Research on Academic Conference Communication and Research Performance of College Teachers from Stakeholder Perspective: A Micro Perspective Based on Selected Colleges and Universities ()
1. Introduction
In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the strategies of science and education-led development, talent-led development, and innovation-led development were clearly put forward, providing direction for the development of higher education in China. Under this strategic background, enhancing the research and innovation capabilities of college teachers in China has become particularly urgent and important. This not only concerns the enhancement of China’s scientific and technological strength, but also directly affects the status and influence of Chinese universities in global academic competition.
Academic conference exchange, as an important component of college teachers’ academic activities, plays a crucial role in enhancing their research capabilities, broadening their academic horizons, and updating their knowledge structures. Most college teachers hold a positive attitude towards various forms and content of academic conference exchange activities, believing that these activities help them keep up with the latest academic trends and stimulate their innovative thinking. However, there are obvious differences in expectations and feelings between schools and teachers regarding academic conference exchange in practice. On one hand, schools hope to provide teachers with research assistance and support through intensive and high-quality academic conference exchange. On the other hand, some teachers feel that these activities are too frequent and disrupt their normal life rhythm, expressing dissatisfaction.
The survey results on the development of college teachers in Chinese universities reveal the severity of this problem: in the previous academic year, as much as 60% of teachers did not participate in international academic conference exchange, and 20% did not participate in domestic academic conference exchange. What is more worrying is that most teachers were unable to effectively apply the valuable learning experiences gained from academic conference exchange to their daily research after completing these activities. Although 63.34% of teachers said they had gained a lot from academic conference exchange, learning about many cutting-edge academic achievements and gaining new ideas for learning and research, 36.36% of teachers still considered their academic gains to be average, merely enriching their life experiences and broadening their horizons (Shen, 2016).
The purpose of this study is to use stakeholder theory to analyze the relationship between academic conference exchanges and the scientific research performance of college teachers, to explore the differences between college teachers’ attitudes toward academic exchanges and their actual participation, and the complexity of the impact of academic exchanges on scientific research performance, and based on the results of the study, to provide theoretical support for the development of more scientific and reasonable policies on academic conference exchanges in colleges and universities.
This paper combs through the policy documents, analyzes the school’s attitudes and behaviors towards academic exchanges, and adopts a questionnaire survey to collect data to understand the attitudes and experiences of different stakeholders towards academic exchanges for research performance. Interviews are conducted with representative faculty members to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of academic exchanges on research performance, and to analyze the role of schools and colleges as core stakeholders in academic exchanges.
2. Core Concepts and Literature Review
2.1. Core Concept
Academic Conference Communication (ACC) refers to the process by which researchers participate in academic conferences and conduct academic reports, paper presentations, seminars and other activities to promote knowledge sharing, collision of ideas and collaborative research. This process is not only limited to face-to-face communication, but also includes online meetings, virtual seminars and other forms. This study includes academic conferences, academic seminars, academic lectures, academic forums, academic reports and other forms.
Research Performance (Research Performance) is a comprehensive index that measures the results and efficiency of scientific research activities, including but not limited to the number and quality of papers published, the number of citations, patent applications and authorizations, transformation of scientific research results, scientific research awards won, academic influence, etc. Research performance reflects the individual achievement of researchers, the comprehensive strength of the team or organization, and the contribution to society.
The concept of stakeholders originated in the 1960s as a challenge to the traditional theory of shareholder supremacy. The Stanford Research Institute first introduced the concept of stakeholders in 1963, defining them as “groups without whose support an organization cannot survive” (Freeman, 1984). In this study, Stakeholders refer to individuals, groups, or institutions that are directly or indirectly related to the communication and research activities of academic conferences, including but not limited to researchers (including conference attendees and organizers), academic institutions (universities, research institutes), funding agencies, publishers, policy makers, industrial partners, and the general public. They play a significant role in academic conference communication and research performance by investing resources, participating in activities, or being influenced by activities. In this study, the stakeholders of faculty research performance such as faculty members and internal administrators of universities are analyzed.
