ABSTRACT

Despite the growing popularity of mergers in higher education, limited research examines their sociocultural impact on faculty which is arguably a university’s most valuable resource. This paper examines a merger of disparate institutions in the University System of Georgia (USG) and presents faculty research productivity results over time, given that increased research presence for the merged university was a goal for the merger. A sociocultural based quantitative methods approach was used to explore faculty research efforts and productivity in the merged university. Surveys of faculty were conducted three times over five years post-merger. Research effort and productivity were analysed. The findings suggest that merging two disparate institutions to expand the primary mission of the higher status legacy institution, in this case research and scholarship, requires greater attention to cultural differences between the legacy institutions to the merger. The merged university experienced a consistent reduction in research following the merger, with the most pronounced productivity decline university-wide by year five. With this research, we provide guidance for administrators of higher education institutions and policy makers considering university mergers as a means to encourage research, among other priorities.

摘要

尽管合并在高等教育中越来越受欢迎，但有限的研究检查了它们对教师的社会文化影响，这可以说是大学最有价值的资源。本文研究了佐治亚大学系统 (USG) 中不同机构的合并，并展示了随着时间的推移教师研究生产力的结果，因为合并后大学的研究存在增加是合并的目标。基于社会文化的定量方法方法被用来探索合并大学的教师研究工作和生产力。在合并后的五年内，对教师进行了三次调查。分析了研究工作和生产力。研究结果表明，合并两个不同的机构以扩大地位较高的传统机构的主要使命，在这种情况下的研究和学术研究，需要更多地关注遗产机构之间的文化差异来进行合并。合并后的大学在合并后经历了持续的研究减少，到五年级时，大学范围内的生产力下降最为明显。通过这项研究，我们为高等教育机构的管理者和政策制定者提供了指导，他们将大学合并作为鼓励研究的一种手段，以及其他优先事项。