关键词: 校外兼职, 高校教师, 科研产出

Abstract:     Under the background of implementing the strategy of innovation-driven economic development in China, stimulating the initiative and creativity of scientific researchers′ innovation and entrepreneurship is of central importance to promote the national innovation and enhance the global competitiveness of science and technology. Thus, it is crucial to make full use of the market mechanism through institutional innovation and reform to encourage and promote scientific researchers in universities transforming high-quality scientific research results into actual productivity, and to accelerate the construction of an innovative country of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation". Although faculty in Chinese universities is allowed to engage in off-campus part-time activities and receive legitimate income, there still exist worries about the adverse impact of off-campus part-time job on faculty′s university roles and responsibilities.
    Therefore, the major research question of this study concerns whether faculty′s off-campus part-time job promotes or hinders research outputs. The existing research has not reached a consensus on this issue. There are two main points of view: one is that it is difficult for university teachers to avoid role conflict caused by taking multiple jobs. Faculty′s off-campus part-time job refers to the faculty′s engagement in external activities which is essentially caused by the increasing dependence of society on knowledge. In the process of off-campus part-time job, faculty will encounter the problem of role conflict because of role differences and multiple role pressures, which are manifested in conflict of commitment and conflict of interest contrary to faculty′s university roles and responsibilities. Another point of view is that, as long as properly handled, faculty′s off-campus part-time activities can be beneficial to individual faculty, university, and the society, resulting in a "win-win" situation. However, there are few empirical studies to explore the impact of faculty′s off-campus part-time job on research outputs in Chinese universities so far. Thus, the discussion on this topic should be introduced into our field of research.
   This study first proposes three hypotheses based on the literature review of previous theories and empirical evidence as follows: H1: Faculty members who engage in off-campus part-time job have higher research outputs. H2a: Comparing with those do not engage in off-campus part-time job, faculty who take off-campus part-time job in the public sector publish more research papers and monographs, but there is no significant difference in the number of invention patents. H2b: Comparing with those do not engage in off-campus part-time job, faculty who take off-campus part-time job in the private sector receive more invention patents, but there is no significant difference in the number of research papers and monographs published. H3: Faculty′s research orientation has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between off-campus part-time job and research outputs.
   Next, in order to test these research hypotheses, this study empirically examines the impacts of faculty engagement and types of off-campus part-time job on research outputs. It also investigates the effect of faculty′s research orientation on this relationship using OLS regression models. This empirical study is based on the 2014 China faculty survey data collected by Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The large-scale and national representative survey data covers a sample of 5186 full-time faculty employees working at 88 four-year undergraduate universities and colleges in 13 provinces in China. In addition to using a dummy variable to indicate whether the faculty engage in off-campus part-time job or not, this study further distinguishes two types of off-campus part-time job. Faculty′s off-campus part-time job in the government or other universities and research institutions is defined as off-campus part-time job in the public sector, while faculty′s off-campus part-time job in enterprises and by self-employment is defined as off-campus part-time job in the private sector. The measurements of research outputs include the number of SCI/SSCI research papers, the number of CSSCI research papers, the number of monographs, and the number of invention patents. The control variables in the regression models include faculty individual characteristics, faculty work characteristics, and institutional characteristics.
   The results show that: (1) Faculty engagement in off-campus part-time job promotes research outputs in Chinese universities. Specifically, faculty engagement in off-campus part-time job is positively correlated with the number of CSSCI research paper publications, but not significantly correlated with other forms of research outputs. (2) Comparing with faculty who do not engage in any off-campus part-time job, off-campus part-time job in the public sector mainly increases the number of research paper and monograph publications, whereas off-campus part-time job in the private sector increases the number of invention patents. (3) Faculty′s research orientation has a moderating effect on the relationship between off-campus part-time job and research outputs. 
   This study provides new empirical evidence and sheds light on better guiding and regulating faculty′s off-campus part-time activities in Chinese universities, as well as reducing potential role conflicts as follows: Firstly, the relationship between faculty′s social service function and scientific research function is not contradictory. The strengthening of faculty′s social service function is not necessarily at the cost of weakening their scientific research function. As long as the specific system design is reasonable, faculty′s off-campus part-time job can be complementary to scientific research and avoid the conflict of faculty responsibilities. Secondly, since the research outputs from taking off-campus part-time job in the public sector emphasize more on academic value while the research outputs from taking off-campus part-time job in the private sector emphasize more on practical value, there are differences in the contents, economic effects and social contributions in these two types of faculty′s off-campus part-time job. It is suggested that we consider adopting classified management measures according to different types of off-campus part-time job. Thirdly, scientific researchers should be allowed to actively participate in off-campus part-time job in the form of collaborative innovation and industry cooperation, so that faculty′s off-campus part-time activities could provide new research ideas and external resources for university faculty, promote the deeper integration of research and practice, and fulfill the actual needs of society and industry.
   Finally, it should be pointed out that, the causality between faculty′s off-campus part-time job and research outputs is far from clear since this study is restricted by the cross-sectional survey data. In order to accurately reveal the change in research outputs result from faculty′s off-campus part-time job, it is suggested that panel data should be used in future research.

Key words: off-campus part-time job, faculty, research output