2.2. Literature Review
Academic conference communication is essentially an information exchange process, and information exchange is crucial for teachers to achieve research results. Academic information exchange behavior has also gradually become a hot spot of research. The impact of information technology on academic conference communication behavior may vary for different subject areas, and the impact of technology may have different effects for different scientific research groups. Based on the scientific communication model of thesis communication, Li Guohong explored the scientific communication process and its analysis model built on the basis of thesis communication, and Yan et al. (2021) analyzed the internationalized online academic conference communication of “double first-class” universities and added the influence of title, education, etc., on the frequency and breadth of information exchange. Wang et al. (2017) quantified the level of academic cooperation and research performance with 521 authors in the field of library and intelligence. These studies focus on the exploration of academic information exchange modes, system construction, and empirical analysis of exchange, and do not specifically analyze information exchange and scientific research performance.
The performance of college teachers can directly reflect their teaching level and scientific research ability. Regarding the identification of scientific research performance: output indicators (i.e., scientific and technological achievements and technology transfer): the number of monographs published, the number of academic papers published, the number of appraised achievements, the actual income obtained from technology transfer, and the number of awards granted for achievements. For the research of university scientific research performance evaluation research, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is also a method often used by many scholars. For example, Wang et al. (2021) carried out an empirical study of categorized performance evaluation by collecting scientific and technological statistical information from 40 higher education institutes directly under the Ministry of Education from 2010-2017, and utilizing the DEA-Malmquist index method. Empirical study of categorized performance evaluation, analyzing that there is a gap in the performance of scientific research activities in universities.
Teachers in higher education have the dual characteristics of “academic person” and “economic person”. Research performance is affected by many factors. Some studies believe that the research performance behavior of college teachers is based on the individual endogenous attitude and exogenous attitude to dominate the results. Scholars have explored various possible influences on the research performance of college teachers in terms of system construction, research funding, material security, and work pressure. At the level of system construction, the existing research mainly focuses on the appointment system, assessment system and salary distribution system, which are closely related to the research performance of college teachers. Some scholars believe that the “promotion-or-retirement” appointment system can help to increase the quantity of teachers’ academic output, but some scholars believe that the promotion pressure brought by the appointment may lead to professional laxity and academic misconduct and other problems. Guo & Yao (2023) emphasized the multi-track income distribution system that goes along with the appointment system, and proposed that the macro-control system of salary should be further improved to give full play to its incentive effect on teachers’ scientific research performance.
Many scholars at home and abroad have applied stakeholder theory to the field of higher education, which has broadened the scope of stakeholder theory and promoted the further development of stakeholder theory. Derek Bok (Bok, 2001) believes that “there is a large and complex network of relationships connecting universities and other major institutions in society”, and there are inextricable links between colleges and universities and other social organizations (or individuals) around them. There are internal and external stakeholders in universities. According to Hu Chihti (Hu, 2005), the application of stakeholder analysis framework in higher education is mainly reflected in the aspects of stakeholders and university management, social responsibility, establishment of partnerships, and interaction universities, etc. The university stakeholders include senior administrators, professors, funders, students, and the government. According to Li Fuhua (Li, 2007), according to the closeness of stakeholders to the university, the stakeholders of the university can be divided into four levels: the first level is the core stakeholders, including faculty members, students, and administrators; the second level is the important stakeholders, including alumni and financial contributors; and the third level is the indirect stakeholders, which include the parties that have a contractual relationship with the university, such as research funding providers, industry-university-research collaborators, loan providers, etc.; and the fourth level is marginal stakeholders, including the local community and the public.
Stakeholder theory is mainly used in university research for overall activities such as university governance mode, exploring stakeholders’ value proposition, talent cultivation mode, etc. It is not common to analyze a specific piece of work by applying stakeholder theory, and some scholars have explored the management of scientific research funding and quality assurance, while few analyze the way in which scientific research exchange activities are conducted.
In summary, through the combing of relevant literature at home and abroad, it is found that most of the research on the scientific research output of college teachers is analyzed from the incentive theory, social learning theory, human capital theory, information exchange theory, and there are few researches based on the stakeholder perspective, and there is still a lack of researches on the collection of higher education stakeholder claims for colleges and universities. Therefore, this paper takes college teachers as the research object, analyzes the relationship between academic conference exchanges and scientific research performance, explores the new way of human capital investment, rationally designs the incentive mechanism for teachers’ scientific research, reduces the cost of scientific research management in colleges and universities, avoids the wastage of manpower, material and financial resources, and promotes the improvement of the comprehensive strength of scientific research in colleges and universities.
