Does Money Accelerate Faculty Mobility? Survey Findings from 11 Research Universities in China

Jin Liu, Zhaohui Yin, Wenjing Lyu and Songyue Lin
Additional contact information
Jin Liu: College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100000, China
Zhaohui Yin: School of Education, Wuhan University, Luojia Hill, Wuhan 430072, China
Wenjing Lyu: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100081, China
Songyue Lin: College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100000, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: In the context of global innovation systems, it has become a universal law that the resource elements of scientific and technological innovation, such as talents, flow along the track of high efficiency to the regions that can produce high benefits. As faculty in research universities are important resources of scientific and technological innovation, developing countries such as China have sought to accelerate the transnational mobility of faculty by leveraging income. This study endeavors to gain a better understanding of the motivations for and the outcomes of faculty mobility at Chinese research universities and to determine whether attaining higher income levels through academic mobility can be considered a lever for facilitating change and improving the status of the academic profession in China. Using survey data from 445 faculty members at 11 major research universities in China, this study found a significant relationship between mobility frequency and indirect income. The findings also revealed, however that employees’ different attitudes toward income during the process of mobility are a key variable in confirming academic professional boundaries. The findings suggest that more successful mechanisms to attract or retain talented scholars should be developed and that these mechanisms should not focus exclusively on income.

Keywords: global innovation systems; Chinese research university; faculty income; academic mobility; academic labor market; ordinary labor market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/6925/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/6925/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:6925-:d:294432

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().