university where faculty work tends to be individually centered and rewards and
incentives are linked to individual performance. Tenure, promotion and pay are linked to
individual achievement in research, teaching and service. Although not true of all
institutions, this pattern is consistent with large research oriented institutions (Braskamp
& Ory, 1994). An understanding of the evolution of faculty roles and responsibilities
helps to illustrate this current pattern.

Although research, teaching and service are currently recognized as the main job
responsibilities of faculty, it was not always this way. Faculty roles have evolved over
time. The ﬁrst commonly accepted responsibility of the faculty was teaching, then public
service, with research being a relatively newer part of the faculty tradition (Boyer, 1990).
The evolution of the academic profession has been greatly inﬂuenced by changes in
society and the national agenda and as a result, the roles and responsibilities of the faculty
changed, developed and expanded. As colleges and universities grew and enrollment
increased, institutions became more bureaucratic and administrative staff was hired and
took over many of the administrative duties previously performed by faculty. By World
War II the research activities and contributions of faculty were becoming highly valued
and more broadly recognized (Finkelstein, 1984). Along with these changes, faculty

became more specialized, and with the increased specialization of the faculty came more

of a sense of professionalism and a collective identity among faculty as a whole and
within academic disciplines (Alpert, 1985). Professional associations centering on
disciplinary specializations developed and strong allegiances to academic disciplines
resulted.

As a result of the growing sense of professionalism, and like other occupational
communities (for example doctors, lawyers, guilds etc.) a distinctive work culture
developed that included self-control and collective autonomy for the membership (Van
Maanen & Barley, 1984). Faculty have come to value autonomy, academic freedom and
collegial governance, and a reward and socialization system has developed to reinforce
these behaviors and values (Kuh & Whitt, 1988). These values are protected by
academic freedom and the tenure system, which deﬁne the boundaries of membership,
socialize new members, and provide a structure that deﬁnes goals, power and authority,
and the rules for success in the profession (Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). These rules
currently emphasize individual achievement in research and publication, which reward
systems have reinforced (Fairweather, 1993, 1995, 1996). Thus, as discussed earlier, the
public perception of faculty as narrowly focused, although not always true, is
understandable.

Given these strong cultural and contextual forces, how can the faculty be
encouraged to work collectively toward institutional goals and interests that may be in
conﬂict with these norms? Several approaches have been attempted and recommended.
One approach has been to change the socialization of faculty and the preparation of
graduate students for careers in academe. In her study of new faculty, Austin (2003)

reports that new faculty characterize their work lives as competitive and isolated. Gaff,

Pruitt-Logan and Weibl (2000) argue that the emphasis on disciplinary specialization and
achievement has had a negative impact on institutional commitment and involvement.
All advocate for changes in the socialization process. Their recommendations include
educating graduate students and new faculty about the history of the roles and
responsibilities of the faculty. Also suggested in this literature is providing aspiring
faculty with skill training beyond their disciplines, in areas such as conﬂict mediation,
time management, running meetings and other such areas that will help prepare new
faculty for roles and responsibilities within the institution and community. Advocates of
this perspective argue that changes must be made in the socialization process in order to
change professional behavior and then building upon this, changes need to be made in the
evaluation and promotion process to reﬂect institutional priorities and to promote desired
faculty behavior.

The Department of Computer Science at Oregon State University has tried
another tactic. They have encouraged teamwork by taking a ﬂexible approach to the
assignment of job responsibilities to build upon individual strengths and interests,
resulting in greater efﬁciency and effectiveness of the department as a whole (Rudd &
Pancake, 1997). By reassigning tasks and responsibilities to members of the faculty with
interest and skill in the particular area, they say they have been able to meet unit goals
without sacriﬁcing individual personal and professional development. Key to the success
of this arrangement is changing group norms and making teaching, research and service
activities equally valuable, and then supporting this with a reward structure consistent
with this belief. The authors indicate that raises are based upon individual achievement

in the assigned tasks and all areas are given equal weight.

Another approach has been to examine the situational factors that inhibit
teamwork. Based upon their interviews with 300 faculty members, Massy, Wilger and
Colbeck (1994) identiﬁed three factors that hinder the faculty from working together on
undergraduate education- fragmented communication; limited resources which cause
tension between faculty and limit opportunities; and evaluation and reward structures that
do not support a favorable environment for faculty interaction. They also identiﬁed
characteristics of academic departments that have succeeded in supporting undergraduate
education despite these identiﬁed detractions. Key ingredients included a supportive
culture for undergraduate teaching, frequent interaction among colleagues, tolerance of
differences, generational respect and workload equity, and frequent teaching rotation of
courses. (Fairweather, 1993)

Missing from these efforts is the use of ﬁnancial incentives to encourage
collective performance and teamwork. This study investigates an example of such an
approach. This project examines the effects of a newly developed group pay incentive
system adopted by an academic department within a large research institution. In
business, rewarding group performance through pay incentive systems is commonplace.
There have been numerous research studies of these group incentive systems and overall,
these plans have had a positive impact on individual and organizational performance.
Based upon these studies, it might be assumed that a group pay incentive system for
faculty in a higher education setting would also be effective in motivating employees to
meet unit or organizational goals. However, there are several factors in this setting that
make this a very different environment. This research will explore this academic

department’s experience with the incentive system and its impact on faculty behavior.

Research Problem Statement

As noted in the introduction, institutions of higher education are struggling with
demands for accountability. Institutions are being asked to respond to different outcomes
and measures of productivity. In response, some colleges and universities are ﬁnding
that the traditional, individual approach faculty have taken toward their work is no longer
sufﬁcient in meeting the demands placed upon them. The problem is most acute in
undergraduate teaching and public service (Fairweather, 1996). In order to meet
established institutional goals and objectives, many believe it requires that faculty work
cooperatively and that they should be held collectively responsible for accomplishing
these. The problem is that employment and reward systems are not always in sync with
the institutional missions, priorities and goals (Diamond, 1993). The traditional
socialization and reward systems in place for faculty recognize individual achievement
and do not reward cooperative work toward organizational goals. The tenure system
emphasizes research productivity and publication for promotion (Blackburn & Lawrence,
1995; Braskamp & Ory, 1994; Fairweather, 1996); and as noted earlier, promotion and
tenure in higher education are the main extrinsic motivating factors behind faculty work.

Given the aforementioned cultural and contextual norms, how can faculty be
encouraged to work together toward institutional goals that may be in conﬂict with these
norms? Can a business model for employee motivation work with faculty in a higher
education setting? The expression “herding cats” is commonly used to describe attempts

to organize and manage faculty. Given faculty culture, will this group pay incentive

system motivate faculty to meet group goals? The calls for accountability in education
make this is a timely and important topic of study.
Signiﬁcance of the Study

This study should be of interest to researchers of faculty work, as well as to
department chairs, deans, human resource professionals, administrators, and policy
makers. The study explores the effects of a group pay incentive system as a strategy for
motivating faculty to work collectively to meet unit goals. This type of incentive system
has been successful in business settings and this research investigates the applicability of
a group pay incentive system with university faculty. The results of this study identify.
the important elements of such incentive systems and the factors within the work
environment and culture that should be given careful consideration when designing and
implementing programs of this nature with faculty.

Overview of the Study and Research Questions

This study focuses on an academic department in a large, midwestem research
university that instituted a group pay incentive system to encourage teamwork in meeting
speciﬁcally set departmental goals. Through a case study the researcher provides an in-
depth understanding of the department’s incentive system and explores its inﬂuence on
how individual faculty members approach their work. In addition to the insight provided
by the detailed description and analysis of the incentive program, the researcher
addresses the following questions:

1) What do faculty report doing differently in their work since the start of

the incentive system?

2) Did the program motivate the faculty to change work attitudes and
behaviors? If so, what provided the motivation (the money, the goals,
both the money and goals, fear of disappointing colleagues, etc)?

3) Did the department achieve the group goals? What happened to
departmental performance and productivity?

Concepts from the business literature on group incentive systems and concepts
from the literature on faculty help guide this study. The study examines the incentive
system from three perspectives including: 1) the formal, structural components of the
incentive system, 2) the way the system was actually implemented and carried out, and 3)
the situational or contextual factors that impact it. The data collection consists of
interviews with the department chairperson, interviews with the faculty, document
analysis, and participant observation.

Deﬁnition of Terms
Group Pay Incentive System

Milgrom and Roberts (1992) deﬁne group incentive contracts as a pay system in
which the performance of the whole group together determines the incentive payment,
and the payment is divided among employees according to a formula or set of criteria that
does not depend upon individual performance. Commonly known group incentive pay
systems include proﬁt sharing, in which employees receive bonuses based upon company
proﬁtability, and gain sharing plans whereby employees receive a ﬁnancial bonus if
established goals are met.

In a nutshell, these systems are built on the belief that individuals are ﬁnancially

motivated and providing rewards based upon group performance maximizes productivity

by setting up a system that encourages the involvement of all employees. Milgrom and
Roberts (1992) cite several reasons for why an organization might utilize a group pay
incentive system as Opposed to one based upon individual rewards. Group incentive
contracts are often used when individual contributions are difﬁcult to measure. They also
are used when the employees know more about each other’s performance than does the
employer. In this scenario group incentives motivate employees to monitor each other’s
performance and discourage individual slacking on the job. Group pay incentive systems
are also effective in promoting employee cooperation and the desire to help each other.
Finally, it may be difﬁcult for individuals to make a difference in organizational
productivity unless they have cooperation from coworkers. Thus, a group incentive
encourages all employees to be involved in accomplishing the organization’s goals.

The term group pay incentive system is used synonymously in this report with the
terms group pay incentive program, and group pay incentive contract.

Limitations

Although all limitations of the study are discussed in chapter ﬁve, there is one
particular limitation that the researcher feels is important to address here in the
introduction. The researcher is a staff member in the unit studied and because of this
some readers may discount the study because they may question the ability of the
researcher to obtain open, honest feedback from the faculty participants. As stated by
Locke, Spirduso and Silverman (2000), it is important that the researcher understand the
limitations and assure the reader that they have been considered in the study design. This
potential limitation has been given great consideration and accommodation in this

investigation. First, it is important to point out that the researcher has a staff position in

the unit and has no supervisory responsibility or authority over the faculty. Secondly, as
discussed in greater detail in the methodology section of this report, safeguards were
taken to encourage the faculty to answer questions openly and honestly. To assist
participants in developing a sense of trust and comfort with the researcher, all participants
were given information about the study in advance, including information regarding how
conﬁdentiality was to be maintained (see appendix B). The researcher explained that the
study has nothing to do with the researcher’s duties within the unit and is a personal
endeavor as part of a doctoral dissertation. In addition, participants could back out at any
time without consequence.

Contrary to the opinion that being a member of the unit is a limitation, the
researcher believes it was an asset to the study. In this particular instance, being a
member of the unit allowed the researcher to have access to information that someone
outside of the organization may not have known about or may not have known to ask for.
Also, it allowed the researcher to perceive reality from the point of view of someone
inside the organization. Yin (2003) considers these both to be strengths of participant
observation.

Overview of the Dissertation

This dissertation includes ﬁve chapters followed by researcher observations,
references, and appendices. In chapter one the researcher provides an introduction to the
study and its signiﬁcance. In chapter two the researcher identiﬁes the important literature
guiding the study and the conceptual framework used to analyze the phenomenon. In
chapter three the researcher provides the rationale for the research methodology utilized

and describes in detail the research process. Chapter four is a presentation of the research

10

ﬁndings, and in chapter five the researcher discusses the ﬁndings of most signiﬁcance,
implications for policy and practice, study limitations, and recommendations for future
study. The researcher concludes the dissertation with additional information about the

incentive system beyond the parameters of this study and personal reﬂections.

11

CHAPTER TWO
Review of the Literature
Introduction

This chapter discusses the literature on group pay incentive systems along with
related literature on faculty that will guide this study. The majority of the research on
group pay incentive systems was found in business literature. The incentive system
literature is organized by the type or focus of the research, and is interspersed with the
related concepts or ﬁndings from the research and literature on faculty. After this set of
literature, the researcher discusses the research ﬁndings from studies of group pay
incentive systems in secondary education studies. The chapter ends with a presentation
of the conceptual model that guides this investigation.

Group Pay Incentive Systems

As introduced earlier, group incentive contracts are a pay system in which the
performance of the whole group together determines the incentive payment, and the
payment is divided among employees according to a formula or set of criteria that do not
depend upon individual performance (Mil grom & Roberts, 1992). Commonly known
group incentive pay systems include proﬁt sharing, in which employees receive bonuses
based upon company proﬁtability, and gain sharing plans whereby employees receive a
ﬁnancial bonus if established goals are met. Although there is a great deal of variety in
the structure of these group incentive systems, in a nutshell they are built on the belief
that individuals are ﬁnancially motivated and providing rewards based upon group

performance maximizes productivity by setting up a system that encourages the

12

involvement of all employees. A great deal of research has focused on these incentive
systems and the concepts that guided this case study will be presented in this section.

The research on group incentive systems has been approached from three basic
perspectives: socio-psychological, organizational, and economic. All three provided
some insight into this research study and provided guidance in the development of the
research methodology.

S ado-Psychological Research

The research that has examined group incentive systems from a socio-
psychological perspective has focused on how the incentive systems affect the employee
personally. Several theoretical views ﬁt under this umbrella including human
relations/participative management, expectancy theory, need theory, operant
conditioning, social dilemma, equity theory, and procedural justice theories (W elbourne
& Mejia, 1995). Welboume and Mejia (1995) reviewed the literature in these areas and
summarized the key concepts and ﬁndings.

In their review of the literature, Welboume and Mejia (1995) examined ten
studies which drew upon the human relations or participative management school of
thought. Almost all of these studies were done in organizations that implemented a group
incentive pay system known as a Scanlon Plan. Joseph Scanlon, who was a cost
accountant in a steel mill, developed the Scanlon Plan in the 1930’s. It is based upon the
belief that employee participation in the design and implementation of work processes
will have positive results for the company. Scanlon believed that if employees put their
heads together they would come up with strategies for reducing production costs and thus

increase company proﬁtability. Although Mejia and Welboume cite some problems with

13

causality and methodology in these studies, for the most part they conclude that employee
participation may be an important variable in the organizations that have had success

with these programs. Not only is participation in the organization important, but also
critical to program success is employee involvement in the design and implementation
process of the incentive plan itself (Bullock & Lawler, 1984). Faculty members typically
participate in the institution through the academic governance system; however, there is
variation between institutions and even within colleges and departments at the same
institution. Thus, as suggested by the literature, faculty participation in the unit and in the
development of the incentive program are important variables to investigate.

One of the methodological criticisms 'of the participative management oriented
studies is that the researchers did not separate out the motivational impact of the ﬁnancial
bonus (Welboume & Mejia, 1995). Group pay incentive systems operate in a bonus
fashion. Employees still maintain their original wage or salary, but are rewarded with a
ﬁnancial bonus if goals are achieved. Milgrom and Roberts (1992) cite that if the pay is
weakly related to performance it will limit the effectiveness of the group incentive
system. For the group pay incentive system to have the intended motivational impact, the
employees must deem that the money is worth the effort. Group pay incentive systems
are based upon the assumption that the ﬁnancial reward will motivate employees,
however money may or may not motivate faculty.

The literature on whether or not faculty members are motivated by money is
mixed. Amey and VanDerLinden (2002) claim that the working condition most
dissatisfying to faculty is their salary. In contrast, Clark (1987) states that the “richness”

of a faculty member’s career overshadows ﬁnancial rewards. Heam (1999) asserts

14

intrinsic rewards overshadow the ﬁnancial rewards and cites a study done by the US.
Department of Education of university faculty in the late 19805 found that faculty are
satisﬁed or very satisﬁed with their salaries. Tierney (1997) states that job security and
autonomy offset any perceived deﬁcits in pay. Consistent with this perspective,
McKeachie (1979) says that rank, tenure, recognition by peers, and working conditions
take precedence over salary for faculty. Youn (2005) claims that the prestige of the
hiring institution is more important to faculty than the salary. These ﬁndings however,
do not mean that ﬁnancial rewards are not motivating for faculty. As noted in the
research on group compensation systems, perhaps the reward must be perceived as
signiﬁcant for it to have the desired motivational affect. Also Hearn (1999) comments
that faculty complacency with existing salaries may change if they have an external job
market where the salaries are much higher, and their comfort with their salaries may
decrease if job security is threatened. Staw (1983) also indicates that faculty have

- become more in tune to financial rewards as institutions have struggled with distributing
a shrinking pool of resources. The increased use of merit pay in annual salary increases
also implies that faculty are ﬁnancially motivated (Hansen, 1988). More recent data also
suggest that faculty with strong research and publication records have higher salaries than
their teaching colleagues (Fairweather, 1993, 1995, 1996; Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 1992),
so although some research may indicate that faculty may not be ﬁnancially motivated, the
organizations treat them as though they are. By differentially rewarding faculty, it
appears organizations are using ﬁnancial incentives as motivational tools to encourage

certain sets of behavior.

