Academic disciplines and the economic organization of higher education

Objective:  Although the rise of the “corporate university” is frequently discussed, the precise meaning of that term remains opaque (Aronowitz, 1996: Rhoades & Slaughter, 2009; Ross, 2010).  Despite challenges from profit seeking alternatives, the remarkable endurance of knowledge production and dissemination within college and university settings highlights a notable gap within the literature on the economic nature of the firm (Coase, 1937; Demsetz, 1967; Demsetz and Alchian, 1972).  This paper explores the economic organization of the university making special reference to academic disciplines as quality assurance mechanisms that underwrite the production of knowledge.   Disciplinary associations organize formal communities or networks of scholars that franchise themselves through academic departments.  Discipline based peer review reduces the direct control university administrators exert over faculty hiring and promotion.  

Methods and Data: This paper considers the costs of administration relative to market exchange as key factors shaping various segments of the enterprises associated with knowledge production and dissemination.  This framework generates implications regarding curriculum, teaching, interdisciplinarity, faculty governance, unionization, and institutional segmentation within higher education.  Data from the Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System and the National Center for Study of Higher Education and the Professions enable several hypotheses on staffing, school bargaining and governance to be examined.

Expected Results.  Although disciplinary associations concern themselves with curriculum, they are most essential in the production of knowledge where expert peer review is required.   The long curricular battle over general versus disciplinary education provides one important juncture for college administration, and widens the door to managerial control over faculty.  We expect that peer review and faculty governance are weaker in institutions where general education plays a major role in the curriculum, as is the case in community colleges.  We also expect greater interdisciplinarity within teaching oriented institutions reduces the peer control exercised within discipline based departments.   Further, faculty unionization in such institutions is likely to be more prevalent, though unionization can become more difficult when instructors are recruited using short-term and/or part-time contracts.  We question whether disciplines with substantial practitioner membership monitor curricular variation across institutions. Finally, assuming that discipline-based peer review is required for successful knowledge production, administration within universities is likened to that of a shopping mall owner who maximizes rents by managing the externalities generated from interactions among storeowners.  The failure of stand-alone graduate institutions suggests positive externalities of teaching upon the research enterprise, whereas the converse may not be quite so evident.