A COMPARISON OF PRIORITIES IN AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS

1. A COMPARISON OF PRIORITIES IN AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS By Stuart Umpleby, Irina Naoumova and Saadia Khilji Alliance of Universities for Democracy Vilnius, Lithuania, 2003

2. QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PRIORITY MATRIX • A useful method for achieving data-driven decision-making • Easy to use • Helps to improve employee and customer satisfaction Participants: - Department of Management Science, George Washington University, Washington DC (May 2001) • Department of Management, Kazan State University, Russia (May 2002)

3. RESEARCH METHOD • At both GWU and KSU faculty members were given a list of features of the department. They were asked to evaluate the importance and performance of each feature on a scale from 0 to 10. On the importance scale 0 means no importance at all and 10 means very high importance. On the performance scale 0 means that the Department’s performance was very poor whereas 10 means that the Department’s performance was excellent. - A Quality Improvement Priority Matrix seeks to identify those features of an organization or a product or service that are high on importance but low on performance.

4. RESEARCH METHOD • The research is based on subjective assessments. No effort has been made to compare office space at the two universities, or computer resources, or salaries, etc. The faculty are evaluating performance based on their expectations, not on a quantitative measure. • The purpose of the surveys is not to compare resources in the two departments but rather to observe where the two groups of faculty members believe improvement is most needed.

5. The fundamental theory behind the Quality Improvement Priority Matrix is to place each item of interest in quadrants based on their average composite score, ranked by those answering questionnaires.

6. FEATURES USED FOR THE ANALYSIS • Computer hardware • Computer software • Office space for faculty • Conference rooms • Computer Labs • Copiers • Fax Machines • Office Security • Secretarial Support • Teaching Assistants • Annual Retreat • Social Activities • Recreational Activities • Building physical environment • Accounts Payable

7. FEATURES USED FOR THE ANALYSIS (CONT.) 16. Classroom scheduling 17. Classroom facilities 18. Projection equipment 19. Course catalog 20. Faculty websites 21. Department websites 22. School websites 23. Campus grounds / gardens 24. Parking for faculty and staff 25. Parking for students 26. Library journal collection 27. Library book collection 28. Interlibrary loan 29. Coordination with other departments 30. A supportive climate in the department

8. FEATURES USED FOR THE ANALYSIS (CONT.) 31. Department Head protects faculty from administrative interference 32. Transparency of promotion process 33. Travel support 34. Funds to support research 35. Working paper series 36. Help with writing research proposals 37. English/Russian skills of students 38. General ability of students 39. Course evaluations 40. Faculty annual reports 41. Salaries 42. Health care benefits 43. Retirement benefits 44. Opportunities for academic work with department faculty 45. Opportunities for work with other university faculty 46. Knowledgeable teaching assistants 47. Department strategic planning 48. Dept. organization to implement its strategic plan 49. Use of continuous improvement methods in the Dept. 50. Consulting opportunities 51. Opportunities to meet local businessmen and govt. managers

9. DISPLAYING THE DATA • The following figures present Pareto charts showing importance and performance scores for the two departments. • The features are grouped into three categories – support, office equipment, and activities. The features are rank ordered by difference (GWU – KSU). Hence, features where the difference is greatest (GWU has a higher score than KSU) are at the top. Features with negative differences (KSU has a higher score than GWU) are at the bottom.

10. CORRELATION BETWEEN IMPORTANCE AND PERFORMANCE SCORES • For GWU department: 0.353 • For KSU department: 0.387 • Correlation between the importance scores at GWU and KSU: 0.464 • Correlation between the performance scores at GWU and KSU: 0.124

11. CORRELATION BETWEEN IMPORTANCE AND PERFORMANCE SCORES (CONT.) • A correlation of 1.0 would mean that the two variables are perfectly correlated. A correlation of –1.0 would mean that the variables are inversely related. • The positive correlations between importance and performance at both GWU and KSU indicate that importance is associated with performance. This result suggests that faculty members on both campuses feel they are able to accomplish their goals.

12. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Importance: Support

13. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Performance: Support

14. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Importance: Office Equipment

15. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Performance: Office Equipment

16. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Importance: Activities

17. GWU vs. KSU Graph of Performance: Activities

18. DISCOVERIES • The QIPM importance mean was 7.34 for KSU and the performance mean was 4.35. • Nine items are in the quadrant with low performance and higher importance – transparency of the promotion process, travel support, office space for faculty, salaries, copiers, classroom facilities, projection equipment, and computer hardware. • Most of these items require additional funds, but the transparency of the promotion process requires only a change in procedures.

19. DISCOVERIES (CONT.) • The QIPM importance mean was 7.85 for GWU and the performance mean was 5.21. • Nine items are in the quadrant with low performance and high importance – salaries, office space for faculty, building physical environment, accounts payable, computer labs, teaching assistants, funds to support research, and English skills of students. • These are the items on which improvement is most likely to contribute to improving faculty morale in the GWU department .

20. DISCOVERIES (CONT.) • Items that are important for GWU faculty members but less important for KSU faculty members – health care and retirement benefits, conference room space, English skills of students, interlibrary loan, classroom scheduling, and parking for faculty and staff. • Items that are important for KSU faculty members but less important for GWU faculty members – consulting opportunities, opportunities to meet local businessmen and government managers, department strategic planning, department organization to implement the strategic plan, and coordination with other departments.

21. DISCOVERIES (CONT.) • Features, on which GWU performance is rated higher than at KSU – travel support, assistance with learning IT, retirement benefits, computers, interlibrary loan, campus grounds, fax machines, projection equipment, faculty annual reports, copiers, and department and school websites. • Features, on which KSU performance is rated higher than at GWU – coordination with other departments, working papers series, opportunities to meet local businessmen and government managers, a department strategic plan, department organization to implement its strategic plan, recreational activities, conference rooms, and an annual retreat.

22. DISCOVERIES (CONT.) • Features with relatively high performance ratings on both campuses – a supportive climate in the department, department head protects faculty from administrative interference, transparency of the appointment and promotion process, general ability of students, computer software and the course catalogue. • Features with relatively low performance ratings on both campuses – parking, help with writing research proposals, office space for faculty, funds to support research, use of quality improvement methods in the department, salaries, building physical environment, classroom facilities, accounts payable, and secretarial support.

23. DISCOVERIES (CONT.) • More important to the faculty at GWU : parking, the appearance of the campus, retirement benefits and health care benefits. • GWU performs well in providing travel support, assistance with learning IT, and funds for research. • Opportunities to meet local businessmen and government officials and social activities are more important at KSU. • KSU does well in providing a working papers series, opportunities to meet local managers and the library collection.

24. SUMMARY • The American system should not be taken as an icon for educational reform in Russia. • American professors’ answers show a more individualistic approach to educational quality problem solving (pay more attention to the needs of each student, for example by offering a wide range of elective courses and respecting the interests of individual professors and researchers). • American professors are supported with grants, research funds, travel money, etc. A high level of research activity, publications and conference presentations contributes to the quality of instruction.

25. SUMMARY (CONT.) • American professors indicated that they would like for their system to be more cooperative. • Russians would chose the opposite direction – more individualism in their system. Russians say they need to give more respect to each individual’s interests and needs.

26. SUMMARY (CONT.) • Both The George Washington University (GWU) and Kazan State University (KSU) departments are seeking to make changes in their strategies in order to make their organizational culture more balanced between individualistic and cooperative elements. • The QIPM experiment indicated the directions in which changes in particular departments are most needed.