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This review has been accessed  times since April 29, 1998
Slaughter, Sheila, and Leslie, Larry L. 1997. Academic
Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial
University. Baltimore, MD.: The John Hopkins University
Press.
Xxi + 276 pp.
ISBN 0-8018-5549-7
Reviewed by Jann Contento
Arizona State University
April 29, 1998
Authors Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie examine
changes in the nature of academic labor between 1970 and
1995. Academic labor is explored in relation to the
globalization of the political economy. The authors cite
globalization as a destabilizing agent influencing patterns
of university professional work. A broad picture of the
changes faced by faculty at public research universities is
presented. The authors concentrate on universities in four
English speaking countries, viz., Australia, Canada, the
United Kingdom, and the United States, focusing on the first
and the last.
The book is divided into two main parts and a conclusion.
The first three chapters provide an introduction and
overview. Chapter One is an introduction to the key
concepts and theories. The term academic capitalism is
defined as "any institutional and professional market or
marketlike [sic] efforts to secure external moneys" (p.8).
The emergence of academic capitalism is examined by tracing
"the growth of global markets, the development of national
policies that target faculty-applied research, the decline
of the block grant as a vehicle for state support for higher
education, and the accompanying increase in faculty
engagement with the market" (p.11).
Chapter Two, "Academic Science and Technology in the
Global Marketplace," considers the growth of a global
economy and the development of higher education policies.
The forces driving the restructuring of higher education are
examined by looking at the political and economic
implications of global markets for research universities.
Three political economic interpretations of globalization
are reviewed: "neoliberal political economics; liberal or
post-Keynesian interpretations, and radical or post-Marxist"
(p.14).
The data on which Slaughter and Leslie base their
observations are national policy documents, white papers,
and legislation from the four countries. The method
employed is comparative analysis of documents. The authors
find that policy makers at the level of the nation state are
concentrating state monies on institutions of higher
education. All four countries have developed national
policies that promoted a shift from basic curiosity-driven
research to commercial or strategic research.
Chapter Three includes the authors investigation of the
financing of postsecondary education. Data are presented
covering the twenty-five year period from 1970 to 1995.
Slaughter and Leslie examine the resource dependence theory
(Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). National patterns of higher
education finance reveal revenue shifts away from block
grant funding sources to those that reflect a market base.
Results of case studies indicate that academic capitalism is
not confined to science and engineering. Results also
indicate that faculty across a wide array of units engage in
academic capitalism.
In Chapters Four through Six, Slaughter and Leslie
present case studies of various higher education
institutions. Qualitative analysis is used with interview
data and quantitative analysis is used to examine cost-
benefit ratios (p.16). Institutional statistics were also
compared for patterns of external income generated by
departments at various institutions.
In Chapter Four, "Advantages and Disadvantages of
Academic Capitalism," resource dependence theory guides
exploration of how successful academic entrepreneurs assess
the advantages and disadvantages of their work. Using
financial records and interviews, the authors find that
faculty are willing to invest a great deal of professional
energy in winning financial awards. A relatively small
proportion of moneys was needed to change faculty behavior.
Chapter Five, "Technology Transfer Strategies as a
Response to Resource Dependence," presents case studies of
faculty involved with technology transfer as a form of
entrepreneurial activity. Applied science faculty developed
centers so they could augment their resources through
academic capitalism. Some faculty and institutional leaders
were sensitive to changes in the research approach employed
at the level of the institution and the field. Applied
scientists saw their entrepreneurial work as an extension of
the research in which they were traditionally engaged.
Chapter Six, "Entrepreneurial Knowledge," explores
changing faculty values, norms, and beliefs.
Professionalization theory, sociology of science, and
science innovation theories were employed to view the
intersection of science and markets. Data from interviews
revealed that faculty were changing their conceptions of
knowledge more rapidly than were administrators. Faculty in
high technology fields valued knowledge as much for its
resource-generating capability as for the power of
discovery.
In Chapter Seven, "Reprise: Academic Capitalism,"
Slaughter and Leslie suggest implications for the
restructuring of postsecondary education. Patterns of
professional work and emerging epistemologies of science are
also addressed. Faculty have historically been more
insulated from the discipline of the market by positioning
themselves between capital and labor. As a subset of
professionals, they were guided by ideals of service and
altruism seeking not to maximize profits, but to place the
interests of client and community first. The authors
conclude that a better understanding of academic capitalism
will foster and empower successful academic capitalists.
However, they view with regret the demise of the concept of
the university as a community in which the individual
members are oriented primarily toward the greater good of
the organization. The central theme of this book
addresses the changing nature of academic work in response
to the emergence of global markets. Universities are viewed
as the central source of human capital. Academics are seen,
as possessing the knowledge needed to fuel the
postindustrial technological revolution. Changes in the
global political economy have had an effect on higher
education and research and development policies. These
changes are seen as influencing the patterns of national
higher education finance.
Slaughter and Leslie find that changes in national policy
and declines in states share of support have spawned
academic capitalism (p.74). The authors also suspect that
reductions in rates of revenue increases have created
internal institutional pressures to increase revenues
elsewhere. They also believe that success in raising
alternative revenues reduces pressures on government to
remedy past funding deficiencies and encourages additional
state subsidy restriction. Their theory is supported by U.
S. data on state appropriations for public higher education.
Decline in state support is associated with compensatory
increases in other public institutional revenue sources
(p.87). A case is made that both the decline and
conditional restrictions of government support threaten
institutional autonomy and increase organizational
turbulence.