15

Although only a few studies have been done from the expectancy theory and need
theory perspectives, both theories suggest that individual and demographic differences
might mediate the effects of group incentive systems (Welboume & Mejia, 1995). From
an expectancy theory point of view, the effectiveness of a group incentive system could
be contingent upon the individual employee’s perception that the goals can be achieved.
Staw (1983) writes that in order to meet organizational goals faculty must believe they
can perform the desired roles and tasks, and in order to build faculty conﬁdence the
necessary support mechanisms need to be in place. Additionally, individual needs could
also have an impact on the effectiveness of the incentive plan. Welboume and Mejia
(1995) cite a study by Dreher that measured four needs: achievement, autonomy,
afﬁliation and dominance and found that all except for afﬁliation were correlated with
job satisfaction and job involvement. These perspectives suggest the importance of
understanding the beliefs and needs of the individual faculty members in relation to the
group pay incentive system.

In addition to individual needs, there is literature to support the argument that
there may be group differences among the faculty that could potentially have an impact
on the success of the group incentive pay system as well. Baldwin (1990) articulates four
distinct developmental stages that faculty go through, each with different issues and
concerns. These issues and concerns could potentially have an impact on how the faculty
perceive and respond to the group pay incentive system. For example, faculty in the
early part of their careers are focused on adjusting to new jobs, getting established as an
academic professional, and obtaining tenure (Baldwin, 1990; Menges, 1996; Olsen &

Sorcinelli, 1992). Stress is a common theme in the literature on new faculty and it would

16

seem logical that a group pay incentive system that is not totally in sync with the
requirements for promotion and tenure might create even more stress, and thus an adverse
reaction to the group pay incentive system. However, at the same time, the ﬁnancial
reward promised through the system may be more meaningful to a younger person
beginning their career, establishing a family and home, and perhaps coming out of years
of low graduate student wages. It seems logical that these factors could potentially
mediate the response of newer faculty to the group pay incentive system. Likewise,
concerns of mid-career and later career faculty might do the same. Given this possibility,
faculty responses were examined by rank and additionally by years in the professoriate.
Several other socio-psychological points of view also guided this study. The
operant conditioning perspective highlights the importance of the timing of the bonus pay
in the success of the program. The social dilemma perspective introduces the potential
negative impact that “free riders” can have on the group pay incentive system
(W elboume & Mejia, 1995). If some employees can reap the beneﬁts of the work of
others without contributing themselves, then this may serve as a disincentive for others
thus having an impact of the overall effectiveness of the group pay incentive system.
Studies done based upon equity and justice theories have found that the perceived
fairness of the program mitigates the employee response to the program (Welboume &
Mejia, 1995). Studies of faculty compensation also assert the importance of equity in
compensation practices (Amey & VanDerLinden, 2002; Moore & Amey, 1993). These
issues were taken into consideration as interviews were conducted, documents were

studied, and data was analyzed.

17

Organizational Research

From an organizational perspective incentive systems are analyzed based upon
contextual factors. Within this perspective, structural models look at group incentive
plans to understand organizational factors or conditions that may inﬂuence the incentive
plan. Research has indicated that certain conditions within the organization may
contribute to the success of the incentive system for example, participative decision
making, fair pay, managerial competency, organizational climate, union relations, unit
size, etc. (Welboume & Mejia, 1995). However, Welboume and Mejia (1995) claim that
many of the studies conducted from this vantage point are inconclusive because of
problems with causality and the-difﬁculty in measuring some of the organizational
factors. In a study somewhat related to the researcher’s project because it focused on
faculty working together, Massy, Wilger and Colbeck (1994) investigated the
organizational factors that support or inhibit the ability of faculty to work together on
undergraduate teaching and learning. They identify three factors that make it difﬁcult:
fragmented communication as a result of faculty autonomy, isolation, specialization
within the academic discipline, generational divisions, and personal politics; limited time
and ﬁnancial resources; and evaluation and reward methods that prioritize research and
publication. Although there have been challenges to some of the research from this
perspective, these studies point out the importance of not looking at group incentive plans
as independent, detached programs. Organizational conditions must be taken into
consideration when studying incentive programs.

Also from the organizational viewPoint, the contingency theory perspective

suggests that the incentive system must ﬁt with other organizational practices and is most

18

likely to be effective if other practices within the organization are complementary
(Welboume & Mejia, 1995). Also, the reward system will be less effective if it is not
consistent with the organization’s strategy and goals (Gomez-Mejia, 1992). In their study
of gain sharing as a collective performance pay incentive system, Welboume and Mejia
(1995) found that consistent, interrelated practices within the organization are critical to
the success of the incentive system; however in research universities, there are often
competing reward systems in place. Although organizations may boast the importance of
teaching, service, and outreach, promotion and tenure emphasize individual research
productivity. Compensation practices also favor research accomplishment and studies
have shown that faculty with strong research records have higher salaries (Fairweather,
1993, 1995, 1996; Gomez-Mejia, 1992). Another problem is that unlike business
organizations, goals in higher education tend to be as Hearn (1999) describes as
“contested, multiple and ambiguous” (p. 398). So although collective performance
systems have worked in business organizations, their success in higher education settings
in less certain due to the nature of these enviromnents.

Economic Research.

From an economic perspective, concepts from agency theory provide insight into
the study. In an agency relationship, one person, the agent, is supposed to act on behalf
of another person, the principal. Often the principal is unable to ascertain whether or not
the agent is acting in his or her best interests or if the agent is acting on behalf of their
own personal self-interests. In the case of faculty, it can be very difﬁcult for the unit
administrator to monitor the time and activities of faculty given the independent nature of

faculty work. Besides set class, ofﬁce hour, and meeting times, members of the faculty

19

typically have a great deal of freedom in regard to when and where they work.
Department Chairpersons, who commonly are assigned the task of evaluating faculty
members, are most typically faculty members themselves, and have not only department
leadership and administrative tasks, but regular faculty duties as well (Creswell, Wheeler,
Seagren, Egly, & Beyer, 1990; Dyer & Miller, 1999; Tucker, 1981). These factors make
it difﬁcult for a chairperson to monitor the work of the faculty. A group incentive
contract is one way some employers have attempted to put checks and balances on
employee behavior. Group incentive contracts encourage group members to monitor
each others’ performance and thus reduce the costs of monitoring and supervision on
behalf of the employer (Milgrom & Roberts, 1992). Although not the motivation of the
department in this case, this theory suggests that if employees think their colleagues are
watching over them, this might motivate the employees to work harder.
Group Incentive Systems in Other School Settings

Evidence of group incentive programs was not found in higher education. There
have been incidents where entire institutions or units are ﬁnancially rewarded for
performance, but examples of individual compensation for overall unit attainment of
group goals were not found in the literature. However, a few examples were found in
secondary education settings. Several states and school districts have implemented, or
are experimenting with group pay incentive plans. The overall motivation behind these
plans is to increase student achievement and is believed that student achievement will be
greater when the entire school works together to meet the stated educational goals
(Raham, 2000). The majority of the studies found do not apply to the research questions

of this proposed study. Most of the studies focused mainly on the improvement of

20

student performance and overall the results are mixed (Raham, 2000). Although these
secondary settings are also educational environments, there are signiﬁcant differences
between higher and secondary education, and because of these differences these studies
are limited in their applicability.

However, there were a couple of studies with some relevancy. Two studies
focused on the motivational impact of these reward programs and found that although the
ﬁnancial reward is motivating to some teachers, the stronger incentives are clearly stated
and speciﬁc goals, the personal satisfaction of meeting the goals, the personal satisfaction
of student achievement, and the public recognition received when goals are reached
(Kelley, 1999; Kelley, Odden, Milanowski, & Heneman, 2000). These studies used
expectancy theory (teachers perceive goals as attainable), goal-setting theory (teachers
are motivated more by understandable, speciﬁc goals than by vague or conﬂicting goals),
and systems theory (teachers will be motivated to work toward program goals if policies
and resources are in alignment) as the conceptual framework guiding the research. As
with faculty in higher education, these studies call into question the motivational impact
of ﬁnancial incentives with educators and provided further rationale for exploring the
motivational impact of the group incentive system with faculty.

Also in these studies there is some inkling that group pay incentive programs
increase teamwork in K-12 schools. Like faculty in higher education, teachers in
secondary schools also report feeling isolated from their teaching colleagues and that
their work is individually oriented. Kelley (1999) reported that teachers identiﬁed the
opportunity to work collaboratively with other teachers in planning and implementing

curricular changes as a beneﬁcial outcome of the group pay incentive plans. Hall and

21

Caffarella (1997) report in their evaluation of the Douglas County Colorado system that
teachers have said the program has helped decrease classroom isolation of teachers and
has helped to increase collegiality. So although these educational environments are quite
different from business settings, there is some information that indicates that group
incentive systems may have some of the same desirable outcomes. This reinforces the
importance of studying group incentive systems in higher education.
Literature Summary

The business literature makes a strong case for the use of group incentive
programs; however their ﬁt within academia is less certain. There has been extensive
research regarding the socio—psychological, organizational, and economic factors that
contribute to or detract from the effectiveness of these programs in business settings;
however, no literature was found documenting the use of group incentive pay programs
with faculty in higher education. The concepts from the literature presented in this
chapter provided insight that helped the researcher develop the case study protocol and
analyze the data collected.

Conceptual Framework

Bullock and Lawler (1984) analyzed 33 gainsharing (a type of group incentive
contract) cases found in the literature by asking the fundamental questions of a case study
in organizational development: What was done? How was it done? Where was it done?
These questions are answered through an analysis of the structural components of the
incentive system, an examination of the implementation factors, and looking at the

situational or contextual aspects of the organization. As pointed out in the review of the

22

literature, studies have found that these factors can contribute to the success or failure of
a group incentive system.

Bullock and Lawler (1984) present the following model for exploring case studies
of gainsharing:
Figure A: Bullock and Lawler Model

Structural Factors
(Involvement structure, ﬁnancial formula,
Payout percentage, etc.)

Implementation Factors

(Employee involvement. objectives, : Success Outcomes

use of interventionist, etc.) (Innovation, productivity, pay,
cooperation, etc.)

 

Situational Factors
(Size, union status, management style,
Technology, environment, etc.)

Incorporating the concepts from the literature, this model has been adapted to

. guide the case study. As described by Bullock and Lawler, the structural factors category
includes the factual, descriptive information regarding the program. This ﬁrst category
will be expanded to also include an investigation of the origins of the program. Additions
have also been made to the second category, implementation factors. First, as described
by Bullock and Lawler, this category will include details about how the program was
implemented. As Bullock and Lawler (1984) write, “. . .it is important not only what you
do but how you do it” (p.27). In addition, this category will be expanded to include
information about what actually occurred and faculty perceptions of what happened.
Argyris and Schon (1977) point out how organizations may often have espoused theories,
or actions and beliefs that the organization publicly announces as important, but that the

actual organizational behavior is often different. Additionally, the group incentive

23

literature indicates that there are several psycho-social factors that may mediate the
impact of the incentive program and this second area has been expanded in order to draw
attention to these in the case study. The third category of analysis, the context of this
study, is of special interest because although group incentive programs are commonplace
in business and industry, their success in higher education is less certain. The situational
factors category draws attention to the contextual factors that may have an impact on the
success of the incentive program. The literature points to several areas worthy of
exploration including organizational culture, motivational inﬂuences, the impact of
competing reward systems, and potential differences by rank and career stages.

As Bullock and Lawler’s model points out, what happens in these three areas can
have an impact on the success of the program. Success, according to the authors, is
whatever the organization has indicated as goals for the incentive program. In this
particular case, success outcomes are being deﬁned as the faculty working cooperatively
toward goal achievement and the accomplishment of the Stated unit goals. Taking the
original model and literature into consideration, the customized model guiding the case

study is illustrated in Figure B on the following page.

24

Figure B: Adapted Bullock and Lawler Model

What was done? (Structural Factors)

Origin/history of the program

Description of the program

Goals

Participation in development

Criteria for awarding bonus

How/when will it be awarded

Structures put in place for communication
or problem solving

How was it done? (Implementation Factors)
Timing of bonus

Communication and problem solving strategies
that actually occurred
Perception of involvement (compare to what
was said would be done)
Perception of bonus (worth the effort, fair)
Perception of goals as attainable _
Inﬂuential factors/barriers- free riders,
isolation, autonomy, divisions by specialization,
generational differences, personal politics,
limited time, limited ﬁnancial resources

Where was it done? (Situational Factors)

Characteristics of the organization

Conﬂicting reward system (did the promise
of a bonus motivate faculty to do
anything differently?)

What motivates? (tenure system, money,
having goals, perception people
are watching you)

Differences by rank

Differences by career stage

25

W
Working cooperatively
Accomplishing goals

CHAPTER THREE
Research Design and Methods
Introduction

The purpose of this research study is to explore the effects of a group pay
incentive system as a strategy for motivating faculty to meet department goals at a large
research institution. This investigation explores whether an alternative pay scheme can
inﬂuence faculty behavior and motivate them to work collectively to meet established
group goals. This chapter explains the research methodology, describes the unit that is
the focus of this study, details the data collection and data analysis procedures, and
presents the study timeline.

Research Strategy

This investigation utilizes a case study approach. Case studies are done in order to
gain in-depth insight into a particular situation and are an intensive description of a
program, event, community, group, or intervention (Merriam, 1998). The case study
method is important because of the researcher’s emphasis on the contextual situation
(Mertens, 1998; Yin, 2003). As already noted, group incentive programs are
commonplace in business settings, but are not common in higher education thus the
setting is extremely important. This study provides an in-depth understanding of this
academic department’s group pay incentive system, and explores its inﬂuence on how
individual faculty members approach their work.

In addition to the program description and analysis, the researcher addresses the

following research questions:

26

1) What do faculty report doing differently in their work since the start of the
incentive system?

2) Did the program motivate faculty to change work attitudes and behaviors? If
so, what provided the motivation (the money, the goals, both the money and
goals, fear of disappointing colleagues, etc.)?

3) Did the department achieve the group goals? What happened to departmental
performance and productivity after the implementation of the incentive
system?

The Unit of Study

This study took place in an academic department within a large public midwestem
research university. The department consists of 27 regular faculty members (26 faculty
members plus the chairperson), two non-tenure track faculty members, three academic
specialists (non-tenure track staff with teaching and administrative responsibilities), four
clerical support staff members, 18 full-time doctoral students, and numerous part-time
student employees who provide teaching and clerical support. Of the 26 regular faculty
members, 13 are ﬁrll professors, eight are associate professors, and ﬁve are assistant
professors (see appendix C). The department is highly regarded within its disciplinary
communities. The rankings considered most relevant by the department are those done
by one of the leading trade publications of the profession. The name of the publication
carmot be included here because the title of this publication would reveal the academic
department and risk revealing the identity of the study participants. In the 2005, edition
of this publication the undergraduate program was ranked among the top 10 programs in

the nation, and the masters and doctoral programs were both ranked among the top 15.

27

The rankings are published annually and are a result of a national survey of academics in
the ﬁeld. In addition according to a respected research database in the ﬁeld, the
department ranked among the top 15 in the nation for the number of publications over the
last ﬁve years in the top ﬁve academic journals for their main ﬁeld of study. The
department also has a group of faculty who publish in another area, and they ranked third
in the nation over the last ﬁve years in this set of journals.

The site was chosen because in the fall of 2005 the department implemented a
group pay incentive system. Department discretionary funds were set aside to
individually reward faculty with a ﬁnancial bonus if established departmental goals were
met. This is a cultural shift for the faculty who in the past were only rewarded for
individual accomplishment. This reward program was designed to beneﬁt all faculty if,
as a whole, the teaching scores improved, a speciﬁc number of publications were
obtained, and if all service assignments were completed. In a review of the literature and
through discussion with several leaders and experts in the ﬁeld of higher education, no
other examples of this speciﬁc type of group pay incentive system were found in higher
education.

Data Collection

It is recommended that data collection be holistic (Merriam, 1998), and to meet
this goal the study includes interviews with the department chairperson, review of
appropriate department documents, interviews with the faculty, review of performance
data as it relates to the established unit goals, and participant observation. These multiple

sources of evidence are necessary in order to analyze the case from the perspective of the

28

conceptual model and provide methodological triangulation to increase conﬁdence in the
data collected (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).

The conceptual framework presented earlier guided the investigation of the
incentive system and the research questions. In order to conduct the study the researcher
obtained background information regarding the incentive system and the academic
department. This information was obtained through participant observation, interviews
with the chairperson, and the review of organizational documents including bylaws,
written documents regarding the incentive program, and appropriate meeting minutes.

Faculty droughts and reactions to the department’s group pay incentive system
were obtained through semi-structured interviews. All 26 of the faculty members agreed
to be interviewed. Interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. The researcher
allowed interview participants to review and revise the transcripts to insure their accuracy
and to increase reader conﬁdence in the data collection (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).

