James V. Koch

Higher education and total quality management

Those who advocate the use of total quality management (TQM) in higher education issue strong promises that it will unite campuses, increase employee satisfaction and improve nearly any process that it touches. Unfortunately, the empirical evidence in favor of TQM in universities is mostly anecdotal and surprisingly sparse. The evidence that does exist relates primarily to administrative tasks such as bill collection, check writing, financial aid and registration. But, the truly significant problems facing higher education today relate to the nature of the curriculum, uses of faculty time, how to restrain cost increases, distance learning and the use of technology, cooperative relationships with business, and governance and leadership arrangements. TQM has precious little to say about these things and even erects subtle roadblocks to change in these areas because of its strong emphasis upon meetings, consensus and process over product. Further, it turns out to be a costly approach to decision-making becau...

Presidential leadership : making a difference

Chapter 1 The Model and the Evidence Chapter 2 In the Spirit of Saint Simone Chapter 3 Research on Leadership and Power: Principles and Evidence Chapter 4 Systematic Evidence on the Effective College President Chapter 5 Presidential Characteristics: Further Reflections Chapter 6 Charisma, Public Presence, and the Transformational President Chapter 7 Gender, Race, and the College Presidency Chapter 8 Presidential Constituencies and Tasks Chapter 9 The President, the Administration, and the Spouse Chapter 10 The President and TQM Chapter 11 The President and Institutional Governance Chapter 12 The President and the Faculty Chapter 13 The President and the Students Chapter 14 The President and Off-Campus Constituencies Chapter 15 The President and Politicians, Public Figures, and Bureaucrats Chapter 16 The President and the Media Chapter 17 The President and the Alumni Chapter 18 The President, Philanthropy, and Fund Raising Chapter 19 Governing Boards and the President Chapter 20 The President and the Trustees Chapter 21 Responsibilities of the Governing Board Chapter 22 Evaluating the Institution Chapter 23 Searching for the President Chapter 24 Presidential Compensation and Related Matters Chapter 25 Evaluating the President

TQM: why is its impact in higher education so small?

Despite still having many supporters and much use outside higher education, total quality management (TQM) has had a remarkably small impact on colleges and universities. While numerous institutions of higher education have sponsored “quality” initiatives, nearly all of these have focused on non‐academic activities. Thus, higher education TQM has concentrated on processes such as registration, physical plant, bill paying, and purchasing. It has ignored the most critical questions facing the academy such as faculty tenure, curriculum, tuition and fee levels vis‐a‐vis scholarship assistance. TQM has had virtually nothing to say about these matters. Two‐thirds of institutions that began TQM projects in the 1990s abandoned them because the vast majority have been failures. Why? Because TQM has failed to address the most important issues. Nor, because of the nature of academic culture and the difficulty of defining the precise nature of higher education, is it ever likely to do so. TQM’s time has come and passed in higher education.

The Influence of Teaching and Other Factors Upon Absolute Salaries and Salary Increments at Illinois State University.

Koch and Chizmar examine the determinants of both the absolute salary levels and recent salary increments of 229 professors in 16 departments at Illinois State, considering such variables as experience, scholarly output, teaching, administration, race, sex, committee work, degrees held, and the influence of outside market demand. Allowance is made for possible differences among disciplines in rewarding faculty members. A conventional multiple linear regression model is used. Academic rank and the number of years in possession of the doctorate were found to be the most significant determinants of absolute salary levels, while 71 percent of the variance in salary increments were explained by merit performance variables. Teaching competence was found to be of great importance.

Welfare policies and migration of the poor in the United States: An empirical note

4. ConclusionThis paper has investigated the impact of geographic welfare benefit differentials upon migration in the United States. Unlike other related studies, which typically focus upon black migration (as a surrogate measure of migration of the poor), the present study focuses directly upon migration of the poor per se. A variety of reduced-form estimates are provided. The evidence strongly suggests that the net in-migration of the poor is positively and significantly influenced by higher nominal AFDC levels and by higher real AFDC levels. These findings support the ‘welfare magnet hypothesis,’ which alleges that relatively high welfare levels act to attract poor migrants. Moreover, given that poor migrants are attracted non only by high nominal welfare levels but also by high real welfare levels, an argument can be made for establishing geographically uniform real welfare benefit levels in the United States. This uniformity presumably should act, over the long run, to eliminate the human resource distortions being caused by the currently prevailing welfare system.