3. Research Process: Research Object, Content and Methods
This study adopted the methods of literature research, questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. The literature research mainly combed the existing policy documents of our school to sort out the documents related to academic conference exchanges to drive research performance, and also indirectly indicated the attitudes and behaviors of the school, the highest level of stakeholders. Through questionnaires and in-depth interviews, we further understand behind the policies, the attitudes, management practices, expectations and challenges, and suggestions for improvement of different stakeholders towards faculty academic conference exchanges for research performance.
The design of the survey questions is mainly divided into three aspects: first, the basic information part, including the basic information of the survey respondents, such as age, gender, title, etc.; second, the part of academic conference exchanges, which mainly includes the frequency of participation in academic conference exchanges; and third, the attitudes and motives, expectations and experiences, problems and suggestions faced by different stakeholders towards academic conference exchanges to promote scientific research performance. The research survey population was taken from 10 colleges (College of Economics, College of Business, College of Liberal Arts, College of Marxism, College of Education, College of Media, College of Chemistry, College of Fine Arts, College of Mathematics and Statistics, and College of Architecture and Engineering) of second-tier colleges and universities in Henan Province, as well as the university’s research office with a total of 100 stakeholder groups. It consists of 80 full-time faculty members and 20 teaching administrators, covering a wide range of title levels such as assistant professor, lecturer, associate professor and professor. They are not only tasked with teaching duties at different levels, but also possess varying academic and research capabilities. In addition, some of the teachers also hold certain administrative positions, forming a diversified group covering different ages, genders, professional backgrounds and years of working experience, with both dominant and auxiliary members and a complete structure. Among them, 65% are male and 35% are female; for full-time teachers, 50% are lecturers, 30% are associate professors, and 20% are professors. 20 teaching administrators, 10% are junior, 70% are intermediate, and 20% are senior. 100 questionnaires were distributed, and 96 valid questionnaires were finally returned, with a recovery validity rate of 96%.
At the same time, several representative teachers (teachers with different titles, different ages and different genders) were selected to record in detail their participation in academic conference exchanges and changes in research performance for in-depth analysis. The length of the interview for each interviewee was about 40 minutes, and some in-depth exchanges even lasted up to one hour. During the interviews, alternative questions were flexibly adjusted according to the interview outline, and immediate feedback from the interviewees was used as a guide to ensure the flexibility and relevance of the interviews in order to uncover deeper insights.
4. Research Findings
4.1. Core Stakeholder 1—Schools: Policy Promotion, the Leverage
of the Performance Appraisal System Is Highlighted
At present, university teachers hold a positive attitude towards various forms and contents of training activities, believing that participating in training activities is conducive to improving teaching and research ability, broadening academic horizons, updating knowledge structure, and that among various training types and programs, the training forms of domestic visiting scholars and attending academic conferences and exchanges are considered to be the most effective. The financial support invested by universities can enhance the research ability and output level of teachers.
A review of the relevant institutional documents of the university reveals that documents from the national to the provincial to the university level all contain the content of “academic conference exchange for teachers”. For example, although there are subtle differences in the expressions of “strengthening the training of young and middle-aged teachers” and “exchanges and seminars”, the Criteria for the Recognition of Outstanding Grassroots Teaching Organizations in Higher Education Institutions in Henan Province explicitly requires that “each teacher shall attend at least one teaching seminar at home and abroad”. Participate in a domestic and international teaching seminar”, while other documents are in the form of recommendations. In addition, the roles and assessment tasks of “academic conference exchanges” are different in different policy documents due to different purposes. In the university-level documents, the relevant content accounts for 25%, while the provincial and national-level documents each account for 37.5%, and all of them include the improvement of teachers’ training in the assessment or evaluation system, and the exchange of scientific research occupies a certain proportion as an important means of cultivating teachers’ scientific research ability, improving the level of scientific research, and serving the development of teachers’ careers. Specific documents include the “Program for the Level Assessment of Undergraduate Teaching Work in General Institutions of Higher Education (Undergraduate Assessment), Program for the Audit and Evaluation of Undergraduate Teaching Work in General Institutions of Higher Education (Audit and Evaluation), Management Measures for the Pilot Construction of Comprehensive Reform of Professions in Anyang Normal College (Comprehensive Reform of Professions), Annual Assessment Indicators and Scoring Standards of the School-level Collaborative Innovation Center (Collaborative Innovation), Review of the Provincial First-class Undergraduate Major Construction Point Review (Double First-class Courses), Criteria for Determining Excellent Grassroots Teaching Organizations in Higher Education Institutions in Henan Province (Excellent Grassroots Teaching Organizations), and Notice of the Office of the Department of Education of Henan Province on Doing a Good Job of Selecting the Golden Lessons of Employment and Entrepreneurship for the Colleges and Universities of the Province in 2021 (Teachers’ Office of the University of Henan Province [2021] No. 38) (Construction of the Golden Lessons)”, etc.