As a staff member in the unit, the researcher recognized that this might create a
challenge in the faculty interview portion of the data collection process. It was
anticipated that some faculty members might be reluctant to answer questions openly and
honestly. However, because the researcher has a staff position in the unit and has no
supervisory responsibility or authority over the faculty it was not expected to create a
major obstacle for participation. To account for this issue and in order to assist
participants in developing a sense of trust and comfort with the researcher, all participants
were given information about the study in advance, including information regarding how
conﬁdentiality was to be maintained. The researcher explained that the study had nothing

to do with the researcher’s duties within the unit and that the study was a personal

29

endeavor as part of a doctoral dissertation. This information was presented along with
the required informed consent document (see appendix B) conforming to the Social
Science, Behavioral, Educational Institutional Review Board (SIRB) requirements for
informed consent of research participants. The consent form included an
acknowledgement that participation is voluntary, refusal to participate will involve no
penalty, and that the subject may discontinue participation at any time. The researcher
allowed each faculty participant to review his or her interview transcript for accuracy and
make any additions or changes necessary to make certain the interview was accurately
represented. Faculty members were given an alias in the interview transcripts and are not
identiﬁed by name in this published document. All electronic versions of the research
materials are kept on a password protected personal laptop computer with back-up copies
saved on a password protected external hard drive device. Hard copies and audiotapes
are stored in a ﬁle cabinet in the home of the researcher. These procedures were
approved by the SIRB and documentation of this approval can be found in appendix C.

The ﬁnal aspect of data collection was the review of the performance reports to
ascertain whether or not the unit was successful in meeting the established performance
goals. These reports were sent to members of the department via email by the department
chairperson. As a staff member in the department, the researcher had access to this
information and the department chairperson consented to its use in the study.

Study Organization

Several steps were taken to insure this was an accurate, well-organized and

documented case. First, the researcher developed and followed a pre-established study

protocol or research plan (appendix A). This protocol served as a road map to the

30

project. Yin (2003) recommends that a protocol includes an overview of the study,
speciﬁc ﬁeld procedures, and the study outline for the resulting case study report. Much
of this information is already included in this document.

Secondly, the researcher developed a database for storing the collected
information that allows readers to understand the derivation of evidence and the basis for
the conclusions made (Yin, 2003). The database consists of both electronic ﬁles and hard
copies. First, all interview participants were tracked in an Excel spreadsheet. This
spreadsheet includes the interviewees name, the assigned alias, their sex, professorial
rank, the number of years he or she has been in the professoriate, the date of the
interview, notes about the status of the transcript, and the date the transcript was
approved by the interviewee. This spreadsheet was critical in helping the researcher keep
track of the interviews and transcripts.

As part of the database, the researcher maintained several Microsoft Word ﬁles.
One ﬁle contained all of the interview transcripts. Each transcript was placed in an
electronic ﬁle folder named “Interviews”. Each transcript document was saved under the
alias of the interviewee. When the transcript was approved by the interviewee, the
researcher moved it to a new ﬁle named “Approved Interview Transcripts”. The
researcher did this so that original transcripts and approved transcripts did not get
confused. Another ﬁle titled “Documents” was created and contained electronic copies
of all departmental documents collected for the study.

The last electronic data ﬁle maintained by the researcher was a ﬁle titled “Sorted
Data”. This ﬁle was used to store data as it was sorted. As will be described in the next

section on data analysis, the data was sorted initially into Excel spreadsheets, and then

31

again in Microsoft Word. Copies of the sorted data in both of these formats were
maintained in this ﬁle.

Once the data was sorted, the researcher printed hard copies of the Word ﬁles.
These hard copies were then used for coding. For example, in the set of remarks
addressing barriers to participation, each response was coded as to the type of barrier
discussed. These codes (for example time, support structures, tenure etc.) were then
tallied. The tallies were written on a note‘page along with other researcher thoughts,
observations and ideas. The note pages were attached to the hard copy of the sorted data
and these copies were kept in a ﬁle folder. These hard c0pies were then utilized when
writing the research report.

Data Analysis

In order to analyze all of the data from the interviews and documents involved in
the case study, the researcher ﬁrst organized all of the data into a case study database as
described in the preceding section. All of the data was ﬁrst organized as suggested by
Bullock and Iawler (1984) into the three main groupings: what was done, how was it
done, and where it was done. Hard copies of department documents were reviewed and
divided into these categories based upon their ﬁt with this schema. Interview transcripts
were broken down by interview questions and put in Excel spreadsheets. These were then
printed and the hard copies were divided into these same categories. This organization
provided the initial structure for the data analysis.

Excel was initially chosen as a tool for the data analysis because it would allow
the researcher to later sort the data by rank and years in the professoriate. The literature

on career stages suggested that there could potentially be differences in responses based

32

upon these factors and the researcher wanted to develop a system that would allow the
data to be sorted by these characteristics.

Once organized into these three categories, the researcher began to read once
again the interview responses. In the process, the researcher realized that the Excel
format had limitations on the number of words that could ﬁt into a data ﬁeld. Some of
the interview responses were too long and were cutoff in the printed document. To
correct this, the researcher took each response and transferred it into a Microsoft Word
document organized by each interview question. The Excel ﬁle was still maintained
however so that the data could later be sorted if deemed necessary.

The researcher then utilized the themes from the literature to assist in the
development of categories for grouping the data beyond the initial sort by interview
questions (for example reactions to ﬁnancial bonus, barriers, participation in the
development of the DIS, etc.) and the researcher utilized the constant comparative
method to do so. Each unit of data was compared to these categories, and to each other,
to make thematic groupings. This was all done in Microsoft Word by cutting comments
from the initial sorted documents and pasting these comments into documents organized
by the themes that emerged.

Once divided into the smaller thematic groupings, the researcher printed hard
copies and again read the responses. The data in these smaller thematic groupings was
then coded and tallied. For example, in the set of remarks addressing barriers to
participation, each response was coded as to the type of barrier discussed. These codes
(for example time, support structures, tenure etc.) were then tallied. The data was also

further examined for unique patterns based upon career stage and rank as suggested by

33

the literature. This was easy to do because as the researcher sorted and moved interview
comments around, she included with each piece of data the alias, rank, and number of
years in the professoriate.
Study Timeline

The incentive system was implemented in the fall of 2005 and the ﬁnal
determination of whether or not performance goals were met occurred during the summer
of 2006. This time period provides the boundaries for the case study. Data collection
began in the fall of 2006 after UCI-IRIS and dissertation committee approvals were
obtained. The researcher completed data collection in January of 2007. The data

analysis and writing of the research report were completed in November of 2007.

34

CHAPTER FOUR
Research Findings

Introduction

This purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a group pay incentive
system as a strategy for motivatingfaculty to meet department goals at a large research
institution. The goal of the study was to provide an in-depth understanding of the
department’s group pay incentive system and to answer these three questions:

1) What do faculty report doing differently in their work since the start of the

incentive system?

2) Did the program motivate faculty to change work attitudes and behaviors? If
so, what provided the motivation (the money, the goals, both the money and
goals, fear of disappointing colleagues, etc.)?

3) Did the department achieve the group goals? What happened to departmental
performance and productivity?

The ﬁndings, which are based upon interviews with the department chairperson;
the review of departmental documents including bylaws, policies, and meeting minutes;
interviews with the faculty; and review of the performance data as it relates to the goals
of the incentive system are presented in this section. First, the ﬁndings are presented in
detail utilizing the conceptual framework presented in the methodology section as a
guide. Secondly, the ﬁndings are narrowed to speciﬁcally address the three research

questions.

35

What Was Done? (Structural Factors)

Origin of the program

In the fall of 2005 the academic department implemented what was ofﬁcially
known as the Department Incentive System (DIS). Essentially, the DIS is a group pay
incentive system. All faculty would be rewarded with a ﬁnancial bonus if departmental
goals were met. The emphasis of the DIS is on collective performance. The preamble of
the departmental document describing the DIS states: “In recognition that the current
merit review system rewards individual but not collective achievement, the Department
(name omitted) is adopting the following department incentive system to motivate and
focus cooperation in achieving the department’s teaching, research, and service
missions.”

The chairperson of the department developed the idea for the DIS after
participating in a training and development experience over the summer with one of the
department’s major employers of students. The exercise was part of a discussion
regarding teamwork in meeting organizational goals. The participants of the training and
development experience were divided into simulated NASCAR pit crews. Each pit crew
member was given a task involved in a race car pit stop. Each crew was timed to see how
long it took to complete the pit stop tasks and get the car back in the race. The pit crews
were then challenged to improve their time. The crew the chairperson was involved in
tried the pit stop again and found little improvement in their time. They realized
something more needed to be done to make {a signiﬁcant difference in their performance.
They looked more critically at the tasks and reassigned jobs. They helped those who

needed help. His group discovered that in order to improve their time, they needed to

36

approach the pit stop holistically. Regardless of how good one person was at a given
task, if other teammates struggled, the group did not improve their time. This experience
had an impact on how the chairperson viewed the performance of his academic
department.

The chairperson reported that the NASCAR experience was not the sole source of
inspiration for the DIS however. He also said that the department’s external advisory
board inﬂuenced his thinking. Over the last few years, this particular academic unit has
solicited feedback regarding unit goals and objectives from its external advisory board.
The external advisory board consists of alumni who are successful professionals working
in the ﬁeld. At the department’s request, the board meets twice a year to provide input
and guidance to the unit.

The chairperson reported that he had been engaged in a conversation with board
members regarding his vision and goals for the department since he assumed the
chairperson position. As a member of the board and coordinator of board meetings, the
researcher was also well aware of these conversations. As part of this ongoing discussion
that started back in the fall of 2002 with a conversation regarding college and department
strategic plans, at the spring 2005 meeting the board was asked “What will it take to get
the department to the next level? How can the board help?” The pursuant discussion
focused on identifying and developing benchmarks for success. Items discussed included
the placement of graduates; being a strategic recruiting school for major employers;
rankings; having a current curriculum; faculty involvement in the practitioner, college,
and university communities; and having recognition from the college and university as

being a successful unit.

37

The dialog then turned to academically oriented scales of measurement. Faculty
and board members discussed the three basic components of faculty work: teaching,
research and service. As discussion continued, the researcher observed that the board
members were not aware of the individualistic nature of faculty work. It was explained
to the board members that individual faculty members had assignments in each of the
three areas and annual raises were merit-based contingent upon individual achievement.
The researcher observed that the board members were astonished that there were no
group goals. Board member felt there should be explicit unit goals and objectives, and
that individual objectives should ﬁt within this deﬁned set of departmental goals. Board
members spoke about the need for speciﬁcally deﬁned measures of success. Faculty
pushed back and talked about the difﬁculty in quantifying and measuring their work. The
faculty spoke about the entrepreneurial nature of their work and attempted to explain
faculty customs and norms to the business executives. In the end, board members
encouraged the department to examine this issue more closely and pushed for the
establishment of unit academic goals. In their mind, success as a whole was the key
ingredient to taking the department to the next level.

These two events served as the inspiration behind the DIS. The chairperson
talked about the NASCAR experience and reﬂected back upon the external advisory
board meeting at the annual fall faculty retreat on August 25, 2005. He proposed to the
faculty his idea for promoting collaboration and the attainment of departmental goals by
using departmental discretionary funds to ﬁnancially reward all individuals if group goals
were met. Discussion ensued as to the details of such a program and in the end, the

faculty voted to approve the general structure (21 in favor, 0 opposed and 6 abstentions)

38

of the incentive system with the caveat that the Departmental Advisory Council (DAC)
would review the plan and make a ﬁnal recommendation to the faculty regarding the
goals. According to the department’s bylaws, DAC membership consists of ﬁve elected
faculty members, one representative of the staff, one undergraduate representative, and
one graduate student representative. The bylaws state, “An important purpose of the
DAC is to serve as a means of participation by faculty, staff, and students in the policy
making of the Department.” The department bylaws describe the scope of DAC activities
to include:

7.2. Scope of Activities

7.2.1. The DAC shall make general policy recommendations pertaining to the
teaching, research, and service missions of the Department.

7.2.2. The DAC shall act as the Departmental grievance conunittee in matters
arising between faculty, staff (when not covered by other University procedures),
and students.

7.2.3. The DAC shall undertake additional duties as deemed necessary by the
Chairperson, regular faculty, College, and University.

7.2.4. The DAC shall have shared responsibility with the Chairperson of the
Department for the agenda of Department meetings.

7.2.5. The DAC shall establish channels for meaningful communication among
faculty, staff, and students.

7.2.6. The DAC shall make recommendations on policies regarding.
implementation of the Assignment, Evaluation, and Merit Salary Increases.

According to departmental records the DAC met three times to discuss the
proposed incentive system. The council provided feedback to the chair regarding who
should be included in the incentive system; they provided afﬁrmation for the proposed
two-step system consisting of basic goals and a second higher level of goals; and they

discussed at length the speciﬁc goals and how to measure these. At one point DAC

39

members were charged with collecting opinions from their faculty colleagues regarding
the list of journals to be included in the measurement of the research goal. Among the
faculty, there are specialty areas or “tracks” as they informally refer to these
specializations. A member from each track happened to be on the DAC, so each faculty
member of the DAC was assigned to collect feedback regarding the journals from his or
her track colleagues. The DAC debated and voted on each component of the DIS and
then provided a ﬁnal recommendation to the chairperson.

The DAC is an advisory group to the department chairperson and as such, the
chairperson is not bound by their recommendations. However, the chairperson reported
that he takes their advice seriously and said that “any chairperson would be foolish not
to.” The chairperson said that he accepted most of the recommendations made by the
DAC regarding the DIS. The only one that he recalled not accepting was the goal as it
pertained to service. This is discussed in greater detail in the following section.

A ﬁnal version of the DIS was then distributed to the faculty and on October 21,
2005, a faculty meeting was held to vote on the details of the incentive system. All 20
faculty members present at this meeting voted in approval of the ﬁnalized incentive
system proposal.

Description of the Incentive System

The incentive system was designed to reward collective achievement of
departmental teaching, research and service goals. Two sets of goals were established:
basic goals and additional goals. Some faculty in the department referred to the
additional goals as “reach” or “stretc ” goals. If the basic goals were met. a ﬁnancial

bonus of $3,000 was to be awarded to all full-time employees with teaching

40

responsibilities, and $1,500 to part-time employees with teaching responsibilities and to
full-time non-teaching employees. If the additional goals were achieved, an additional
$2,000 would be awarded to full-time employees with teaching duties, and $1,000 would
be given to part-time employees with teaching responsibilities and to each full-time non-
teaching employee. The unit’s formal document describing the program which is
included in the appendix, gives further details regarding eligible employees including
those on sabbatical, administrative leave, and those approaching retirement in their
consultantship year. The program started in the fall of 2005 and covered the time period
of August 16, 2005 to August 15, 2006.
The Goals

Goals were established in each of three areas: teaching, research, and service.
According to the chairperson, the general philosophy used in the setting of the goals was
to establish goals that would be attainable but would still require some attention and
effort to be accomplished. The teaching goal was to be evaluated using what the
institution refers to as SIRS scores. SIRS stands for the Student Instructional Rating
System. It is a standard, university-provided survey which collects feedback from
students to provide faculty and department administrators with feedback on their
instructional practices. The department currently uses SIRS scores when evaluating
faculty for promotion, tenure, and salary increases so utilizing SIRS scores was a practice
already in place by the unit. Although the forms can be customized, the department
involved in this study uses only the two standard questions provided on the form: 1) Rate
the instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness, and 2) Rate the overall quality of the

course. Students have ﬁve options for rating their instructors on these questions: far

41

above average, above average, average, below average, and far below average. Each
rating is given a numerical score from one to ﬁve, with the response of “far above
average” assigned a score of one, and “far below average” assigned a ﬁve. Students also
have the opportunity to write comments on the form. The forms are distributed in class
to students at the end of the semester, and students respond to these questions using a
computer scan answer form. Typically within a couple weeks of administering the forms,
the department chair receives a summary of the results for each course taught. The report
includes a numeric score for the mean, the standard deviation, and the number of
evaluation forms completed. Forms with comments are also returned. After these are
reviewed and recorded by the department chair, the results are distributed to the
individual faculty member.

In order to set the teaching goals, the DAC reviewed the last ﬁve years of SIRS
data. The chairperson reported that there was a great deal of conversation in the DAC
regarding how to set this goal. The members felt that the faculty in the department were
already excellent teachers based upon SIRS scores. In reviewing reports that had been
compiled and distributed by the college administrators, they saw that they had the highest
SIRS scores of all the other academic departments within the college. The DAC
members felt it would be difﬁcult to improve on what they already considered high
performance. Thus as they reviewed the SIRS data from the last ﬁve years, the DAC
decided to choose as the basic goal, the fourth best performance over the last ﬁve years.
The additional goal was set at the average SIRS score over the last ﬁve years. The basic
goal in the incentive system for teaching was a SIRS score of 1.91 on question number

one (instructor’s teaching effectiveness) and 2.05 for question two (overall course

42

quality). The goal would be considered met if the average SIRS scores of all eligible
participants reached these targets. The additional goal would be considered met if the
average SIRS score on question one was equal to or less than 1.89, and 1.98 on question
two.

The basic research goal was considered achieved if two conditions were met.
First, it would be considered met if the total number of coauthored publications was 27 or
more. Secondly, in addition to this, the total number of publications in speciﬁc, targeted
journals must be nine or more. The additional goal target was set at 31 or more
publications with 10 or more in the targeted journals. These numbers were arrived at in
the same fashion as the teaching targets. The fourth best year was chosen as the basic
goal, and the average number of publications over the last ﬁve years was the additional
goal. Publications were counted at the time the acceptance letter was received from the
journal editor, not by the date of the printing and distribution of the actual journal. Target
journals are deﬁned in the formal department incentive system document as:

“Target journals are refereed, highly visible, multidisciplinary, scholarly journals,

including but not limited to the following journals in which department

employees have published over the last ﬁve years. Similar journals can be added

to this list by recommendation of the department chairperson in consultation with

the DAC.”
Following this deﬁnition in the formal DIS program document was a list of speciﬁc
journals. The names of these journals have been deleted from the formal incentive
system document contained in the appendix (see appendix D) in order to protect

conﬁdentiality.

