University leaders are the backbone of China's higher education system construction, and their governing theories and pedagogical philosophy have profoundly affected higher education system and its governance efficiency. University leaders are often the result of "excellent performance" on both teaching and research, but the quantitative relationship between their appointments and how "excellent" they "perform" is still an unsolved mystery. Therefore, starting from portraying the dynamic relationship between university leaders' scientific research performance and their administrative positions, understanding and studying the relationship between university leaders' academic and administrative careers is conducive to clarifying the career path of higher education talents and providing solutions to the problem of training innovative talents in education system.
This article uses a quantitative analysis to study whether the academic productivity and impact of university leaders is affected by their administrative positions. We conducted a sample survey of 343 male and 68 female university leaders from 411 universities. The academic productivity and impact data are derived from the number of articles and citations indexed in the Web of Science database. We have defined four periods:pre-position period, previous position to current position period, current position period, and reference period. We applied statistical methods to compare and analyze the changes in their academic productivity and academic impact before and after their current positions.
University leaders are very important to the development of higher education. The complicated official business, huge pressure and tight working hours make them experience the battle between the academic and administrative careers. Previous studies have shown that administrative positions have various negative effects on personal and professional lives. This research quantitatively examines the impact of administrative positions on academic staff's scientific research performance. The results show that:(1) Administrative positions have a small impact on the amount of papers published by school leaders, and the impact on the amount of citations is moderate. Administrative positions have affected the academic performance of school leaders to a certain extent, and most of the school leaders have been affected on their academic impact. (2) Differences in disciplines have not shown much impact on the relationship between administrative positions and academic performance. (3) The level of university rankings has a very weak impact on the academic productivity of school leaders after taking up their posts. At the level of academic influence, university leaders have shown a downward trend after taking up their current positions. (4) From the perspective of gender, the academic performance of university leaders is not much different before and after their appointment. The academic performance of both male and female leaders has declined after their appointment. (5) University leaders with longer experience are more affected by administrative positions on their publications, while those with shorter experience are more affected by administrative positions on their citations.
Through quantitative analysis and statistical verification, we once again confirmed the scenario of"cannot have both fish and bear's paw". University administrative positions are "sword of Damocles" for university teachers. They may have doubled the harvest in academic research and administration, or they (nearly 60%) are more likely to receive decreases on academic impact. For university leaders themselves, the academic ability and ability of handling affairs to "do more with less" can bring stability and even greater gains to them. For policy makers, it is suggested to provide a management training platform for university managers, especially a training and promotion platform for university leaders. Experience and disciplinary specialties should be considered when it comes to select university leaders instead of rankings and gender differences.