4.2. Core Stakeholder 2—Teachers: Active and Passive
In the survey, it was found that in the question “How often do you participate in academic conferences and exchanges?” Only 10.5% of the respondents answered “more than 5 times per year”, 23.5% “3 - 5 times per year”, 45.2% “1 - 2 times per year”, and 20.8% “rarely or never”. 20.8% were “rarely or never”. The frequency of participation in academic conferences and exchanges varies greatly among different colleges, genders, titles, positions, ages and other individual differences. The number, frequency, level and scale of scientific research exchanges in different faculties vary greatly. Some faculties organize different exchanges whenever they have the opportunity, “more is better”, with a wide range of contents from scientific research motives. Some faculties, on the other hand, only choose to organize academic conference exchanges at important points in time, such as when national projects or major projects are declared, with a special focus on the big names in the field. This is not the focus of this study, so it will not be analyzed in detail.
The questionnaire survey utilized a Likert scale survey to investigate the importance of respondents to academic conference exchanges for teaching and learning, and found that 57.5% thought it was important, 35.2% were average, and only 7.3% thought it was not important. Using Likert scale survey to investigate the importance of respondents’ opinion on the importance of academic conference exchanges to promote research performance, it was found that 83.2% thought it was important, 13.6% were average, and only 3.2% thought it was not important. When using the Likert scale survey to investigate how much the respondents’ participation in academic conferences affects specific scientific research results (such as paper publication, project application, research cooperation, etc.), it was found that 68.9% thought it helped more, 15.7% were average, and only 15.4% thought it did not help. In addition to this, most of the respondents’ academic conference exchanges can also enhance knowledge, increase cooperation opportunities, promote innovative thinking and improve research quality. (Figure 1)
It can be seen that the majority of teachers believe that academic conference exchanges have a very important role to play, whether it is teaching, research performance assessment and the need for research results. However, scientific research exchanges do not directly reflect scientific research results. As a basis for teachers to participate in scientific research exchanges, internal motivation is not the same. The survey found that 80.21% of the respondents encouraged participation in academic conference exchanges, 1.8% were neutral, and 17.28% had reservations. In the interviews, the main motives driving teachers to participate in academic conference exchanges were performance appraisal, personal career development, academic research interests, and others (such as leadership arrangements, etc.). (Figure 2)
Figure 1. Analysis of the importance of participation in academic conference exchanges.
Figure 2. Main motives for attending academic conferences and exchanges.
For the most recent academic conference, 75.4% were satisfied, 7.2% were average, and 17.6% were dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction centered on the unreasonable time schedule, which accounted for 35.2%; 35.6% thought that the cost of attending the conference was high, and 29.2% thought that it was difficult to establish connections with experts in specific fields. The specific benefits expected from the academic conference are as follows: the sharing of the latest research results, establishing connections with peers, improving research skills, obtaining research inspiration, and enhancing academic communication abilities. The problems and suggestions faced basically focused on increasing personalized guidance, balancing the relationship between teaching and research, and changing the evaluation mechanism of research performance, which is purely result-oriented.
From the perspective of individual teachers, through conducting scientific research, teachers transform their knowledge and ability into academic achievements, improve their academic level, and gradually enhance their voice and influence in the academic field. The complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity of scientific research output activities determine that their success requires more innovative behaviors of college teachers’ heartfelt will, autonomous decision-making, and self-motivation. Teachers’ attitudes toward academic conference communication are distributed in two categories: (Table 1)
Table 1. Teachers’ willingness to participate in academic exchanges.
behavior motive |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
proactively |
helpless |
No |
Passive cope with |
boring |
According to the attitude-behavior process model, social psychologists believe that attitudes and behaviors support each other. Attitude is only a behavioral tendency; it is not equivalent to behavior. Attitude formation is the process of weighing benefits or losses, and the attitude a person adopts is determined by his judgment of how much he has to gain. The norms of the group, the style of leadership, and one’s own concept of discipline all become one of the most important factors in attending communication meetings. The relationship between attitude and behavior is likely to be more significant if the individual has direct experience of the event to which the attitude is directed.