43

Another critical part of this goal was the use of the term coauthored. Coauthored
meant that even if the article was written with another person or persons, it still counted
as a publication. This applied to co-authorships both within and outside the department.
If for example, two faculty members in the department coauthored a published journal
article, it was counted as two articles in the tally. In the case of publications with more
than one author, each faculty member who served as an author received, credit for having
published an article.

As with the teaching goal, the department chairperson reported that there was a
great deal of discussion over the research goal. The minutes of the DAC also reﬂect this.
Debate occurred over whether or not to have two tiers of publications, what publications
belonged on the lists, and what types of publications would count (e. g. book chapters and
published proceedings). The debate over whether or not to have a two-tiered list of
publications appeared to be the most contentious issue and in the end was approved by
only one vote. The DAC vote was four members in favor of having the two-tiered goal,
and three against it.

The service goal, at both the basic and additional goal levels, was considered met
if all service assignments were completed on or before May 15, 2006. This date was
established because most of the faculty have academic year or nine month appointments.
These appointments have a time period of August 15th through May 15th, thus it was
established that service assignments needed to be completed by the end of the academic
year appointment date. According to DAC minutes, there was some concern expressed in
the DAC that the goal was too rigid and would be difﬁcult to attain. If one person did not

complete his or her service assignment, the goal would not be met. The DAC

recommended to the chairperson that the goal should be considered met if n-2 (where n
equals the number of faculty in the unit) completes his or her service assignments. The
chairperson reported that he rejected this recommendation because “he did not want to
give anyone an excuse for not participating.” Instead, a clause was put in the incentive
document that stated that if extenuating circumstances existed, the chairperson along with
a majority vote of the DAC, could exclude certain service assignments from affecting
whether or not the goal was met.

Participation in the Development of the Program

Participation in the development of the incentive system occurred at three levels,
incorporating both formal and informal means of participation. This ﬁrst formal level of
participation was through discussion and voting at faculty meetings. The DIS was ﬁrst
introduced and discussed with the entire faculty at the department’s annual fall faculty
retreat, which is an annual meeting of the faculty before the start of the new school year.
As mentioned previously, the department chairperson proposed the idea and his thoughts
regarding the details of the incentive system at this meeting. Discussion ensued as to the
details of such a program and there was a great deal of discussion and debate regarding
the goals.

After considerable debate, the faculty voted to approve the general structure (21
in favor, 0 opposed and 6 abstentions) of the DIS with the caveat that the DAC would.
review the plan and make a ﬁnal recommendation to the faculty regarding the goals. All
regular faculty members (deﬁned in the bylaws as all persons appointed under the rules
of tenure and who hold the rank of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, or

instructor) were present at this meeting. After DAC review, the entire faculty once again

45

had a formal opportunity to discuss and vote on the DIS. At a faculty meeting on
October 21, 2005, the revised version of the DIS was presented to the faculty. Twenty
regular faculty members were in attendance at this meeting and all voted in approval. A
quorum is deﬁned in the bylaws as one more than a simple majority. At this time there
were 27 regular faculty members in the department, so 16 faculty members were needed
in order to take any action requiring a vote of the faculty.

Review of the incentive program by the DAC was the second type of formal
faculty participation in the development of the DIS. As mentioned earlier, the DAC
consists of ﬁve elected faculty members, one representative of the staff, one
undergraduate representative, and one graduate student representative. Its purpose is to
serve as a means of participation by faculty, staff, and students in the policy making of
the Department.

The DAC met three times to discuss the DIS. According to DAC meeting minutes
and as also reported by some faculty members in their interviews, throughout the DAC
deliberations, members of the DAC engaged their colleagues in conversation regarding
how to measure the research goal. The DAC provided recommendations about the DIS
back to the chairperson and based upon these suggestions the DIS was revised.

The informal participation included casual conversation between the department
chairperson and certain faculty members. Two members of the faculty reported in their
interview that they were at the same training session as the chairperson and they too
participated in the pit crew exercise. Both reported having informal conversation with
the chairperson over the applicability of this exercise to their academic department. Both

reported that the chairperson asked for their feedback regarding the feasibility of an

46

incentive system with their unit.“ Several others reported having “lunchroom”
conversations with the chairperson about the DIS. These conversations were reported to
have occurred casually over lunch in the cafeteria frequented by the faculty. Four other
faculty members with academic expertise related to employee incentives mentioned that
the chairperson had asked them for feedback and ideas on implementing an incentive
program within the department.
The Bonus

1f the basic goals were met, a ﬁnancial bonus of $3,000 was set be awarded to all
full-time employees with teaching responsibilities, and $1,500 to part—time employees
with teaching responsibilities and to full-time non-teaching employees. An additional
$2,000 would be awarded to full-time employees with teaching responsibilities, and
$1,000 to part-time employees with teaching duties and to each full-time non-teaching
employee if the higher goals were met (the department referred to these as the “additional
goals”.) The ﬁnancial bonus, if awarded, was designated to come from department
discretionary funds. These discretionary funds come from private and corporate
donations given to the academic unit to be used at the discretion of the department
chairperson. The chairperson reported that this pool of money had grown over the years
and there was ample money to carry out the DIS at this time. Although the chairperson
claimed to have the authority to use these discretionary funds as he deemed appropriate
for the department, he reported that he had discussed the DIS with the college’s dean and

had the dean’s full support.

47

How Was- It Done? (Implementation Factors)
Timing and Communication

Although discussed and given preliminary approval by the department faculty at
the faculty retreat in August of 2005, the faculty did not approve the speciﬁc details
regarding the goals until the following October of that year. At the retreat the faculty
approved the idea of an incentive system, endorsed the ﬁnancial bonus, and agreed upon
the general concept of having teaching, research and service goals. At the retreat the
chairperson had proposed his ideas for the speciﬁc goals and there was discussion about
these, but because of lack of time and data, the faculty voted to have the DAC review the
goals more thoroughly and come back to the group with a recommendation.

After the October approval of the DIS, the next formal communication about the
incentive system was a progress report sent via email to the faculty and staff on March
20, 2006. At this time it was reported that the faculty had 19 publications, of which nine
were in the list of targeted journals. The basic goal would be considered met if there
were at least 27 publications and at least nine had to be published in the list of targeted
journals. The additional goal was 31 publications and 10 from the list of targeted
journals. As of March, the faculty needed eight more publications to meet the basic
research goal.

This same progress report indicated that the fall semester student evaluation
scores did not meet the goals. The average score on the ﬁrst student evaluation question
(instructor’s teaching effectiveness) was 1.94 and was 2.04 on the second question
(overall course quality). The basic goal would be considered met if the scores were 1.91

and 2.05 or lower respectively. The additional goal would be considered met if the

48

scores were 1.89 and 1.98 or lower. Although the fall scores did not meet the goal, the
spring semester evaluation scores would also be ﬁgured in to the average so there was
still time to accomplish the goal.

The progress report also included an update on the completion of service
assignments. The report included a complete list of service assignments broken down by
university, college, and departmental levels. The list included a check mark (\l) next to
those departmental assignments completed at the time of the progress report. Service
assignments outside of the department were considered completed unless contrary
information was provided by the outside group being served. At the time of the progress
report no such contrary report had been received, thus the university and college service
assignments were considered on course to be completed at this time. Out of the 44
departmental service assignments, 33 had been completed at the time of this report.

The next formal communication about the DIS came via email on April 26, 2006.
This report was identical to the ﬁrst progress report, but provided a more recent account
of the progress toward the DIS goals. It appeared as though the same report was used,
but with bolded text drawing the reader’s attention to the updated goal information. At
this time, the basic research goal had been met as the chairperson reported 32 total
publications of which nine were in the targeted journals. With one more publication in
the targeted journals, the additional goal would be met. The status of the teaching goal
remained the same because spring semester teaching evaluation scores would not be
available until the end of the semester, and the chairperson reported that all but two

service assignments had been completed.

49

On June 29, 2006, another progress report was sent via email. This report was
also identical in format to the previous two. The status of the research goal remained the
same. They were still one publication short on the targeted journal list from meeting the
additional goal. The spring semester teaching evaluation scores were now available and
the chairperson reported that the fall and spring average scores were 1.97 on question
one, and 2.07 on question two. At this point neither the basic nor the additional goal had
been met. To meet the basic goals the scores would have needed to be 1.91 or lower on
the ﬁrst question and 2.05 or less on the second. The chairperson indicated that there was
still time to achieve the goals because summer teaching scores would also be included in
the computation. The remaining two service activities had been completed and the
chairperson received no information to indicate that outside service activities had not
been accomplished, thus the basic and additional service goal had been met. At this time,
the basic goal had been met in research, neither goal had been met in teaching, and both
service goals had been met.

On July 17, 2006, the ﬁnal report was issued. Since the last report, the
chairperson had received notiﬁcation of several more publications, one of which was a
publication on the list of targeted journals. Thus it was reported that both the basic and
additional research goals had been achieved with 37 total publications, 10 of which were
in targeted journals. Student evaluation scores for the ﬁrst summer session were now
available and the department average on the ﬁrst question was 1.96 and 2.05 on the
second. There were only a couple classes that extended into the second summer session

and as the chairperson’s progress report stated, not even “superhuman performance” in

50

these classes would permit the goals to be met. Thus, the basic goal was missed by .05
on the ﬁrst question, but was met on the second question.

The chairperson’s report went on to say that these results had been presented to
the college deans in a meeting scheduled to discuss faculty evaluations. The college
deans include the dean of the college, and an associate dean for undergraduate programs,
an associate dean for graduate programs, and a dean for faculty affairs. The chairperson
informed the deans that he would not be authorizing a bonus this year because the
teaching goal had not been met and as stated in the DIS, all three goals had to be
achieved in order to receive the ﬁnancial bonus. The report stated that the deans were
impressed by the department’s performance in the research and service areas. They also
felt that although the unit did not hit the target, a 1.96 score on question number one of
the student course evaluation form was still very good. The deans suggested that the
bonus should be given anyway. The chairperson reported that he expressed reservation to
the deans over the integrity of giving the bonus when the goals had not been fully
achieved. Also, if this were to happen, he felt the bonus should be less than what would
have been awarded had the goals been achieved. Discussion ensued, but the deans still
felt the bonus shouldbe given.

The chairperson documented in his report three reasons why the deans felt the
bonus should be given. The ﬁrst reason was that they felt the incentive system was a
good idea and they wanted to see it continued. They thought that perhaps the metrics that
had been set were not “well calibrated” and needed to be reviewed. Secondly, they
thought the overall performance of the department was noteworthy and deserving of

recognition, and ﬁnally, they felt that with an additional year the department might learn

51

to work more collaboratively toimeet the goals. In his interview as part of this study, the
chairperson said the deans were afraid that without some success, the faculty would give
up on the D18 and they felt it was a good idea and should be continued. After this
explanation of the deans’ reaction in the report, the chairperson went on to write that he
had decided to take the deans’ recommendation and award a bonus. He announced that
an award of $2500 was to be awarded to all full-time employees with teaching
responsibilities, and $1250 would be awarded to part-time employees with teaching
responsibilities and also to full-time employees without teaching responsibilities. Had
the basic goals been achieved, the award would have been $3000 and $1500 respectively.
Faculty Perception of their Involvement in the Development of the DIS

When asked to describe their involvement in the development of the DIS, 13 of
the 26 faculty members interviewed replied that they had none. When asked if they had
attended the faculty meetings where it was discussed all thirteen answered yes, they had
attended these meetings. These members of the faculty did not perceive the discussion at
the faculty meetings as a form of involvement in the development. As one faculty
member stated, “I was there at the retreat and so forth where we spent some time on it. I
never felt like I was part of creating it so much as I just was one of 35 people discussing
it together.”

Eight faculty members described limited participation in the development through
faculty meetings and/or informal conversations with the chairperson. When asked to
describe their involvement, all of these eight mentioned the faculty meetings, but all
minimized this form of involvement. For example, when asked to describe his

involvement one person said, “None other than participating in the faculty meetings that

52

designed it. I wasn’t on any special committee or anything.” Another said, “None
outside of regular faculty meetings.” Two of these eight faculty members also mentioned
informal conversation with the chairperson but downplayed this as a form of involvement
as well. When asked to describe his involvement one said “Only in the sense of once,
maybe twice [chairperson name omitted] talked with Ellen and Amy and I at lunch, and
you know, it was kind of a lunch conversation about it. He sort of laid it out and he told
us the race car story, and asked for our reaction because he said ‘you guys do research on
this kind of stuff.’” The other person mentioned that the chairperson had come to his
ofﬁce and asked him his general opinion of the idea. These eight faculty members
seemed to view the meetings and the informal conversations as a form of involvement,
but their tone of voice and choice of words, for example “none other than. . .”, “only in
the sense of. . .”, created the impression that they did not view this involvement as
signiﬁcant.

The ﬁve faculty members who were on the DAC indicated they were involved in
the development of the DIS. Each alluded that the task was difﬁcult and some indicated
there was conﬂict during the deliberations. One person said, “Most of the votes that we
took were three to two. It wasn’t the same three or two people on different issues. So
people were very unsure as to whether this was a good idea, how to implement it, what
should be the basic goal, what should be a stretch goal, in everything there was some
disagreement.” Another said, “And as with any incentive plan when you are starting out,
it’s hard to know, it’s very, very hard to know how these decisions ought to be made.

And so you kind of make them and see how they work out. And, it’s not perfect.” Two

of the ﬁve mentioned that the chairperson was actively involved and exerted a great deal

53

of inﬂuence in these meetings. One member was angry with this and said,
“[chairperson’s name omitted] forced a list he was not willing to bargain on although he
told the DAC he was.” The ﬁve DAC members were the only faculty members who
without hesitation or qualiﬁcation, said they were involved in the development of the
DIS.

Faculty Perception of the Goals.

The faculty was asked about their feelings regarding the goals, and 19 of the 26
reported that they thought that the research goal was reasonable. In general, they thought
the goal made sense and was attainable. A few people in this group mentioned that
research might have to be measured over a longer period of time because the publication
cycle can take several years, but they thought the goal was okay for the initial round of
the incentive system.

The other seven members of the faculty reported mixed responses. One faculty
member said he was not sure how he felt about the goal because he was not an active
researcher and did not think he could make a contribution in this area. Another faculty
member thought the goal was superﬁcially set with not enough time spent in analyzing
prior performance. This same person thought that if the overall goal was to promote
teamwork, the set goals would not accomplish this. He felt the goals were more likely to
encourage the faculty to hunker down in their ofﬁces and work independently on their
research. Another faculty member thought the goal was set too high. Another was
against the whole incentive system and was especially upset by the tiered list of journals.
One person said that he was not able to comment because he was not sure how the goals

were determined and set. Another person said he did not like the goal because he was not

54

in favor of group goals for the faculty. He was of the opinion that faculty work is
independent and goals should be individually based. And ﬁnally, one person said that he
agreed with wanting to improve scholarly'output, but he disagreed with the stratiﬁcation
of the journals.

Fewer faculty members thought the teaching goal was reasonable. Of the 26
faculty members interviewed, 13 faculty members thought that the teaching goal made
sense and was attainable. Although no one disagreed with the intent to improve teaching,
the other 13 faculty members had problems with the mechanics of the teaching goal.

Three faculty members felt that the use of SIRS scores was not the best measure
of teaching performance. SIRS scores are based upon student ratings of the instructor’s
teaching effectiveness and overall course quality, and these three faculty members did not
like the fact that the goal was based solely upon these. One person cited that they felt it
reduced risk taking and experimentation in the classroom. One person cited that they felt
there was a link between the ease of the course and SIRS ratings (e. g. the easier the
course, the better the rating.) Another told a story about a colleague who brought donuts
to class each week and he felt this positively inﬂuenced his student evaluation scores.
They did not feel this was the most accurate way to evaluate a teacher’s performance.

Another six faculty members did not disagree with the use of SIRS scores, but felt
the goal was not well calibrated and because of this they were not sure if the goal was
attainable or not. Several people in this group commented that the department already
had very good teaching scores and felt it might be difﬁcult to make a signiﬁcant change
in these scores. These people thought that more consideration needed to be given to what

it would take to be able to reach the stated goals. As one person said, “the goals were

55

superﬁcially set.” Another person in this group mentioned that not enough thought was
given to the variety of factors that could impact SIRS scores in a given year, for example
class sizes and changes in the faculty. This person’s comment poignantly summarizes the
issue for these six faculty members, “This department talks about things like SIRS scores
all the time, but they have a simplistic discussion and never ask, what’s the distribution
look like? Is it normal? Is it uniform? Is it skewed? What’s the standard deviation?
What’s the range? What’s the mean? Most of the faculty hasn’t got a clue. And yet we
worship this thing and have these stupid discussions about well 1.6 is good and 1.8 is
bad. Well, tell me what the mean is. What’s the distribution look like? They haven’t got
a clue. So I wasn’t quite sure about how realistic, how much incremental effort we would
have to put out to achieve this new target.”

