Abstract:

In order to become world-class research universities, some countries in Asia offer monetary reward to faculty members for encouraging them publishing research. Since faculty members play a key role in knowledge production, how to motivate faculty to perform research becomes a critical issue. In Taiwan, universities establish systems to award faculty members with cash award to encourage journal article publishing. The general belief that faculty would publish in order to obtain the monetary reward needs to be examined. Whether or not the monetary incentive policy is effective? And if it is effective, what patterns of research behavior change can be observed? Do the numbers of journal manuscript submissions increase over all? Do the numbers of co-authored articles increase? Moreover, does the cash award policy motivate more faculty members to perform research? Based on the cognitive evaluation theory, this paper offers a theoretical framework of factors influencing faculty research performance. This study collects empirical data and test the theory. It investigates full-time faculty working in nine universities and in fourteen disciplines in Taiwan. The results of the study will not only fulfill research gaps of higher education literature, but also provide suggestions to top university administrators with regard to the policy effect of cash incentive on faculty research productivity.