A Comparison of Models of Role Orientations of Professionals in a Research- Oriented University

Abstract

We wish to thank NIMH grant #IERA 445-94681 for support of the data collection, Gary Sandefur and Carol Straus for computational assistance, and Richard West for methodological advice. We also appreciate the valuable comments on an earlier draft made by Joanne Martin, Ann Swidler and anonymousASQ reviewers. In this paper we summarize existing ideas about dimensions of role orientations of professionals in terms of five models. The preferred model has five dimensions: professional commitment, commitment to organizational goals, organizational immobility, external orientation, and concern with advancement. We propose that three mechanisms generate associations between dimensions of role orientations: cognitive congruence, organizational selection, and behavioral feedback. The first mechanism implies that associations between dimensions do not vary across organizations; the other two imply that associations between dimensions depend on organizational structures and processes. Confirmatory factor analyses of data from faculty and administrators at a large research-oriented university clearly favored the preferred model over the other four. Moreover, the correlations between the dimensions of this model differed in some striking ways from associations found previously between comparable dimensions in liberal arts colleges; this suggests that organizational structures and processes shape role orientations of professionals. We conclude that the organizational context must be explicitly included in theories dealing with role orientations of professionals.

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