Contrary to those who were unsure about the attainability of the teaching goal,
two faculty members thought the goal was not set high enough. As the one person said, it
was “too reasonable.” These faculty members had little doubt that the teaching goals
would be achieved.

Of the two remaining faculty, one person said he could not offer an opinion on the
teaching goal because he said he needed more information about how they were set. He
didn’t recall how they were determined and because of this had no thoughts to share on
this topic. The last person did not like the goal because he was not in favor of group
goals for the faculty. As stated previously, this person was against the incentive system
because he was of the opinion that faculty work is independent and goals should be

individually based.

56

Most of the faculty never even mentioned the service goal as they responded to
this question. Only two people mentioned it in their response without being prompted.
When prompted, everyone agreed that the goal was reasonable and easily attainable. One
person said it was a “no-brainer”, another said it was a “gimme”, another said it was
“pretty meaningless.” It was clear that the service goal was given very little thought and
attention by the faculty.

Perception of the Financial Bonus

In this particular study not a single person responded that they were motivated by
the ﬁnancial bonus. In the interviews the faculty were asked to react to the ﬁnancial
bonus. In the DIS, if the basic goals were achieved each faculty member would receive
$3,000. If the additional goals were met each would receive a $5000. Only one person
admitted that the ﬁnancial bonus initially excited him, but he admitted he did nothing
different in response to the DIS. As he continued to reﬂect upon the incentive system
and his behavior, he concluded that at his age (he was one of the older midcareer faculty
members in the study), he really did not care about getting raises anymore and perhaps he
really did not care about the money after all.

Although no one said the ﬁnancial bonus motivated them, six people commented
that the amount was sufﬁcient or enough to attract attention. One person described it as
“credible”, another said it was “nothing to sneeze at.” Seventeen people did not think the
amount was enough to matter to them. Five of the 17 speciﬁcally said the amount would
have needed to be higher to motivate them. One person joked that if it were enough to

put a new roof on his house, or pay his child’s college tuition for the year then it might

57

have had an impact on his behavior. Three faculty members did not comment
speciﬁcally on the amount.

Nine people, including both faculty members who thought the amount was
insigniﬁcant and those who thought it was a signiﬁcant amount, expressed discomfort in
regard to the ﬁnancial bonus. Four of these nine faculty members thought it was wrong
to be paid extra for what you already are compensated for doing. These people felt they
were doing nothing special or out of the ordinary to warrant the extra ﬁnancial bonus.
Two of these same four people also expressed that other faculty at the university were
being paid much less for doing the same work and in that sense they thought it was not
fair. Along with these opinions, were two faculty members simply felt they were already
well paid and thus they were uncomfortable with the bonus.

Three of the nine faculty who expressed discomfort with the ﬁnancial bonus
attributed their uneasiness to the source of the bonus money. The ﬁnancial bonus was
taken from discretionary funds given to the department by donors. One person had very
strong feelings in this regard, he said, “How can you look your donors in the eye and say
‘we took all the money you folks donated and paid it to ourselves as a bonus for doing
our jobs.’ That’s why when listening to these people at the advisory board I had all I
could do to say ‘1 don’t think you people get it! You are asking brand new staff to make
contributions to enrich the faculty!”’ These faculty members felt that donated funds
should not be used to enhance faculty salaries and that this practice was not aligned with

donor intentions.

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Perceived Barriers
In the examination of their thoughts regarding the DIS, the faculty was asked if there
were any barriers that kept them from working toward the goals of the incentive system.
The perceived barrier most commonly mentioned was the lack of support structures to
assist people in meeting the goals. Eight faculty members talked about this in their
interviews. Several people mentioned that there should have been workshops or
structured forums for discussion, especially in the area of teaching. Three people
mentioned that no one extended him or herself to assist them or provided mentoring. One
person even told the story of speciﬁcally asking a colleague who was known for being a
good teacher if he could sit in on his class. The faculty member turned down this request.
Another person commented that formal support structures were needed because
she felt people were not comfortable asking for help. She attributed this to what she
perceived as an independent work culture. She said that people do not feel like they can
ask colleagues for help because they seem to think that by doing so they are wasting the
colleague’s time. She felt that speciﬁc structures needed to be put in place to encourage
broader interaction and discussion because these things would not happen otherwise. A
couple people mentioned that the department has research workshops, but that these
workshops focus on research critique and do not assist with the mechanics of getting
published, which in their opinion is where the need is. The lack of structured support to
coincide with the goals of the DIS was perceived as problematic for many. As one
person said, “I don’t think there were any barriers, but I also don’t think there was any

help provided. I don’t think anything was done to move it along after the fact.”

59

Five faculty members mentioned the lack of time as a barrier. They felt that they
did not have time to take on any additional work. One person cited the burden of
administrative work, three people mentioned their heavy teaching loads, and another
person reported feeling generally too busy. He said, “Time is the scarce thing. Free up
time.” Two of the three people who mentioned their heavy teaching loads also brought up
another issue. They felt that workloads were not balanced so that everyone could make a
contribution to the achievement of the goals. The faculty who were active in research
had smaller teaching loads and in the opinion of these two faculty members, this allowed
these members of the faculty to devote more time to research, thus making them better
able to contribute on this goal. Also, because they had a smaller teaching load, which
typically included multiple sections of the same course, this allowed them more time to
concentrate on their teaching assignments as well. As one person said, “I honestly think
that most people understood that the system was rigged in a sense so that only certain
people could do certain things, and I think it actually de-motivates people rather than
motivates people for achieving the goals.”

A variety of other barriers were also discussed. Of the ﬁve assistant professors in
the study, three mentioned that they were more concerned with achieving tenure than
achieving the goals of the incentive system. One person said she felt a great deal of
pressure anyway and that the incentive system increased her stress. One person said, “If
somebody said to me if you get three A’s [publications in top tiered journals] then we are
going to tenure you no matter what. That would have gotten my attention a lot more than

a 5000 dollar bonus when we are all probably overpaid anyway, right?” The other person

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said, “I guess at my career stage I am just so concentrated on research that it just didn’t
matter.”

Along these same lines, three tenured faculty members felt that the incentive
system was misaligned with the individual reward system that was already in place. In
this system, each faculty member meets with the chairperson annually and an individual
plan for the year is developed. Teaching, research and service are given a certain weight.
At the end of the year, the faculty member’s performance is evaluated in each area and he
or she is given a rating in each area. This rating is then multiplied by the weight and the
three scores are then added together for a total score. This total score is then used to
determine the annual raise of the individual faculty member.

Added to this is something they call a market adjustment. Market adjustments are
additional raises given to faculty members who are at risk of leaving the institution given
his or her attractiveness in the larger academic job market. This is most typically because
of their research productivity and the positive reputation he or she has achieved in the
academic discipline. Colleges are given acertain amount of money each year in order to
give these additional raises to faculty members in hopes of retaining them in the
department and at the university. In their interviews, three faculty members mentioned
that these two reward systems that were already in place provided ample motivation and
outweighed the DIS.

Three faculty members thought the goals did not ﬁt with academic culture and
they perceived this as a mental barrier. Two faculty members mentioned that the group
goals of the DIS were in conﬂict with what they perceived as the autonomous nature of

faculty culture. Along those same lines but with a slightly different twist, another person

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said it felt too business-like, she said, “. . .it almost felt too corporate. I mean we choose
this career and this academic lifestyle. I mean, you too right? We choose this for a
certain reason and because we like it. So it just seemed too sort of competitive, too
corporate.”

Another person felt his own personal attitudes served as a barrier to his
participation. He really did not want to share some of his ideas because he felt that
certain things he was working on and doing made him unique and distinguished him
compared to others. He also said he did not really care about the money and he did not
really see how his individual performance would have much of an impact on the overall
performance.

One faculty member said that the management style of the chairperson was a
barrier to her participation. This person felt that the chairperson “rnicromanaged” and
tried to manipulate the research agenda of some faculty members. This person felt the
chairperson’s involvement and criticism was negative and curtailed the creative process.

Finally, one person thought the DIS was too short termed to irrﬁuence people’s
behavior. She speciﬁcally cited the research and publication cycle, which she said took
at least two to three years. She felt this needed to be considered in the DIS and that the
research goal did not have any impact on her behavior because in order to get a
publication in that year, the project would have had to be started a couple years prior.

Where Was It Done? (Situational Factors)

As already described this study took place in an academic department at a large,

midwestem research university. The department is highly regarded within its disciplinary

communities. At the time of the study the undergraduate program was ranked 8‘h in the

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nation and the masters and PhD programs were both ranked 11th in one of the leading
trade publications of the ﬁeld. In addition, the department ranked highly in terms of the
number of publications appearing over the last ﬁve years in the top academic journals.
These ratings are important to the department and are consistent with the unit’s mission
statement which is, “T o be known nationally and internationally for excellence in
educating students and creating and disseminating knowledge throughresearch and
outreach, relevant to the [name of discipline omitted] communities.”
Governance

The department is governed by bylaws. The bylaws are a 14 page document
containing 11 sections or topics. The ﬁrst section deﬁnes the composition of the faculty,
how appointments to the faculty are made, faculty participation in academic governance,
and the powers of the faculty. The second section deﬁnes the staff, how staff
appointments are made and their participation in the academic governance of the unit.
The third section deﬁnes the student constituents of the department and their involvement
in the academic governance of the department. The fourth section details what the
document refers to as “modes of participation”. There are four modes deﬁned including
consultation, advisory, shared responsibility, and delegated authority. These deﬁnitions
guide the following portions of the bylaws which deﬁne governance and the type of
participation department members have in various activities. The ﬁfth section describes
the governance of the department including the selection, duties and responsibilities of
the chairperson; and describes who participates in the various matters of the department
and the mode of that participation. The sixth section describes the procedures for

departmental meetings. The seventh section describes the roles and composition of the

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Department Advisory Council. The eighth section describes department committees and
their composition. The ninth section describes the department’s responsibility for the
curriculum. The tenth section covers the process for promotion and tenure, and ﬁnally
the last section explains the process for interpretation and amendment to the bylaws.

The department has two other governing documents: one is a 13 page document
that speciﬁcally dictates the promotion and tenure process for faculty; and the other is a
six page document that describes the process by which faculty work assignments,
evaluations, and merit raises are made. Both of these documents are separate from the
bylaws but are referred to in the bylaws document as governing these proceedings. All
documents are quite detailed and speciﬁc and are reﬂective of the nature of the discipline.
The professional ﬁeld that the faculty study and teach is very rule bound and it appears as
though this orientation has spilled over into how they have organized their work life.

The document of most relevance to this study is the one detailing the procedures
and process by which faculty work assignments, evaluations, and merit raises are
determined. These procedures have been in place since 2003. This document was
initially introduced by the chairperson at the time, then vetted and revised by the faculty.
It then went before the entire faculty for a vote and was ofﬁcially approved. It can only
be changed by a vote of the faculty in the same manner as amendments to the bylaws.
This process for assignments, evaluation and merit raises was in place at the same time
the DIS was instituted. As discussed previously, several faculty members referred to this
in their interviews. Understanding this procedure and process helps to understand the

faculty commentary on this subject and provides an insight into department norms.

To determine faculty work assignments, each member of the faculty has an annual
meeting with the department chair to discuss their goals for the year. The assignment,

evaluation, and merit document states:

A. Each faculty member is to prepare the following two items annually in writing
and attach them to his or her annual activity report:

1. A proposed two-year teaching, research and service percentage allocation
that totals 100% each year, within the following intervals:

0 Teaching 30%-60%

0 Research 20%-60%

0 Service 10%-30%

2. A proposed teaching, research, and service assignment (e. g. proposed
courses to be taught, service activities to be undertaken and a research plan)
for the following two years that’is consistent with the proposed percentage
allocation and focuses on outputs consistent with a 100% full-time academic
year appointment.

B. After all faculty members have submitted their proposed percentage allocations
and related assignments, the Chairperson will evaluate each individual proposal
and the combined set of proposals in relation to the Department and College
needs and strategic plans. The Chairperson will then confer with each faculty
member to set ﬁnal percentage allocations and make assignments for the
following year.
C. When departmental needs or unforeseen circumstances arise, the Department
Chairperson may make additional assignments or change the original assignments
after conferring with affected faculty members.
The individual meetings occur in August or early September at the start of each new
academic year.

As referred to in the previous section, at the end of the year each faculty member
submits an activity report for the year. This report is very structured and each faculty

member in the department and entire college uses this reporting mechanism. This report

is then used as the basis for the annual evaluation. The document states:

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Each faculty member will prepare an annual faculty activity report
in a speciﬁed format. The format will include separate sections for each of
teaching, research, and service. Information will be provided for the current year
and the two preceding years. The form will provide a faculty member an
opportunity to provide evidence of both quality and quantity for teaching,
research, and service.

Each assistant and associate professor will submit his or her annual
faculty activity report along with a current resume and any other information the
faculty member feels is relevant for the annual review of assistant and associate
professors under Section 4.6 of the Promotion Standards and Process.

Associate and full professors will provide input to the Department
Chairperson for the annual evaluation of assistant professors at the same time as
the discussion of the faculty member’s progress toward reappointment, promotion
and tenure under Section 4.6 of Promotion Standards and Process. Similarly, full
professors will provide input to the Department Chairperson for the annual
evaluation of associate professors during the discussion of the faculty member’s
progress toward promotion.

The Department Chairperson will evaluate each faculty member on
research, teaching, and service for the three-year period using an eight-point scale
from O to 7 where 7 is the highest performance level. It is acceptable to use .5,
such as 3.5. In making the evaluation the Chairperson will consider the assigned
allocation percentages and the nature of the assignments for teaching, research,
and service.

For an Assistant professor in the ﬁrst three years of his or her
academic career or for any faculty member who has not been participating in
normal research, teaching and service assignments (i.e. administrative
assignments or leaves or absence), the Chairperson will determine the annual
evaluation scores considering their special circumstances consistent with the spirit
of this document.

A composite evaluation score will be calculated for each faculty
member by multiplying his or her evaluation score by his or her assigned
allocation percentages for teaching, research and service and summing the total.
For example, a faculty member with evaluation scores of 5.0, 4.0, and 6.0 and
weights of 50%, 20% and 30% for teaching, research, and service respectively,
receives a composite evaluation score of 5.1 [=(5x.5)+(4x.2)+(6x.3)].

If the Dean and Chairperson agree that the Chairperson has
inappropriately evaluated a faculty member, the evaluation will be changed.

Each faculty member will be informed of and provided an
explanation for his or her annual composite evaluation score as well as his or her

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individual scores for teaching, research, and service. The Chairperson also will
provide each faculty member with the mean, median, and range of scores in each
category for the most recent year and for the most recent three-year period.

The assignment and evaluation process then provides the foundation for the

distribution of annual merit raises. The document states:

A. Merit salary increases are given in absolute amounts, are independent of rank, and
are not a percent of salary.

B. Each faculty member’s merit salary increase is determined by three factors:
1. The Department’s raise pool allocated by the Dean.
2. The faculty member’s composite evaluation score.
3. The sum of composite evaluation scores for all faculty in the Department.
C. Each faculty member’s annual merit salary increase will be determined by B. 2.
divided by B. 3. times B. 1. For example, if the total composite evaluation score
for all faculty in the department is 100 and the department raise pool is $100,000,
the raise for the faculty member with a composite score of 5.1' will be $5,100
[(5.1/100)*$100,000].
D. A faculty member’s salary increase may be reduced at the Department
Chairperson’s discretion for consistent failure to perform normal faculty
responsibilities. See the section of this document entitled “Normal Faculty
Responsibilities.”
Merit raises ﬂuctuate on any given year due to the amount of money provided to units for
raises, but this procedure helps the chairperson distribute the raises in what is perceived
as a fair and equitable manner.
Faculty Motivation

As discussed in the literature review, some authors suggest that faculty are not
necessarily ﬁnancially motivated (Clark, 1987; Hearn, 1999; McKeachie, 1979; Staw,
1983; Tierney, 1997). In this case study it became apparent that the ﬁnancial bonus did

not motivate the faculty. However, it is unclear why. Some research suggests that the

amount must be deemed attractive enough to warrant effort (Milgrom & Roberts, 1992).

67

However, as mentioned previously, although several members thought the bonus was
credible, the majority (17) did not think the amount was signiﬁcant. Other research
indicates that faculty are satisﬁed with their pay (Hearn, 1999), and this is indeed the case
with this group.

In the interviews, the faculty were asked how they felt about their pay. Everyone
thought they were well paid. A few people mentioned that they were dissatisﬁed with
their pay only when they compared themselves to other faculty in the department. The
chairperson and several faculty members explained in their interviews that due to the
demand for faculty in this particular academic area, new assistant professors often make
more than more senior faculty. Also, the market raise adjustments in the current
evaluation and reward system as mentioned previously, give ﬁnancial advantage to
faculty members who are successful in research and getting their work published in the
ﬁeld’s top journals. As a result, some faculty make more than some of their senior
colleagues. This has resulted in some atypical salary patterns. The average assistant
professor salary in the department is considerably higher that the average associate
professor salary. Also, many of the more senior faculty members have lower salaries
than some faculty members with fewer years in the professoriate due to the market raises.