The Economics of Drug Control Policies

The major findings of this analysis are four-fold:(1) It is both possible and appropriate to examine the economic effects of drug law enforcement within the context of supply and demand analysis.(2) Supply restricting enforcement is usually undesirable because it will increase the price of the drug in question and consequently increase criminal activities. Because the demand function for drugs such as heroin approaches infinite price elasticity, supply restricting enforcement will not greatly decrease the quantity consumed.(3) Demand-restricting enforcement activities (education, rehabilitation, substitute drugs) are preferable from an a priori standpoint because they will decrease both the quantity consumed and the drug price. Lesser amounts of crime will result.(4) A system where drugs may be obtained from appropriate medical sources legally has desirable results in terms of lowering the price of the drug and lessening criminal activity. But the tolerance phenomenon and the questionable applicability of...

The ‘crowding out’ effect of federal government outlay decisions: An empirical note

Summary and conclusionsThis note has addressed the empirical issue of crowding out by examining the proportion of GNP devoted to private investment in new physical capital as a function of the proportion of GNP devoted to federal government outlays. Three alternative models were estimated, all of which found evidence of (a) a definite pattern in which private investment is crowded out by government spending and (b) only partial, i.e., incomplete, crowding out. These findings are, in principle, compatible with the studies by Arestis (1979), Abrams and Schmitz (1978), and Zahn (1978).We may infer at least two important policy implications from the above findings. First, federal government decisions which act to raise federal outlays tend to diminish private-sector investment in new physical capital. To the degree that this form of crowding out occurs, private sector unemployment is generated. This clearly acts to weaken the stimulatory direct effects of the increased federal spending. Second, to the extent that federal government spending decisions lead to diminished investment in new physical capital, the rate of capital formation is diminished. This tends to worsen long-term inflation by cutting down on the ability of aggregate productive capacity to keep pace with aggregate demand.The two implications stated above cast potentially grave doubts upon the wisdom of federal government decisions that lead to increased federal outlays. Ideally, at the very least, each such spending decision should be scrutinized for its particular impact on investment in new physical capital. Clearly, although federal government expenditures in the aggregate lead to diminished private investment, certain specific forms of federal spending may not change private investment at all, whereas other forms of federal spending may even lead to increased investment. The latter could well be characteristic of federal outlays for new highway construction. Thus, there appears to be a pressing need to disaggregate according to federal spending type.

Effect of technological breakthroughs on electronic markets

Electronic markets have profoundly affected competition and market structures. Many authors have argued that electronic markets can promote competition and increase allocational efficiency, primarily by reducing buyer and seller search costs. However, conventional competitive models do not explain several phenomena we actually observe in electronic markets. Consequently, a variety of researchers have introduced complications to the basic competitive search model, including asymmetric information, branding and product differentiation, network effects, and agency considerations in order to explain e-commerce behavior. However, most previous studies neglect the fact that such characteristics may reflect underlying market evolution processes. Depending upon the evolutionary pattern of a market, the behavior and performance of markets differ. In this paper, we construct a model to examine e-commerce in the framework of dynamic market evolution. Using a system of replicator dynamics, we split a market into two distinct parts and show that the competition within the two segments will follow different, though interrelated evolutionary patterns. We supply the conditions for the existence of a unique global stable equilibrium in this dynamical system. Our model suggests that exogenous increases in online customers triggered by technological breakthrough often play more important roles than price differentials in determining the evolutionary path of a market. By emphasizing the short term disequilibrium along the market evolution path, our study complements the competitive equilibrium view of electronic market.

An economic profile of the Pacific Rim

The miracle of the Pacific Rim is astounding; yet it is not without problems that threaten to turn the dream into a nightmare for many of the small countries on the Rim.

The Curious Case of the Journal Manuscript Market: Ethics Versus Efficiency in Academe

This study argues that there is a formal market for journal manuscript articles. The traits of this market for nearly all disciplines, except law, are then described. We discuss how most disciplines permit a manuscript to be submitted to only one journal at a time, the role of submission fees in this market, and the costs and benefits of the current system. This system is then compared to a world in which manuscripts could be submitted simultaneously to multiple journals and the potential benefits and costs of such a system.