4.2.1. Proactivity, Career Planning, Intellectual Interest, Research
Performance
Interviewee: A, male, 49 years old, professor, full-time faculty member, 21 years of teaching experience
I think the biggest feeling is the strong academic atmosphere and how fast the knowledge is updated. At the conference, I heard a lot of cutting-edge academic views and research results, which gave me a deeper understanding of my own research field and also saw the shortcomings of my own research. Meanwhile, the communication with other scholars also made me feel the enthusiasm and vigor of the academic world.
It is of great help to scientific research. Firstly, it has broadened my research vision and allowed me to see more possible research directions and methods. Secondly, through the communication with my peers, I gained a lot of valuable suggestions and opinions, which served as a good guide for my research work. Finally, participating in these activities also gave me the opportunity to meet some like-minded scholars, which laid the foundation for future collaboration.
Participating in academic exchange activities has also brought a positive impact on my teaching work as well. I was exposed to the latest academic achievements and teaching concepts, which can be integrated into my teaching to improve students’ learning interest and effectiveness. At the same time, I will also share the interesting cases and research results I heard at the conference with my students to stimulate their curiosity and spirit of exploration. It can also promote improvement and innovation in teaching. Therefore, we should encourage and support university teachers to actively participate in all kinds of academic exchange activities and contribute to the prosperity and development of academic research.
4.2.2. Participation by Necessity and Passive Acceptance
However, there are also, many teachers who are not in order to improve their teaching and research level to participate in research, but are forced to participate in training for the need of title evaluation and job promotion. Interviews with some teachers of scientific research conference exchanges are seen as coping, work needs, inner unwillingness, not active, not active, forced. Some teachers participating in many meetings for the improvement of scientific research results does not help much, so the enthusiasm declined; they just had to participate to cope with the work. At the same time, there are obvious individual differences among college teachers, such as differences in titles, corresponding to different innovative capabilities. These motivational elements mainly originate from teachers’ own psychological needs, with intrinsic spontaneity and self-consciousness, called intrinsic motivation. A large number of studies on research productivity have shown that gender, age, title, discipline, type of school, and doctoral degree are all important factors affecting research productivity.
Interviewee: B, female, 33 years old, lecturer, full-time teacher, 5 years of teaching experience
Actually, I am not totally against academic exchanges, I just sometimes feel that these activities are not very meaningful to me. At the same time, I have children at home, a bunch of things, it doesn’t matter whether I participate or not, I have the ability not to care about these meetings, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t have the ability to participate. Sometimes, the content of the meetings I attended did have some deviation from my research direction, and I felt that I did not gain much. Moreover, the agendas of some conferences are so tightly organized that participants have little time for free communication, which makes me feel that it is a bit formalistic. I prefer to gain new knowledge and perspectives by reading the latest academic papers, participating in online seminars, or communicating privately with my peers.
Still, it’s important to participate sometimes, with a positive attitude, and even if you can’t write an article at a moment’s notice, you should at least show up in front of your leaders. Even if it is not useful, but also to come ah, or the leadership how to see? Attitude should be correct.
I think that everyone has different needs and expectations for academic exchanges. For those teachers who find these activities helpful, I certainly encourage them to continue to participate. However, for those teachers who, like me, feel that they have not gained much, I also hope that they can find more suitable ways of academic exchanges for themselves, and do not participate just for the sake of coping. After all, academic research is a long-term process, and we need to find the most suitable methods to promote our own progress and development.
4.2.3. Core Stakeholder 3—Faculty Leadership: Facilitating Research
Performance
Faculty members’ colleges, as core stakeholders, providers and administrators and users of research funds, play a facilitating role in research exchange activities at different levels. The deans of each college of teaching are the gatekeepers and are directly responsible for discipline building and research in their units. Each college is responsible for implementing specific leadership systems and work mechanisms. Leaders’ leadership styles and their relationship with organizational performance remain hot topics of concern in the academic and business worlds. There is a close relationship between different leadership styles, the conduct of scientific research and the style and ability of leaders. Scientific research is an innovative activity, and often, scholars argue that leader support is critical to improving employees’ innovative behaviors in the workplace (Anderson et al., 2014; Kessel et al., 2012). One leadership style that matches the innovative behavior of employees is dexterous leadership.