To put these preceding comments in perspective, according to salary ﬁgures
published by the university, the average salary for the faculty of this unit in the 2005-06
academic year was $145,121. The average salary for the full professors was $159, 837,
the average for the associate professors was $127,393, and the average for assistant
professors was $135,939. In contrast, the average salary for faculty at public universities

in the same state during the same time period was $81,719. The average for full

68

professors was $106, 950, for associate professors the average was $75,972, and the
average salary for assistant professors at public universities in the state was $63,384 (The
Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, 2005). The bonus at the basic level was
approximately 2% of the average salary, and the bonus if the reach goals were achieved
was 3.4% of the average salary.
Rank and Career Stage

Based upon the literature, the researcher looked for differences based upon rank
and career stages in the ﬁndings. Of the 26 faculty members interviewed in this study
(not including the chairperson), 13 are full professors, eight are associate professors, and
ﬁve are assistant professors (see appendix C). Baldwin (1990) describes four faculty
career stages: novice, early career, midcareer and late career. Of the full professors in
this study, four could be considered late career faculty deﬁned by Baldwin as those in the
later years of their career and approaching retirement. One of the associates would also
fall into this category. The remaining 16 full and associate professors would be
considered midcareer faculty. Of the ﬁve assistant professors, two would be considered
in the novice phase as they are just starting out in their careers, and the other three would
be considered early academic career faculty, approaching the end of their probationary
period and a tenure decision. As the researcher sorted the data thematically, she also
sorted again by rank. The only time a discemable difference appeared based upon rank or
career stage was in the discussion of barriers. As already mentioned, three of the ﬁve
assistant professors said they were more concerned with obtaining tenure than achieving

the goals associated with the DIS. In contrast, none of the associate professors mentioned

69

concern over promotion as a barrier. All other interview responses seemed to be mixed
across the various ranks and career stages.
Research Questions

In addition to providing a detailed description of the incentive system, this study
set out to answer three research questions.

1) What do faculty report doing differently in their work since the start of the

incentive system?

2) Did the program motivate faculty to change work attitudes and behaviors? If
so, what provided the motivation (the money, the goals, both the money and
goals, fear of disappointing colleagues, etc.)?

3) Did the department achieve the group goals? What happened to departmental
performance and productivity?

Although the answers to these questions are mentioned to some extent in the previous
discussion, the ﬁndings will be speciﬁcally addressed here.
Did the Faculty Approach their Work Differently?

Of the 26 faculty members interviewed, six reported approaching their work
differently as a result of the DIS. Five reported changes in their behavior toward their
research activities, one reported changes in their behavior toward teaching, and no one
reported any changes in behavior as it related to their service activities.

Research. Five faculty members exclusively reported changes in their approach
to their research work. Of these ﬁve faculty members, four reported hurrying research
projects along in order to help the department meet the research goals. As one person

said, “. . .it also inﬂuenced me to work a bit sooner on revise and resubmits for those

70

journals as opposed to stuff in other journals.” Another said, “. . .now I wanted to see if I
can push things through the system faster.” In addition to acting more quickly on research
projects, one person also said that he thought more strategically about on which journals
to focus. He said, “I took a hard look at the exact target journals and I said, maybe I
won’t send this article to this journal, I’ll send it to one of those instead.” The ﬁfth
person who reported changes said that the DIS inﬂuenced her to think more about
collaborating with other faculty in the department because it would count as a publication
for each of them. Under the rules of the DIS, if a publication was coauthored by two
people in the department, it counted as a publication for each of them, thus it counted as
two publications in the total. This faculty member was thinking strategically about
potential coauthors in order to help reach the departmental research goals.

Teaching. Only one of the six faculty members who reported changes in their
behavior said it had an impact on their teaching. This same person reported no effects on
their approach to research. This person reported that theincentive system made them feel
more comfortable asking for help from other faculty members. He named several faculty
members that he had approached for advice regarding problems he was having in class.
He said that in the past, the only person he would have consulted was the person who
taught the class in previous semesters. He also mentioned that because of the incentive
system he was motivated to attend university workshops on teaching. He recognized that
his performance would impact the group as a whole so he was more concerned about his

teaching performance than he normally would have been.

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Faculty Motivation and the DIS

The basic purpose of an incentive program is to motivate employees. The
incentive should serve to motivate the employees to perform in such a way that meets the
goals of the organization. However, not a single person in the study reported that they
were motivated by the ﬁnancial bonus. Only six reported that they changed their
behavior as a result of the incentive system and when asked about what in the DIS
motivated them, several different responses were given.

Personal reputation. Two faculty members reported that they did not want to
look bad in their colleagues’ eyes if their performance did not contribute to the goal
attainment. As one person said, “I didn’t want to be the slacker.”

Disappointing colleagues. One person reported that they did not want to
disappoint their colleagues. The ﬁnancial incentive was not important to him, but he
thought perhaps it was important to others and he did not want to let colleagues down.
As this person said, “I did not want to spoil it for others.”

Group goals. Three people were motivated by the group goals. They liked the
idea of having departmental goals and working towards these. As one person said, “But
certainly in the beginning I felt this was something the group was rallying around and I
wanted to be apart of that.” Another said, “You might say ‘look how we have done
compared to yesterday.’ Therefore, to some extent, if as a group you are doing better, it is

motivational.”

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Goal Achievement

The department achieved two of the three goals. The basic and additional
research goals were met, the service goal was met, but the teaching goal was not
achieved.

Research goals. As discussed earlier, the research goal was established through
an examination of the department’s publications over the last ﬁve-year period. Also
taken into consideration was the type of publication. The department spent considerable
time discussing not only the number of publications, but also where these were published.
As a result of this discussion, a list of targeted journals was established. Based upon this
analysis, the basic research goal was set at the number of publications achieved in the
fourth best year out of the past ﬁve. The additional goal was set at the ﬁve-year average.
This resulted in a basic goal of 27 or more publications, with nine or more being
publications in the targeted list of journals. The additional goal was set at 31 publications
with 10 or more in the targeted journals. The faculty achieved both the basic and
additional research goals. As a group they succeeded in having a total of 37‘publications
for the year, with 10 of these publication being accepted into the targeted list of journals.

Service goal. The service goal would be considered met if all service assignments
were completed by May 15, 2006. Although as already discussed the faculty thought this
goal was a “no—brainer”, the chairperson said this was not the case. He said that the
faculty are not always aware that their colleagues do not always complete assigned
service activities, but the chairperson is aware of this because he is responsible for the
individual’s annual evaluation. By the May 15th deadline, all service assignments had

been completed and the service goal was considered met.

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Teaching goals. As written about previously, the teaching goal was established
using scores from the Student Instructional Rating System (SIRS). As with the research
goal the faculty set this goal based upon a review of the last ﬁve years worth of course
evaluation data. The basic goal was set at the fourth best year and the additional goal was
set at the ﬁve-year average. The basic goal was considered met if an average score of
1.91 or lower was obtained on the question regarding teacher effectiveness, and ascore of
2.05 or lower was obtained on the second question regarding overall course quality. The
additional goal would be considered achieved if the scores were 1.89 or lower and 1.98 or
lower respectively. The faculty did not meet either teaching goal. The average score on
the ﬁrst question was 1.96, and 2.05 on the second. The faculty missed the basic goal by
.05 on the ﬁrst question.

Findings Summary

This chapter presented the major ﬁndings of the study. The ﬁndings provide a
detailed case study of the incentive system instituted within this academic department.
The case study has been approached by the examination of three components as
suggested by Bullock and Lawler (1984): 1) the structural components of the incentive
system, 2) the details regarding how the system was actually implemented and faculty
perceptions of the incentive system, and 3) contextual factors that may have inﬂuenced
the department’s incentive system. Additionally, three speciﬁc research questions were
addressed.

The formal description of the program and the factual account of its
development and implementation were obtained through document analysis and an

interview with the department chairperson. Through the factual account of the DIS, it

74

appeared as though there was widespread faculty approval of the DIS and extensive
faculty involvement in the development of it. However, the faculty interviews regarding
the DIS revealed a different story. In the interviews many faculty members expressed
reservations regarding the goals and how the goals would be measured. It also became
apparent that many of the faculty did not feel as though they were involved in the
development of the DIS. Although the DIS was discussed by the whole group at faculty
meetings and also by their representatives in the Department Advisory Council (DAC), it
became clear that despite these events, many faculty members did not feel as though they
were involved in the development of the DIS. It also became obvious that although they
approved of the DIS, not a single person reported that the ﬁnancial bonus motivated
them. In fact, several faculty members reported that they were uncomfortable with the
bonus. The interviews revealed another side of the DIS story that wouldnot have been
apparent by only looking at structural components of the DIS.

Through the analysis of the department as a group, contextual factors appeared
that might have had an impact on the incentive system. The, department appeared to be a
very structured organization with detailed bylaws and operating procedures. One of these
procedures was a system for the assignment of job duties, performance evaluation, and
assignment of merit raises. Another was the process for promotion and tenure. In their
interviews three out of ﬁve assistant professors commented that making tenure was more
of an incentive than the DIS, and three tenured professors said the standing evaluation
and merit raise system provided ample motivation and outweighed the DIS. Also, not a
single person reported that the ﬁnancial bonus provided motivation. This could be for a

variety of reasons including the fact that the salaries of this faculty were considerably

75

higher than the average salaries of faculty at other public universities in the state; the
faculty reported an overall satisfaction with their pay; and as discussed in the literature
review, some research suggests that faculty are not motivated by money.

Three research questions were asked. First, the study explored whether or not the
faculty changed their behavior as a result of the incentive system. Six out of the 26
faculty members reported changes in their behavior. Secondly, the study explored what
in the incentive system motivated the faculty. Not a single person reported being
motivated by the promise of a ﬁnancial bonus. Of the six who reported changes in their
behavior as a result of the DIS the source of motivation varied. Two were concerned
about their own personal reputation, one was motivated by the concern that others would
be disappointed if the goals were not met and the bonus was not awarded, and three were
motivated by having stated group goals. The intent of the incentive system was not only
to improve department performance as a whole, but also to promote teamwork among the
faculty. As stated in the preamble of the DIS, the purpose of the DIS was to “motivate
and focus cooperation in achieving the department’s teaching, research, and service
missions.” However, of the six who reported behavior changes, only one person reported
changes in their behavior consistent with this overall intent. Finally the study
investigated whether or not the department met the stated incentive system goals. The
department only met two of the three DIS goals. They met the research and service
goals, but did not achieve the teaching goal. These ﬁndings will be discussed in greater

detail in the following section.

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CHAPTER FIVE
Summary and Discussion

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a group pay incentive
system as a strategy for motivating faculty to meet department goals at a large research
institution. Generally speaking, faculty work at these types of institutions is individually
oriented and promotion and pay have reinforced this individual approach to work
(Braskamp & Ory, 1994; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986). This investigation explored
whether an alternative pay scheme could inﬂuence faculty behavior and motivate them to
work cooperatively to meet established group goals. These incentive systems have been
successful in business settings and this research investigates the applicability of a group
pay incentive system with university faculty.

The previous section presented in detail the ﬁndings of this study and the answers
to the research questions. Interestingly, although approved by the faculty, members
reported making no changes in their work behavior as a result of the Department
Incentive System (D18), and the department did not meet all of the DIS performance
goals. This is not a study of causality and there are no absolute answers as to why this is
so. However, based upon the in-depth examination of this program and the literature,
certain factors or issues appear to be especially signiﬁcant and these will be presented in
this chapter. In many instances, additional questions are generated that warrant further
discussion and perhaps future study. In this section these will be discussed along with

study limitations, and reﬂections. It is hoped that this study contributes to the

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understanding of faculty and in a practical sense provides some guidance for academic
leaders as they struggle with issues of accountability and faculty management.
Employee Participation

The literature points to certain factors that may impact incentive systems, one of
which is employee participation. The literature review suggests that employee
participation in the design and implementation of work processes is an important variable
in organizations that have had success with incentive programs (W elboume & Mejia,
1995). Bullock and Lawler (1984) found that employee participation in the development
and implementation of the incentive program is also important to its success. One of the
first discoveries made when analyzing the data was that it became clear to the researcher
that there was a difference between the participation described in the formal DIS related
documentation, and what the faculty perceived as participation. As evident by the bylaws
and the other documents guiding the operation and governance of the department, the
faculty are very involved in their department. The faculty, with the exception of certain
leadership and supervisory authority granted to the chairperson, shares governance of the
unit. However, of particular interest in this case is not participation in the organization,
but involvement in the development of the incentive program. It appears as though the
faculty members had many opportunities to be involved in the development of the DIS.
The DIS was introduced and discussed at the fall retreat. The general idea was voted on
and approved by the faculty at the retreat. The Department Advisory Council (DAC) was
involved in reﬁning the program. In their deliberations of the DIS, documentation and
interview data shows DAC members consulted their fellow faculty members. Informal

participation was evident as several members of the faculty reported casual conversations

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with the chairperson about the DIS. After all of this activity, it was discussed yet again at
a subsequent faculty meeting and was ofﬁcially approved by a vote of the faculty at this
time.

Although there were observations of involvement and meeting rrrinutes that
indicated faculty discussion regarding the DIS, 13 of the 26 faculty members interviewed
said they had none. Eight others mentioned limited participation. Only the ﬁve faculty
members on the DAC reported unequivocally that they were involved in the development
of the DIS. The faculty did not seem to view discussion at faculty meetings and DAC
involvement as participation on their part. As important decisions are made in academic
units, this is something of which leaders should be cognizant. Formally, it is easy to
argue that faculty participation existed in this case; however, the faculty did not recognize
and have a sense of ownership over these formal mechanisms of participation. This does
not seem to be an unusual occurrence on college campuses. It is not uncommon to hear
about similar situations where faculty and even students complain that they were not
involved in decisions. Leaders and administrators are often dismayed by this feedback,
and point to various committees and other forums where the decisions were vetted and
feedback was obtained. The ﬁndings of this case study indicate that most of the faculty
did not feel as though they were involved in the development of the DIS and the literature
suggests this may have had an impact on the program’s success. If faculty participation
is deemed important to an activity, then academic leaders need to give careful thought
and consideration as to how faculty involvement is implemented and how the faculty

perceives it.

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Financial Rewards

Another noteworthy ﬁnding has to do with the ﬁnancial incentive. Milgrom and
Roberts (1992) say that if pay is weakly related to performance, it will limit the
effectiveness of the incentive. In order for the bonus to promote the desired behavior, the
employees must deem that the money they will earn is worth the effort. In this particular
case, many of the faculty did not think the bonus was signiﬁcant. Seventeen people did
not think the amount was enough to matter to them. Five of the 17 speciﬁcally said the
amount would have needed to be higher to motivate them. Although they were not
motivated by the bonus, only six people corrrrnented that the amount was sufﬁcient or
enough to attract their attention.

As noted in the ﬁndings, the salaries of this group of faculty were relatively high
and all reported a level of satisfaction with their pay. The simplistic way to view this
ﬁnding would be to say that the bonus was not large enough to motivate them. However,
the researcher does not believe it is so clear-cut. Some of the literature on faculty
suggests that faculty are not motivated by money. Clark (1987) states that the “richness”
of a faculty member’s career overshadows ﬁnancial rewards. A study done by the US.
Department of Education of university faculty in the late 19808 found that faculty are
satisﬁed or very satisﬁed with their salaries (Hearn, 1999). Tierney (1997) states that job
security and autonomy offset any perceived deﬁcits in pay. Consistent with this
perspective, McKeachie (1979) says that rank, tenure, recognition by peers, and working
conditions take precedence over salary for faculty. Some of the ﬁndings support these

viewpoints.

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Over a third of the faculty people expressed discomfort in regard to the ﬁnancial
bonus. Some thought it was wrong to be paid extra for what one is already are
compensated for doing. Two faculty members thought it was not fair because there are so
many other faculty members on campus doing the same work but getting paid less. Some
were uncomfortable with the fact that the ﬁnancial bonus was taken from discretionary
funds given to the department by donors.

Also supporting this literature is that three of the ﬁve assistant professors said
they were more concerned about achieving tenure than they were about the DIS. Also, of
the six faculty members who reported changes in their behavior in response to the DIS,
not a single person reported it was because of the bonus. Instead, they reported being
motivated by the desire to maintain a positive personal reputation, the fear of
disappointing colleagues, and working toward group goals.

