DOCTORAL ISSUESThe New Realities of the Academic Market: Prescriptions for Successby Ann Marucheck,Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Recent articles featured in Decision Line have documented the discouraging state of the academic job market that faces doctoral students today (see David Olson's article in the March 1996 issue). Although the factors that contributed to an oversupply of candidates relative to the number of faculty positions available are diverse, complex and defy a quick solution, some business schools are reacting to this crisis by retrenching their doctoral programs. In his discussion of system dynamics, Senge (1990, pp. 23-25) suggests that retrenchment may be precisely the wrong reaction to periods of market discontinuity similar to what we are experiencing today. Using a systems perspective, the solution may lie in the realization that basic changes have occurred in the academic job market and that the traditional prescriptions for success may not be sufficient in the future. Indeed, at the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the number of applicants to the doctoral program has never been higher. In my interviews with applicants, I have noticed that these prospective students are fully cognizant of current market conditions. Further, these applicants acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that placement opportunities will dramatically change for the better during the next four years. Yet, if there is a reason for optimism, it is that these entering students already realize that planning for placement can't be deferred until the third or fourth year of doctoral studies. It must be started on the first day of the doctoral career. So what will be the requirements for successful placement in the future? Although no one can accurately predict the rules by which the future market will operate, there are several prescriptions for doctoral students to increase their probability of success in the job market. 1. Research, research, research. Evidence of research proficiency has always been a requirement for obtaining an academic position at a good college or university. In the past, evidence of research competency usually meant the completion of course work in a doctoral program which enjoyed a reputation for "good research training" and the proposal of an interesting dissertation topic. Now research proficiency seems to imply research productivity. Recently, we interviewed an entry-level faculty candidate whose research record included five papers accepted by top notch journals, as well as numerous proceedings articles. Amazingly, all of this research had been accomplished during the doctoral career and prior to the completion of his dissertation. The fact that this individual was the only entry-level candidate who was given serious consideration in the hiring decision seemed to signal that good doctoral training alone is no longer a sufficient indicator of research proficiency. With increased attention to candidate's publication records, we may see new assistant professors whose research records at the time of initial appointment will rival those of more senior cohorts at the time their tenure was granted. In order to meet the new demands for research productivity, some students are extending their doctoral careers to five and six years in order to allow more time to develop a publication record. Others are following the model used in the basic sciences where doctoral students are expected to complete a postdoctorate before seeking a permanent academic position. The University of Michigan started a postdoctoral program in business several years ago; however, a number of other schools are creating their own ad hoc postdoctoral positions with support from externally funded research projects. The postdoctorate provides an opportunity for students to improve their research records before they seriously enter the job market. Another option is to follow the strategy of that entry-level candidate mentioned above. He identified a faculty mentor early in his doctoral career, and the two immediately brainstormed several research projects and a schedule for accomplishing the work. Three years of hard work on collaborative research projects produced an excellent record of research productivity for the student, and perhaps, more importantly, provided an illustration of the critical role that a faculty mentor plays in a doctoral career. In this situation, the old norms fell by the wayside as both the faculty mentor and the student prepared for the new realities of the market. 2. Teaching experience and effectiveness. Faculty positions are usually justified on the basis of teaching needs in degree programs. There is an expectation that a newly hired faculty member will "hit the ground running" and demonstrate teaching effectiveness in undergraduate, MBA, doctorate and executive education programs with a minimum amount of developmental effort. Mediocre classroom performance, even by "star" researchers, will be met with less tolerance than in the past as students, corporate recruiters, administrators, and even state legislators all demand greater accountability in teaching activities. In a recent article in Decision Line (September/October 1995), Harvey Brightman took the position that doctoral students can be trained to become effective teacher. However, the traditional approach of dropping a teaching assistant into the classroom without any preparation, for the sake of gaining classroom experience, is no way to develop teaching effectiveness. We have established a teaching program at Kenan-Flagler where doctoral students serve as teaching apprentices and participate in several teaching workshops prior to entering the classroom as a supervised teaching assistant. In addition to training activities, doctoral students are encouraged to intellectually engage in the teaching process by developing their own teaching portfolio. The teaching portfolio serves as a documentation of each individual's unique approach to teaching and learning. The portfolio contains a statement of the student's teaching philosophy; samples of teaching materials, including syllabi, handouts and examinations; course evaluation summaries; reports of faculty or peer evaluations; and letters of commendation for teaching performance. The portfolio is designed to present an individual's teaching as a process with identified inputs and a demonstration of desired outcomes. Academic recruiters find the teaching portfolio to be a more useful indicator of teaching effectiveness than instructor ratings, which are often meaningless when presented out of context. 3. Functional excellence and interdisciplinary competency. Excellence in one's functional discipline has always been a basic expectation of any faculty candidate. However, in order to cope with the sheer volume of applications that are received in response to any announced faculty position, most schools find that both the competencies and research interests of the desired candidate must be narrowly specified in order to reduce the application pool to a manageable size. The paradox is that even though the functional specifications will be tightly defined, a successful candidate may actually need broad cross-functional competencies in order to pass the initial screens. For instance, a school that needs a faculty member to teach operations management may specify that a desirable candidate will have research interests in supply chain management. However, the recruiting committee may decide that in order to effectively conduct research in supply chain, the desirable candidate will also demonstrate competency in purchasing, product design and marketing. Many of the "hot" areas for business research today, including technology, globalization, environmental management, and health care issues can all be characterized as requiring functional depth infused with a cross-functional component. Thus, to prepare themselves for the market, students should avail themselves of opportunities to take courses and attend research seminars in order to develop research credibility in other fields during their doctoral careers. Those who procrastinate often find that the time and opportunity to develop supporting fields diminish when one is no longer a student. 4. Proposal writing skills. Although securing outside funding to support research has been the norm in the sciences, engineering and medicine, business schools have traditionally been less aggressive in seeking external research funding. However, even today there are some business schools that are beginning to use an individual's success in obtaining research funding as a consideration in the tenure decision. For doctoral students, the new reality is that each individual will be expected to assume sole responsibility for obtaining the financial resources required to support his/her research interests. At Kenan-Flagler, doctoral students are eligible to receive financial support for their research projects, including dissertations, through the Cato Center for Applied Business Research. However, each student must write a complete proposal requesting the research support; the proposal is evaluated by a panel of faculty members. Funding isn't guaranteed, and to a large extent, is dependent on the student's ability to clearly communicate both the rigor and the potential impact of the proposed research. The result has been that more doctoral students are taking advantage of the programs and services offered on campus to support proposal-writing activities. In addition, to learning how to write effective research proposals, students are also learning how to search for funding opportunities, including those available on the Internet. In the future, faculty recruiters may regard funded dissertation research as an indication that the candidate has developed the capabilities to successfully compete for external research support. These prescriptions represent the collective wisdom of several insightful applicants to the doctoral program who are undaunted by current market conditions. This discussion will continue at the Decision Sciences Institute's 1996 Doctoral Consortium when a panel of faculty will describe their own experiences in the changing job market and offer their prescriptions for success. Reference Peter M. Senge. The Fifth Discipline. New York: Doubleday, 1990. ***************************************************************** Decision Line, May 1997 (v27n3) |