Abstract:

The globalization of higher education means a growing foreign-born faculty in the U.S. research institutions, and a better understanding of these scholars and their work performance is important for effective teaching, learning, and institutional management. The perceived work influence is of great significance for the foreign-born faculty because higher perceived work influence will predict higher satisfaction and lower turnover in the institutions. Using the NETWISE II dataset, this study examined the relationship between foreign-born birth status and the work influence in the U.S. research institutions. Power theory and status characteristic theory are utilized, and Status-Personality-Status (SPS) framework is proposed to examine the mechanism of foreign-born faculty’s low perceived work influence in the U.S. higher education. Findings showed that foreign-born individuals have lower perceived work influence which might explain why they always have lower job satisfaction from one aspect. The results also showed that the social potency of foreign-born is lower than their native counterparts and the social potency and leadership position mediated the relationship between foreign-born birth status and perceived work influence. Findings in this study have implications for institutional policy and knowledge production. This paper makes three primary contributions: first, this paper proposes a status-personality-status framework to explain the relationship among birth status, personality and social status; second, this paper explores the different aspect of work activities of foreign-born in the U.S. higher education; third, diversity climate is introduced to investigate the climate’s influence on foreign-born faculty’s perceived work influence.

Keywords:

Foreign-born, work influence, social potency, leadership position, U, S. higher education.