The examination of the ﬁnancial bonus elicits further questions. Given that 17
people thought the amount was insigniﬁcant, would a higher amount have produced
different results? If it came from another source of money (not donor given discretionary
funds) would it have mattered? If all faculty on the campus had similar salaries and the
same opportunity, would they have felt differently? Was it the right type of incentive or
would another type of incentive worked better to motivate the faculty? The literature and
ﬁndings of this study suggest that academic units considering incentive programs should
not make the assumption that a ﬁnancial incentive will motivate employees and
appropriate incentives should be discussed with the group. In this case, as the department
debated and discussed the DIS, concern over the incentive was never raised. It is curious

why given that so many people after the fact expressed being uncomfortable with the

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ﬁnancial bonus, that no one talked about this while the DIS was being proposed and
discussed. This study suggests that discussing the appropriate incentive would be
prudent for academic units exploring programs of this nature. The ﬁnancial reward
associated with this program may not have been a suitable incentive.
Timing

Another particularly relevant ﬁnding has to do with the timing of the program. In
the literature, studies of incentive programs approached from the operant conditioning
perspective (Welboume & Mejia, 1995) suggest that the timing of the bonus pay or other
reinforcements may be important to the success of the program. In this particular case,
the timing of the program was well deﬁned. The faculty knew the DIS time frame and
understood when the bonus would be awarded. The researcher did not think this caused
any concern for the faculty. What seemed problematic though, was the general timing of
the program. The program was not even discussed until late August, and was not
ofﬁcially approved until October. Faculty already had fall classes planned and making
any changes at this point would not have necessarily been easy to do. Also, as
commented upon by some of the faculty in their interviews, the research to publication
cycle can take several years. Any research that would have been published during the
year would have already been underway and the ability to have an impact on publications
for that particular year would have been minimal. Another timing issue had to do with
the progress reports. The ﬁrst progress report came out on March 20, 2006. This was
well into the second semester. As discussed in the ﬁndings, only six people reported any
behavior changes in response to the DIS. The timing of the program may have been a

contributing factor. The late start and lack of timely feedback made it hard for faculty to

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make any responsive changes. The case study ﬁndings seem to support the literature in
this respect and suggest the importance of program timing and timely feedback to the
success of an incentive program.
Goals

A close examination of the goals and the faculty perception of the goals led to
another important ﬁnding. Studies undertaken from an expectancy theory point of view
demonstrate that the effectiveness of a group incentive system could be contingent upon
the individual employee’s perception that the goals can be achieved (Welboume & Mejia,
1995). Staw (1983) writes that in order to meet organizational goals faculty must believe
they can perform the desired roles and tasks, and in order to build faculty conﬁdence the
necessary support mechanisms need to be in place. Nineteen of the 26 (73%) faculty
members interviewed felt the research goal was attainable, 13 (50%) thought the teaching
goal was attainable. Although many did not even mention the service goal, those who
did thought it was a “no-brainer”. It is difﬁcult to make a judgment about these
responses for a couple reasons. First, the research to publication cycle as talked about by
several faculty members takes two to three years. Thus, so many of the faculty may have
thought the goal was reasonable because they knew what was in the publication pipeline.
Secondly, these interviews took place after the goal results were announced. The faculty
knew they had met the research goals but did not reach the teaching goals. Thus, the
researcher does not have conﬁdence that the responses were not inﬂuenced by this
information. Thus it is not really clear whether or not they felt the goals were achievable.

What is clear though, is that many people did not think the goals were well

calibrated. Several people mentioned this in their interviews. When asked for their

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reaction to the DIS goals even many of those who thought they were attainable qualiﬁed
their response by saying that they were okay for a ﬁrst attempt. As reported by the
department chairperson, even the college deans in their response to the DIS results felt
the goals needed to be reviewed more carefully. This particular person’s comments on
this subject pointedly summarize the issue: “This department talks about things like
SIRS scores all the time, but they have a simplistic discussion and never ask, what’s the
distribution look like? Is it normal? Is it uniform? Is it skewed? What’s the standard
deviation? What’s the range? What’s the mean? Most of the faculty hasn’t got a clue.
And yet we worship this thing and have these stupid discussions about well 1.6 is good
and 1.8 is bad. Well, tell me what the mean is. What’s the distribution look like? They
haven’t got a clue. So I wasn’t quite sure about how realistic, how much incremental
effort we would have to put out to achieve this new target.” In this particular case there
was a considerable amount of uncertainty regarding the goals and this ﬁnding lends
support to the literature. The department wanted to implement the DIS that very semester
and because of this, the goals were not given enough attention. Groups considering
incentive systems should not underestimate the importance of well thought out goals to
the success of the incentive program.

The literature also mentions the importance of support mechanisms to help instill
conﬁdence in the faculty that the goals can be achieved (Staw, 1983). In the examination
of their thoughts regarding the DIS, the faculty was asked if there were any barriers that
kept them from working toward the goals of the incentive system. As discussed in the
ﬁndings, the most commonly mentioned barrier was the lack of support structures to

assist people in meeting the goals. One third (eight people) of the faculty members talked

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about this in their interviews. Nothing formally was done to help people improve their
teaching or research performance, and although the DIS was supposed to encourage
teamwork in meeting departmental goals, nothing formally or informally was done to
encourage this. The second most common barrier mentioned was time. Five faculty
members mentioned this as a problem. Again, no changes were made to assignments or
expectations to help people free up time. As one person said, “I do not know how I could
work any harder.” These ﬁndings give credence to the literature and emphasize the
importance of providing support and other infrastructure that will back the incentive
program and instill conﬁdence in program participants that the goals are achievable. This
will be discussed again in the following section as well.

Incongruence with Organizational Practices and Culture

Although the business literature makes a strong case for group incentive systems,
the researcher was uncertain of the ﬁt with academic environments because of particular
cultural and contextual norms. Several issues arose during the study that veriﬁed this
suspicion.

First, there was already an evaluation and merit raise procedure in place. The DIS
was implemented on top of this existing practice. Like the DIS, this existing process was
also based upon teaching, research and service; however, as described’in the ﬁndings, the
weight given to each activity varied by individual. Thus, a person might conceivably put
more effort into higher weighted activities and not as much effort into lower weighted
areas. The DIS emphasized all three activities. The literature suggests that the incentive
system must ﬁt with other organizational practices and is most likely to be effective if

other practices within the organization are complementary (W elboume & Mejia, 1995).

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The incentive system should have reinforced the current practices or the practices in
place should have been revised to be consistent with the incentive program.

Also, the reward system will be less effective if it is not consistent with the ‘
organization’s strategy and goals (Gomez—Mejia, 1992). The market adjustment practice
in the evaluation and merit process clearly put a higher value on research and publication.
Comparing the salaries of faculty members in the department makes this readily apparent.
The researcher, because of her position in the department, knows who is considered a
“teacher” and who is a “researcher”. As mentioned in the ﬁndings, some people in the
department informally label themselves and others in this way depending upon the area in
which he or she spends most of his or her time. In comparing salaries, the researcher
found two faculty members with a similar number of years of service to the university.
One has a reputation as a talented teacher, the other as an accomplished researcher. Both
are full professors. The “teacher” had been awarded teaching honors at the university,
college and department level and had 26 years of service to the university at the time of
the study. He publishes regularly, but his work appears most frequently in practitioner
publications. This particular faculty member’s academic year salary was listed as
$147,688. The “researcher” with 24 years of service to the university had an academic
year salary of $170,779. She is well known for her work in the top academic journals
and her service to the national professional association.

The researcher does not presume to know everything that has gone into the
compensation decisions. of these two individuals, however both are accomplished faculty
members and the difference in their salaries is remarkable. This information supports the

research which suggests that faculty with strong research and publication records have

86

higher salaries than their teaching colleagues (Fairweather, 1993, 1995, 1996; Gomez-
Mejia & Balkin, 1992). So although the DIS rewarded teaching, research and service,
internal salary practices favored research and publication. As mentioned earlier, some
people commented in their interviews that the current system provided ample motivation
and the DIS bonus just was not signiﬁcant in comparison. As Amey and VanDerLinden
(2002) assert, designing compensation practices requires thought and should be
multifaceted taking into consideration mission, goals, base compensation, faculty
evaluation practices, merit and market raises, and equity issues. In this case, the DIS was
instituted without a thorough consideration of these other factors.

Not only does the market raise practice favor research, but also so do the rules for
tenure in the department. This is consistent with the research that indicates the same
(Blackburn & Lawrence, 1995; Fairweather, 1993, 1995, 1996). The chairperson
reported in his interview that the department does not even give any service assignments
to assistant professors. The researcher also knows because of her position in the
department that assistant professors are also given limited teaching assignments (three
course sections per year) so that they can have more time to concentrate on their research.
Three out of the ﬁve assistant professors in the study speciﬁcally mentioned that
achieving tenure was more important to them than the DIS. So again, although the DIS
had teaching, research and service goals, other unit practices emphasized research.

There was also incongruence between the intent of the DIS and the typical
working behavior of the faculty. The intent of the DIS was to encourage teamwork in
meeting department goals, however practices within the department emphasized

individual achievement and the faculty reported that they work fairly independently.

87

This is consistent with the broader faculty culture as well and studies of faculty have
documented this (Austin, 2002; Olsen & Sorcinelli, 1992; Tierney & Bensimon, 1996).
Faculty value autonomy, academic freedom and collegial governance, and reward and
socialization processes reinforce these behaviors and values (Kuh & Whitt, 1988). As
noted in the ﬁndings, only six people changed their behavior as a result of the DIS, and
only two of the six reported changes that could be construed as behaviors oriented toward
teamwork. One person reported thinking about research projects she could work on with
other faculty in the department, and another person reported seeking advice from
colleagues about problems he was experiencing in the classroom. The other four all
reported more intense individual research activity. As noted previously, nothing was
done within the department to help faculty meet the goals or to encourage teamwork.
The individual orientation of the faculty appeared strong and nothing was done to
counteract it.

Not only was this an observation of the researcher, but several faculty commented
on this as well. One person commented that if the overall goal was to promote teamwork,
the set goals would not accomplish this. He felt the goals were more likely to encourage
the faculty to hunker down in their ofﬁces and work independently on their research.
Another person said he did not like the goal because he was not in favor of group goals
for the faculty. He was of the opinion that faculty work is independent and goals should
be individually based. Three faculty members thought the goals did not ﬁt with academic
culture. One person said it felt too business-like, or corporate.

Given these comments, one might assume that the faculty was opposed to the DIS

and its intent; however this was not the case. As part of the interviews each person was

88

asked for their general reaction to the DIS. Eleven people speciﬁcally commented that
they liked the idea of working more collaboratively with each other. Only one person
reacted negatively to the DIS because he felt faculty work is independent and he was not
in favor of group goals. Any other negative remarks had to do with the mechanics of the
DIS, not the intent. In general, although some people had problems with certain aspects
of the DIS, the researcher had the impression that most people thought that the DIS was
an innovative idea worth trying.
Discussion Summary

The department did not meet the established goals and few faculty members
reported behavior changes as a result of the incentive system. This is surprising to the
researcher given that the faculty overwhelmingly approved of the DIS without a single
vote against it. However, upon a closer examination of the DIS several critical factors
appeared. The faculty did not feel as though they were involved in the development of
the DIS, they were uncomfortable with the ﬁnancial bonus, the implementation of the
program and performance feedback were not timely, there was uncertainty over the goals,
and elements of the DIS were not congruent with some organizational practices and
norms. Not only did the DIS establish group goals, but also its intent was to foster
teamwork in achieving the departmental goals. This was a serious departure from the
previous long-standing focus on individual achievement and nothing was done to support
it. Based upon the literature, the researcher believes these issues were serious ﬂaws in

the DIS and in combination contributed to the program’s failure.

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Implications for Practice

This study has provided insight into the effect of a group pay incentive system
implemented with faculty in higher education. As demonstrated in this case study, just
because a program has been successful in business does not mean it can be automatically
transplanted into other settings. The conceptual framework utilized to guide this
investigation emphasizes the importance of giving careful consideration to structural
components of a given program, the reality of how the program is actually implemented
and contextual dynamics that may have an impact on the program. In this particular case,
poorly thought out goals, untimely implementation and communication, lack of perceived
faculty participation, the wrong incentive, and the incongruence with other departmental
practices contributed to the failure of the group pay incentive system. Speciﬁc
recommendations for practice have been made in each of these areas in the preceding
discussion section. The researcher believes the program could have achieved its goals if
given more careful consideration, and thinks it is worthwhile to continue experimenting
with programs of this nature.

As noted in the discussion of the timing issues, it seems as though a program of
this nature should have a longer period of commitment with the agreement that the ﬁrst
year serve as a planning or pilot year. Especially in regard to research and publication, 3
single year goal is incongruent with the nature of these activities. Also, as with any new
activity or program there is bound to be unanticipated issues. A longer commitment to
the program with the understanding that what was learned in the initial year would be
used to perfect the program in future years might have enhanced faculty participation and

commitment.

A longer commitment to the program might have also abated a concern over
departmental and program leadership. Although not discussed earlier in this research
publication because it occurred outside of the deﬁned time boundary of this study, the
department chairperson left the department at the end of the summer of 2006. The
program lost its champion and it fell apart in the fall of 2007. This is discussed in greater
detail in the later section entitled “Reﬂections”; however the researcher would be remiss
not to make mention of the impact of leadership in this section on implications for
practice. Given that department Chairpersons typically serve in their leadership positions
for three and ﬁve years (Gmelch, 2002; Hecht, 2002), it is important to give careful
consideration to issues such as timing, duration, and faculty commitment if leaders want
programs to continue beyond their term of leadership. This incentive system did not have
the time and commitment needed to give it a fair trial, and without the chairperson who
championed the program, it faded away.

Implications for Policy

As noted in the quote used in the introduction, institutions of higher education are
being asked to “sharpen their priorities, focus their energies, and redeﬁne how they
contribute to the collective good” (Braskamp & Ory, 1994). In order to do so, leaders
have found that the individual orientation of faculty work can be a detriment to meeting
these new demands. However, traditional socialization, promotion and reward systems
support this individual approach to work. The fact that changes need to be made is old
news. As apparent in the literature review, this discussion has been going on for at least
20 years. However, widespread changes have not occurred. Just today as this

dissertation is being written, the college in which the researcher works distributed a

91

teaching policy for new faculty. It is now a policy that new assistant professors
throughout the unit are to be assigned only three class sections per year. The intent of
this policy is to protect their time for research in order to facilitate their success in
obtaining tenure.

This case study makes a contribution to this discussion. If institutions of higher
education want faculty to behave differently, changes need to be made to the faculty
socialization process and the promotion and reward system. Although this unit tried to
encourage teamwork and collective effort through the group pay incentive system, the
program was placed on top of already existing practices and policies. This new incentive
system was incongruent with many of these standing practices and norms. Although a
valiant effort and positive step, it did not go far enough. There is a great deal of rhetoric
in the academy of having more inclusive promotion and reward systems, however,
pervasive changes have not occurred.

The author realizes that this argument may be considered a moderate viewpoint.
It presumes that the tenure system, which is the current promotion and reward system for
faculty, is viable but merely needs modiﬁcations. Some people might argue that the heart
of the problem is the tenure system itself and feel it should be abolished. Tenure has
been blamed for protecting unproductive faculty and for allowing faculty to do whatever
they please regardless of institutional goals and priorities. Incentive programs like the
one described in this study could potentially replace the traditional evaluation and reward .
procedures for faculty. Is this possible or realistic? Are there ways to protect the positive
attributes of tenure, for example, freedom of intellectual inquiry, while at the same time

allowing leaders and administrators ﬂexibility to be responsive to problems,

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opportunities, and societal needs? Tenure has long been a source of controversy in
higher education and the debate is ongoing. This study has relevance to this issue and
provides further thought to this policy debate.

Limitations

Do case studies, but do them with the understanding that your methods will be

challenged from rational (and irrational) perspectives and that insights from your

case studies may be underappreciated. (Yin, 2003)

Some people may challenge the legitimacy of a case study as a research project or
its overall contribution to scholarly knowledge. The debate over case study research and
the merits of other qualitative research is extensive and often heated. The researcher has
read a great deal of this discussion and felt that the chosen research method was the best
way to approach the subject because the contextual conditions were very important to the
study of this incentive program and that there were many variables of potential interest.
The researcher wanted to not only describe the incentive system, but to portray it from
the perspective of the faculty in this academic unit. There are distinct differences
between faculty groups and certainly the faculty and the academic unit involved in this
study are not representative of all faculty and academic departments. The goal of this
study was not to make generalizations to other individuals and groups of faculty, but to
provide an understanding of this unique phenomenon. As noted in the methodology
section, case studies are done in order to gain in-depth insight into a particular situation
and are an intensive description of a program, event, community, group, or intervention
(Merriam, 1998). From a practical standpoint, the researcher hoped that the description
and detail provided in the study would be useful to academic leaders as they manage and

work with faculty in their institutions.

93

Also limiting the study is the possibility that some important variables or
perspectives may have been missed. The case study model of Bullock and Lawler was
utilized to direct the exploration and the researcher recognizes there may have been other
ways to approach the study. As the researcher struggled with these ideas at the onset of
the project, the writings of Alan Peshkin (2001) became helpful and reinforcing. Peshkin
wrote:
From the vast array of things to perceive in my research ﬁeld, I make
choices that reﬂect a basic understanding: I just cannot attend to
everything, and generally, I should not try to. . ..The selection of a category
is a form of sampling that focuses the reader’s attention, interest, time, and
energy in a particular direction and in a particular way, as I will elaborate
below. Our research products are the outcome of decisions we make
about what to sample. They incorporate what we have learned about and
have chosen to experience from within the breadth of our research setting.
(p. 240)

Perhaps if the study had been approached from another perspective, other ﬁndings may

have been discovered.

The researcher is a staff member in the unit studied and because of this some
readers may question the ability of the researcher to obtain open, honest feedback from
the faculty participants. The researcher has a staff position in the unit and has no
supervisory responsibility or authority over the faculty. As mentioned in the
methodology section, safeguards were taken to encourage the faculty to answer questions
openly and honestly. To compensate for this potential problem and in order to assist
participants in developing a sense of trust and comfort with the researcher, all participants

were given information about the study in advance, including information regarding how

conﬁdentiality was to be maintained. The researcher explained that the study has nothing

94

to do with the researcher’s duties within the unit and is a personal endeavor as part of a
doctoral dissertation. The participants could back out at any time without consequence.

