Administrative Practices in University Departments.

This paper attempts to explain variation in the formalization of administrative practices current in the teaching departments of a large midwestern university. Variation was noted in the degree of formalization in the following practices: hiring procedures, evaluation of performers, and handling of unsatisfactory faculty members. This variation was analyzed to determine its relationship to: department size, frequency of decision making, department prestige, supply-demand ratio, and humanistic orientation. Frequency of decision making emerged as the most significant of these. Humanistic orientation was found to be associated with the subject matter taught by the department faculty and with degree of visibility of the training given by the department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]