In the survey, it was found that there are big differences in the number, frequency, level and scale of research exchange activities in different faculties; some faculties are organizing different exchanges whenever they have the opportunity, “more and more”, and the content is very extensive from the motivation of research. Some faculties only choose to organize exchanges at important points in time, such as national projects or major projects, with a special focus on big names in the field. A successful team needs a strong, high-level leader, but more importantly, a leader who is able to get more strong, high-level talent to serve the team and mobilize the motivation of all faculty members. Leadership theorists view certain leader behaviors as the most critical predictors of creativity and innovation in an organization. The ideal state of the interest game is a balanced and complementary state of interest where “the school sets the stage, the college supports it, and the teachers sing”. This is consistent with the original intent of the policy document, and for organizational factors. However, this assessment mechanism will also bring certain pressure on teaching managers, forcing them to organize academic exchange activities in order to complete the target.
Interviewee: C, female, 52 years old, teaching manager, dean of the college, 25 years of working experience
The organization of academic exchange activities is an important evaluation index in performance appraisal. In order to accomplish this indicator, I have to spend a lot of time and energy to plan and organize these activities. Because the organization of academic exchange activities requires the coordination of resources from various parties, including inviting guests, arranging venues, publicity and promotion, etc., which are all very tedious. Moreover, sometimes, in order to meet the assessment requirements, I may have to choose some academic exchange topics that do not fully meet the needs of the school or teachers. This affects the quality and effectiveness of academic exchange activities to a certain extent. This is because when planning and organizing the activities, I am more concerned about how to complete the appraisal targets rather than how to really provide valuable academic exchange opportunities for teachers.
Performance appraisal is only a part of teaching management, and the real goal is to improve the quality of teaching and research ability, and contribute to the development of education. It is hoped that the future academic exchange activities can pay more attention to quality and effect, and really provide valuable academic resources and exchange platforms for teachers. At the same time, it is also hoped that the university and the teaching management department can give more support and protection to the teaching management personnel, reduce the pressure of their performance appraisal, so that they can focus more on the organization and planning of academic exchange activities.
5. Countermeasures: Building an Efficient Academic
Exchange Platform to Enhance Research Performance
The essential issue of high-quality development of colleges and universities is how to satisfy and realize the interests of different stakeholder groups of colleges and universities as the main body of the development of colleges and universities. According to the human resource training theory, follow the stakeholder theory, centered on training demand orientation, understand the core interests of stakeholders, prioritize, design scientific research exchange methods, rationally arrange the time, content, personnel, and use the appropriate scientific research management system to build the “interest correlation point” between colleges and stakeholders. By designing scientific research exchange methods, rationally arranging time, content and personnel, and using appropriate scientific research management system, we can build “points of interest” between universities and stakeholders, and promote the formation of interactive network between universities and stakeholders.
5.1. Identify the Stakeholders of Research Exchange Activities
The identification of stakeholders is the logical starting point for the application of stakeholder theory. It is not only necessary to clarify the role characteristics and interest demands of each stakeholder and take effective mechanisms and measures to coordinate the interests of each stakeholder, but also to make corresponding adjustments with the changes in the roles and attributes of each stakeholder in order to adapt to the new pattern of interests among the stakeholders. Mitchell’s attribute scoring method is applied to categorize stakeholders into active stakeholders (Positive Stakeholders) and passive stakeholders (Passive Stakeholders).
In addition to identifying stakeholders, it is also important to determine the basis for giving attention to specific groups. By promoting the maximization of the organization’s interests to maximize the interests of stakeholders as a whole, all stakeholders have the right to participate in the organization’s decision-making and, through common governance, can achieve the balance of interests and social responsibility of each stakeholder.
