Recruitment policies in Spanish universities, a case study: Teaching and research quality

Abstract

[EN] This article analyzes research and teaching quality of the faculty members of the Department of Business Economics of “Universitat de les Illes Balears” (UIB) depending on the origin of their Doctor degree (local or external). This department changed the recruitment policy, from the traditional policy of hiring the own doctorate students to the policy of hiring doctorate students from other universities. Faculty members with an external Doctor degree were recruited mainly in the Spanish Job Market, most of them obtained the Doctor degree in a high-quality doctorate program, and were focused on research. Taking into account several control variables, such as age and specialization area, we obtain that faculty members with external Doctor degree show statistically significant better research quality indicators, and present no significant differences in teaching quality indicators than faculty members with a UIB Doctor degree. Therefore, we conclude that the recruitment policy of the department increased research quality without hurting teaching quality. This represents an indirect analysis of the relationship between research and teaching quality, showing a strategy to improve one without hurting the other. However, when we analyze the direct relationship between research and teaching quality we obtain some weak evidence of a negative relationship.