Also because the researcher was a staff member in the unit, some may criticize
the participant-observation methodology in some of the data collection. The researcher
was a participant-observer in many of the meetings regarding the incentive system.
Participant-observation can be a strength of the study, but can also create problems (Yin,
2003). In this particular study, it was a positive because the researcher was able to gain
access to information that someone outside the organization may not have known about
or have known to ask for. Yin (2003) also claims it to be a strength because the
researcher has the opportunity to perceive reality from the point of view of someone
inside the organization. The potential negative aspects of participant-observation have to
do with the creation of potential biases because the researcher takes on advocacy roles;
struggling with the task of observation when also participating; and if the group is
dispersed, being at the right place at the right time. (Yin, 2003). These were not issues in
the study.

Recommendations for Future Research

As mentioned in the introduction to this study, at the time of this study, this was
the only known case the researcher could ﬁnd of a group incentive program implemented
with faculty within higher education. If other cases of incentive systems in academic
units were found, it would be interesting to study these. Of special concern would be to
study the experience in another academic discipline. Also, it would be interesting to
study an incentive system in a unit in which the faculty were not so highly paid. As

noted in the literature, causality has often been problematic in studies of incentive

95

programs and it is difﬁcult to say with conﬁdence what did or did not contribute to the
success or failure of the incentive program. However, if other instances were found, it
would provide a basis for making comparisons and perhaps then some more deﬁnitive
statements could be made.

The intent of this study was to explore the program and its impact on the faculty
in the tenure system. As noted in the description of the program, faculty outside of the
tenure system and ofﬁce staff were also included in the program. The researchers chose
not to study these participants because the employment characteristics of these employees
are very different from the faculty. Although this group was relatively small, it would be

interesting to expand the study to explore their experience with the DIS.

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Reﬂections
What Happened to the DIS after the Initial Year?

Beyond the time frame of this study, the researcher had access to additional
information due to her role in the organization. In the fall of 2006 the faculty voted not
to continue the incentive system under its current form. The discomfort with the
ﬁnancial bonus was too strong. The faculty liked the idea of having departmental goals
and decided that they would review the incentive program and explore alternative
incentives. It was decided that it would be discussed in the DAC. In November of 2006
the DIS was brought up again at a faculty meeting. Due to other business (the
department was busy with a search for a new chairperson and two faculty positions) the
DAC did not have time to attend to the DIS. Again, there was consensus that having
departmental goals was a good idea, but the group just felt due to other department
priorities they just could not give it the attention it needed at this time. The department
meeting minutes stated, “At the fall faculty meeting, the faculty had voted to not renew
the incentive program implemented last year. But there was a consensus that
Departmental goals are a desirable thing. The DAC has suggested that we set this issue
aside for now, given that we are working on Departmental goals as part of the Strategic
Visions for the College.”

The researcher believes the DIS needed the support of the department leader in
order to be continued. The department chairperson who initiated the DIS left the
department to take a new job at the end of the summer of 2006. The acting chairperson
did not have strong feelings about the DIS, but she did have great discomfort with the

ﬁnancial bonus. Her argument was, “how would we all feel if this made the front page of

97

 

the student newspaper?” She also felt that she did not want to make any ﬁrm
departmental commitments because she was only in an acting chairperson capacity. The
researcher believes that because there was enough faculty interest in the departmental
goals portion of the DIS, that had the acting chairperson advocated more strongly for it,
the faculty would have revised and reinstituted a version of the DIS. The faculty felt
overwhelmed with the time and commitment required by the chairperson and faculty
search processes (along with their regular responsibilities), and without the prodding of
the chairperson, no one felt up to the task of revising the DIS at this time.
Lessons Learned

The researcher initially wondered if some faculty members would feel
comfortable with the research project and be forthright and honest with their answers due
to the researcher’s position in the department. This was addressed in the methodology
section and strategies were put into place to deal with this concern. As it turned out, each
and every faculty member was happy to participate in the study. People made themselves
readily available for interviews and were timely in their review of the interview
transcripts. The researcher was pleasantly surprised with their interest in the study and
their very frank, honest comments. At times, the researcher was even surprised at the
feelings and candid commentary some people revealed.

The researcher ﬁrst approached this research project with great trepidation. Quite
honestly, the researcher was intimidated by her research subjects. The faculty members
that she was to interview mostly do quantitative research and in her opinion generally
approach their work from a positivistic view of the world. The researcher had commonly

heard them use the term “soft” to describe courses and research in her ﬁeld of study. She

98

anticipated that they might ask her about her study and as a new researcher, she felt
woefully inadequate should she need to justify her study and debate research approaches
with them. Her role in the organization complicated her feelings even further. She
wanted her work colleagues to think highly of her. In the end, she learned her fears were
uncalled for. The faculty was interested in her study, supportive of her work and
supportive of her personally as she strived to complete her doctoral program. No one
criticized her work. There’s a quote that the researcher frequently reads in times of
doubt: “It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not” (author
unknown). This research project and doctoral program were yet another life lesson in
perseverance and the importance of believing in yourself. The researcher reveals this
with the hope of providing encouragement to others who may have similar misgivings

and feelings of inadequacy.

99

 

APPENDIX A

A GROUP PAY INCENTIVE PROGRAM IN ACADEME:
IMPACT ON FACULTY WORK AND ATTITUDES

CASE STUDY PROTOCOL

Overview of the Study

The purpose of this research study is to explore the effects of a group pay
incentive system as a strategy for motivating faculty to meet department goals at a large
research institution. This investigation will explore whether an alternative pay scheme
can inﬂuence faculty behavior and motivate them to work collectively to meet established
group goals despite having other conﬂicting reward systems in place. This study will use
a case study approach to provide detailed description and analysis of the group pay
incentive program, and to explore its inﬂuence on how individual faculty members
approach their work. In addition to the description and analysis, the study will address
the following research questions:

1. What do faculty report doing differently in their work since the start of the
incentive system?

2. Did the program motivate the faculty to change work attitudes and behaviors? If
so, what provided the motivation (the money, the goals, both the money and
goals, fear of disappointing colleagues, etc.)?

3. Did the department achieve the group goals? What happened to departmental
performance and productivity?

These questions will be explored through a case study, which will include
interviews with the department chairperson, review of appropriate department
documents, interviews with the faculty, and review of performance data as it relates to the
established unit goals.

Field Procedures

1. Before research can begin approval must be given by the dissertation committee
and the Social Science, Behavioral, Education Institutional Review Board (SIRB).
A copy of the SIRB application is included at the end of this protocol. This
application includes details regarding study procedures and information regarding
risks to participants, strategies for minimizing the risks, protecting the privacy of
the participants, ensuring conﬁdentiality of the research participants, consent
procedures, and data security.

2. Researcher will contact research participants, distribute consent forms and
schedule interview appointments.

3. Researcher will schedule an appointment with the department chairperson and
request access to background documents and goal progress reports.

100

4. The researcher will have interviews transcribed as soon as possible after the actual
interview so that data can be reviewed and any warranted changes can be made to
the study procedures.

5. In order to analyze all of the data from the interviews and documents involved in
the case study, the researcher will ﬁrst organize all of the data into a case study
database. The information will be organized into three main groupings: what was
done, how was it done, and where it was done. This organization will provide
structure for the data analysis.

6. Within these three categories, the researcher will utilize the constant comparative
method to analyze the information. The researcher will utilize the themes from
the literature to assist in the development of categories for grouping the data and
each unit of data will be compared to these and each other to make thematic
groupings. The data will also be analyzed to see if there are unique patterns
based upon career stage and rank as suggested by the literature.

7. The data will need to be coded and broken down so that it can be grouped as
described above. The exact process for this is still undetermined and the
researcher is exploring doing this manually or with the aid of a software package.

Faculty Interview Protocol

1. Background/Demographic Information
0 Sex

0 Professorial rank
0 Years in the professoriate

2. What is your understanding of the department incentive system?
3. What are your thoughts about the department incentive system?
4. Are you in favor of the incentive system, opposed to it, or don’t care about it?
5. Describe your involvement in development of the incentive system.
6. How do you feel about the goals built into the incentive system?
Probe: are the goals attainable?

7. What impact has the department incentive system had on you and the conduct of
your work?

‘ 8. What have you done differently in your approach to work since the start of the
incentive system?

Probes: interaction with colleagues, how you conduct your research,

approach to teaching, handling of service assignments, time management,
etc.

101

9. What, if anything, in the department incentive system is motivational? (Give
examples if interviewee struggles with the question.)

Probes: the ﬁnancial incentive, the setting of unit goals, fear of
disappointing colleagues, the feeling that people are watching over your
work, etc.

10. What is your reaction to the ﬁnancial bonus built into the incentive system?
Probes: was the bonus amount signiﬁcant, was it fair?
11. What, if any, barriers kept you from working toward the incentive system goals?

12. As a result of the incentive system, did you feel like you were more aware of
your colleagues work as it related to the performance goals?

13. Do you have any other comments you would like to share with me?
Department Chairperson Protocol

Documents needed:
Bylaws
Faculty evaluation and promotion documents
Incentive program documents
Progress reports
Meeting minutes relating to incentive program
Department Advisory Committee
External Advisory Board
Faculty meetings
Others? (Ask chairperson for any other pertinent documents.)

uestions and issues to ex lore with the de artrnent cha' rson
1. Explain the incentive system and its origins.

Where did the idea come from?
How it was developed?
How were the goals determined?
How was the bonus was determined?
What was the faculty participation in the process?
How and when bonus will be awarded?
Were any structures put in place to support the program?

2. What factors do you think have shaped the willingness of the faculty to give this
incentive system a try?

102

3. Describe the incentive structure as it stood prior to the group incentive system.
(Researcher will also have the department documents describing the evaluation
and promotion scheme utilized by the department.)

4. Describe any unanticipated problems experienced with the incentive system.

Research Report
The research report will comply with the guidelines for doctoral dissertations in the

Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education department in the College of Education at
Michigan State University.

103

APPENDIX B

PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM

A GROUP PAY INCENTIVE PROGRAM IN ACADEME: IlVIPACT ON FACULTY
WORK AND ATTITUDES

You are being invited to participate in this research project because you are a faculty
member in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at Michigan State
University.

The purpose of this research project is to explore the effects of the group pay incentive
system instituted in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at Michigan
State University. It is designed to study the impact the incentive program has had on
faculty attitudes and behaviors. If you agree to participate you will be asked to
participate in an interview where you will be asked questions about your attitudes and
reactions to the incentive program.

Details of Participation in this project:

If you agree to be in this study you will be asked to participate in an interview that will
take about 30 minutes of your time. You will be asked questions about the incentive
system and your reactions to it. The interviews will be audiotape recorded and
transcribed. You will not be asked to identify yourself on the audiotape. All information
gathered from you will be conﬁdential. Your privacy will be protected to the maximum
extent allowable by law. To protect conﬁdentiality, all interviewees will be given an
alias and the tapes will be marked with this alias. The tapes will be secured in a locked
ﬁle cabinet in the home of the researcher for the duration of the study and will be
destroyed upon completion of the study. In any sort of report that might be published,
only assigned aliases will be used.

Your participation is entirely voluntary. This means that you are free to choose whether
or not you want to participate in this study, and you are free to withdraw your
participation at any time without penalty. Additionally you may refuse to answer certain
questions without any penalty or may ask to have the audiotape stopped at any time.

If you have any questions or concerns about participating in this study, or if questions or
concerns arise, please feel free to contact Ms. Lynne Zelenski, (517) 699-8088,
zelensk2@msu.edu or Dr. MaryLee Davis (517) 353-1717, davisml@msu.edu. If you
have questions or concerns about your rights as a study participant or are dissatisﬁed at
any time with any aspect of this study, you may contact Dr. Peter Vasilenko, Director of
the Human Subject Protection Programs at Michigan State University by phone: (517)
355-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, e-mail: irb@msu.edu, or mail: 202 Olds Hall, East
Lansing, MI 48824.

104

Thank you for your time and interest in this study.

 

You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate in this study by signing below.

Signature Date

 

You indicate your voluntary agreement to have your interview audio taped by signing
below.

 

Signature Date

105

 

 

APPENDIX C

SIRB APPROVAL
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107

 

APPENDIX D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Department Faculty
Alias Sex Rank Years in
Professoriate
Amy F Associate 9
Barry M Full 26
Bob M Associate 30
Cliff M Associate 24
Collin M Full 18
Daniel F Full 29
Diane F Associate 14
Don M Full 29
Ellen F Full 14
Eric M Full 15
Erin F Full 17
Evan M Assistant 9
Jeff M Full 34
Jenny F Full 25
Jim M Associate 26
Julie F Associate 1 1
Keith M Full 38
Liz F Assistant 2
Lou M Full 40
Mark M Assistant 2
Mary F Assistant 5
Peter M Associate 18
Rich M Full 1 1
Roger M Associate 30
Scott M Assistant 7
Walt M Full 29

 

 

 

 

108

 

 

APPENDIX E

Department Incentive System: 2005-06

PREAMBLE

In recognition that the current merit review 3 stem rewards individual but not collective
achievement. the — is adopting the
following department incentive system to motivate and focus cooperation in achieving
the department’s teaching, research, and service missions.

 

DEPARTMENT INCENTIVE SYSTEM

The 2005-06 department incentive system speciﬁes two sets of department level goals
relating to our teaching, research and service missions: basic goals and additional goals.
Bonuses will be awarded to speciﬁed department employees upon the achievement of
each set of goals. The bonus award for achieving all the basic goals will be $3,000 for
each full-time, teaching employee and $1,500 for each part-time, teaching employee and
each full-time, non-teaching employee. If all of the additional goals are met, 'a further
bonus award will be paid consisting of $2,000 for each full-time, teaching employee and
$1000 for each part-time, teaching employee and each full-time, non-teaching employee.
Awards earned normally will be paid in the fall semester of 2006. However, if an eligible
participant is not employed by the department in fall 2006 but is employed in spring
2007, that employee will receive the award in spring 2007.

Department employees on sabbatical leave will be included in the system. Department
employees on full time administrative assignment outside the department and those in
their consultantship year will be excluded from the system. Those on other types of leave
and similar assignments will be included in or excluded from the system on a case-by-
case basis based on an evaluation by the Department Chairperson, and consultation with
the Department Advisory Council (DAC) if deemed necessary. To be included in the
system full-time (part-time) employees must have been employed by the Department in
both the fall and spring semester (fall or spring semester) of the academic year to which
the bonus relates and be so employed on a full-time or part-time basis by the department
in the month of payment.

Unless otherwise indicated, performance will be measured on three dimensions-teaching,
research and service -over the period August 16, 2005 - August 15, 2006.

109

Teaching will be evaluated using the average department teaching scores of employees
participating in this incentive system on questions one (overall teaching effectiveness)
and two (overall course quality) of the SIRS forms administered by the department. The
basic goal will be met if the average SIRS scores for eligible participants on question one
and question two are equal to or less than 1.91 and 2.05 respectively. The additional goal
will be met if the average SIRS scores for eligible participants on question one and
question two scores are equal to or less than 1.89 and 1.98 respectively.

In unusual situations, when student evaluations are expected to be signiﬁcantly affected
by abnormal situations, the scores may be excluded from bonus system consideration.
Such exclusion must occur before the evaluations occur, be initiated by the employee and
concurred with by both the Department Chairperson and a majority of the DAC.

Research, for this year only, will be judged based on total number of coauthored
publications over the period May 16, 2005 through August 15, 2006 (based on the date of
acceptance letter from the journal editor). The basic goal will be met if (1) the total
number of coauthored publications“ by eligible participants is equal to or greater than 27
gn_d_(2) the total number of coauthored publications by eligible participants in speciﬁc
target“ journals is equal to or greater than 9. The additional goal will be met if (1) the
total number of coauthored publications by eligible participants is equal to or greater than
31 gn_d (2) the total number of coauthored publications by eligible participants in target"
journals is equal to or greater than 10.

To be counted in the total, an article must be accepted for publication in a journal of
national circulation. The article must relate to the professional activities or interests of the
employee. Refereed chapters in scholarly books will be included in the count but
manuscripts published in proceedings generally will not. When there is a question on the
inclusion of any particular publication, the Department Chairperson in consultation with
the DAC will determine the correct status.

Service performance will have met both the basic goal and the additional goal if all
service assignments with deadlines on or before May 15, 2006 have been completed
satisfactorily on or before that date. The satisfactory completion of an assignment in the
Department will be determined by the Department Chairperson. Service outside the
department will be considered to have been completed satisfactorily in the absence of
contrary information from the outside body being served.

Due to extenuating circumstances, the Department Chairperson and a majority of the
DAC shall have the right to jointly exclude certain service assignments from affecting
whether the basic goal or theadditional goal has been met. Such exclusion can be
requested by the employee with the service assignment under consideration, the DAC or
the Department Chairperson.

 

*”Coauthored publications” equals the number of publications times the number of
Department authors of each publication. Thus, an article written by a Department faculty

110

 

member alone or with a non—Department co-author results in a count of one, an article
written by two Department faculty members results in a count of two, and so on.

**Target journals are refereed, highly visible, multidisciplinary, scholarly journals,
including but not limited to the following journals in which department employees have
published over the last ﬁve years. Similar journals can be added to this list by
recommendation of the department chairperson in consultation with the DAC.

 

111

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