According to the resource dependence theory,
organizations survive to the extent that they are effective
in acquiring and maintaining resources (Pfeffer and
Salanick, 1978). Faculty employ academic capitalism to
maintain research (and other) resources and to maximize
prestige. The authors see the research component of
academic work as the activity that differentiates among
institutions, conferring high status and prestige.
Slaughter and Leslie are concerned with the ways in which
national policies deal with access to higher education,
curricula, research, and autonomy for the postsecondary
sector. Policies, which emphasized knowledge as an economic
commodity, were found to reinforce the importance of
academic capitalism in universities. The authors found that
three of the four countries studied are moving away from
basic research toward academic capitalism. Canada is
resisting this movement.
The financial records of two Australian universities were
examined and representative project managers and staff were
interviewed. The authors intent was to determine the
impacts of entrepreneurs on the academic unit and
university. Financial records provided a means for
assigning dollar values for calculating a cost-benefit
ratio. Results revealed that faculty confronted with
reduction in campus moneys and increased competition for
resources sought to alleviate resource dependence
difficulties by winning external finances. The faculty
legitimized their work as academic capitalists. Faculty
claimed their efforts spilled over to their basic research
without challenging the traditional status and prestige
system. The moneys generated by academic capitalism in the
two cases represent nearly 12 percent of total institutional
income. It is suggested that as long as incentive programs
are not at odds with faculty status and prestige systems,
changes within segments of universities can occur with great
ease.
As a result of government and university emphases on
potential profit making research, a growth has occurred in
institutionally affiliated technology centers. These
centers view research technology transfer as a professional
opportunity structure. Technology centers enable faculty to
relate directly to external markets. Centers can also
"change the knowledge base of fields, the organizational
structure of the disciplines, and institutional resource
allocation patterns"(p.176). The authors see centers as
employing few faculty and larger numbers of professional
officers, geared to entrepreneurial aims. The role of
centers in the education of undergraduates remains unclear.
Resource dependence theory leads the authors to expect
individuals, center administrators, and research
universities to develop strategies that would generate the
greatest amount of resources for their institutions. The
Australian centers studied provided evidence that supports
these expectations.
The authors expect that faculty participating in academic
capitalism would begin to move away from altruism and public
service, toward market values. Based on the case studies in
Australia, the authors discovered that "faculty did not
think that creating knowledge for profit contradicted their
commitment to altruism and public service. Instead they see
the market as a mechanism for distributing their discoveries
to society" (p.183). Faculty also developed extensive
entrepreneurial knowledge to protect their autonomy,
prestige, and expertise. The time spent acquiring this
expertise, however, took professors away from their
laboratories, their students, and university service.
Slaughter and Leslie believe that academic capitalism
creates several risks for professors, administrators, and
public universities. These risks include: business failure,
product liability, failure to meet societal expectations of
economic improvement and job creation, and neglecting the
academic needs of students. In addition, if academic
capitalism does not contribute to economic prosperity and
growth, state and federal governments may shift spending
priorities and curtail moneys for university research. If
however, faculty prove success in raising institutional
revenues, governments may curtail funding because
institutions generate their own resources. In their
concluding chapter, the authors explore the implications of
their data and theory for the future of public research
universities. The possibility of more reliable and
predictable resources for universities can be realized if
they assume the functions performed previously by industrial
laboratories. However, a loss of faculty autonomy could
result as external entities determine the direction of
faculty research.
Taken as a whole, the book provides a valuable overview
of the globalization of the political economy. Conclusions
on how the economic market will affect the development of
university professional work remains uncertain. The resource
dependence theory offers advice to leaders of public
research universities. " To ensure position of social
legitimacy and political acceptance, organizations are
dependent on their environment-making the external
constraint and control of organizational behavior both
possible and almost inevitable" (Pfeffer and Salancik,
p.43). Slaughter and Leslie issue "a call for state action
to ensure that universities permit market principles to
operate internally" (p.241). The recommendation seeks
internal monetary incentives with minimal government
regulation on how the money should be spent. An endorsement
of unrestricted government block grants appears to be the
answer for preventing the evils of academic capitalism.
References
Leslie, L.L., & Brinkman, P. T. (1988). The economic
value of higher education. New York, N.Y. : Macmillan.
Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external
control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective.
New York: Harper and Row.
About The Authors
Sheila Slaughter, Professor of Education at the
University of Arizona, has published extensively on higher
education policy in such areas as academic freedom,
governance, intellectual property, and the commercialization
of academic science and technology. A sample of the
author’s associated work includes: 1987. New York State and
the politics of public spending. Higher Education, 1990, 16,
173-97. Higher Learning and High Technology: Dynamics of
Higher Education Policy Formation. 1993. Albany, N.Y.: State
University of New York Press. Retrenchment in the
1980s: The politics of prestige and gender. Journal of
Higher Education 1994, 64,250-82. Dirty little cases?:
Problems in academic freedom, governance, and
professionalization. In Academic Freedom: An everyday
Concern, edited by Ernst Benjamin and Donald Wagner, 58-75.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Larry L. Leslie, Professor of Higher Education at the
University of Arizona, has also written on the social
investment and economic value of higher education exploring
rising costs and economic benefits of applied market models.
A sample of the author’s related work includes: 1995.
Toward Privatization of Public Universities. Tucson, Ariz.:
Center for the Study of Higher Education.; 1996. What
drives higher education management in the 1990s and beyond?:
The new era in financial support. Journal of Higher
Education Management,1996, 10, 5-16. Leslie, Larry L., and Paul
T. Brinkman. (1988). The Economic Value of Higher Education.
New York: American Council on Education and Macmillan.
About the Reviewer
Jann Contento is a doctoral student in the PhD program in
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at
Arizona State University.
Email: jann7676@imap2.asu.edu
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