5.2. Identify and Prioritize Core Stakeholder Demands (Table 2)
If the research work of the university is done well, it will promote the continuous improvement of the level of talent acquisition, and teachers will benefit from the development process of “rising boats” with the university. Colleges and universities should reform human resource management policies, implement humane and democratic management, attach great importance to the value of teachers’ needs and expectations, cultivate a good relationship between teachers and colleges and universities, improve teacher satisfaction, maximize the mobilization of teachers’ dedication to do their jobs well, and provide high-quality services to stakeholders. Colleges and universities should implement a flexible appraisal and management system to smooth the path of diversified development; the state should urge colleges and universities to improve the performance evaluation of comprehensive-oriented scientific research and implement the comprehensive reform of the college and university teaching force.
Table 2. Stakeholder core claims of scholarly communication.
Stakeholders |
Main goals |
Attitudes |
Main Concerns |
Constraints |
Schools |
Implementation of school strategic planning Improvement of the overall research level of teachers Enhance the competitiveness of the university Improve the quality of research results |
Support |
Go smoothly Remarkable results |
Implementation of relevant policies |
Head of Faculty (Dean) |
Improve the overall research level of faculty in the department Promote the research output of faculty in the department Enforcement of university rules and regulations Fulfill the performance appraisal objectives of the department Appraisal targets for funding |
Strongly Support |
Highly motivated participants Go smoothly Remarkable results |
Know exactly the policies and changes |
Full-time Faculty Research |
Understanding Academic Dynamics to Improve Research Promote research output Meet your peers Career Development Title Review Good image |
Strongly support Passive acceptance |
Research assistance Leadership attitude |
Facility conditions, qualifications and abilities of researchers, and the value of the research direction. |
Exchange Participants
(Off-campus Academic Presentations) |
Expanding popularity Economic benefits Necessary maintenance of interpersonal relationships |
Indifferent |
Smooth communication process |
Itinerary arrangement |
5.3. Meet the Needs and Expectations of Stakeholders, and Build
a Benign Interactive Network between Universities and
Stakeholders
Construct research team, decentralization, personalized needs, not bound to a certain meeting, a certain activity, can then be carried out in a certain period of time. Strengthen the influence of leaders in the research team. The team leader is an important pillar of the team and the source of the spirit, and the leadership of the research team is one of the most critical success factors of the research team (Jiang et al., 2007). Therefore, leaders need to use different kinds of influence in a targeted way. What are the interests of the research team stakeholders?
This, in turn, influences the behavior of the stakeholders and their multiple roles. Behaviors of continued support, participation, cooperation, and service will also publicize their perception of HEIs through interpersonal networks through word-of-mouth, intentionally or unintentionally, to influence the HEI perceptions and behaviors of others who have a stake in or are closely related to them. Therefore, developing a good relationship between colleges and universities and stakeholders and maximizing the satisfaction of stakeholders’ value needs are the core and essence of the development of colleges and universities.
With the intensification of competition among colleges and universities, there is an urgent need for institutions to innovate the current college and university organizational model and management system in terms of school-running concepts, governance structure, organizational innovation, behavioral norms, value creation, interactive relationship and exchange and communication, in order to develop the good interactive relationship between colleges and universities and stakeholders, to absorb the power of the whole society to run the school, and to rapidly enhance the school’s running strength and reputation.
6. Conclusion
The ideal state of interest game is a balanced and complementary state of “the school sets the stage, the college supports, and the teachers sing”.
First, the high research performance of teachers is not led by a single factor but is generated by the synergistic effect of a variety of factors, and there is no single factor that can be a sufficient condition for the realization of high research performance;
Secondly, the strength of the institution in human capital plays only a supplementary role in all the configurations or is dispensable. When scholars have advantages in their own strength or cooperation, the external environment that scholars rely on can’t constrain them to realize high scientific research performance, so it can be said that the strength of the institution can only be “icing on the cake” and can’t be “giving charcoal in the snow”. It can be said that the strength of the organization can only “add flowers” but not “send charcoal in snow”.
Fund Project
1) 2024 Social Science Planning Project of Anyang City, Project No. 1066.
2) 2024 General Research Project in Humanities and Social Sciences Research in Universities of Henan Province, Project No. 2024-ZDJH-057.
3) The Second Batch of Specialized and Creative Integration Characteristic Demonstration Courses of Henan Province “Management Accounting”, Project No. 109, 2024.
4) Research Cultivation Fund of Business School, Project No. SXY-2023-012, 2024.
5) 2024 Research on Countermeasures for the Effectiveness of Rural Governance Led by Party Building, Philosophy and Social Science Decision-making Program of Henan Province. Project No. 2024JC004.