Academic Crossover and Functional Differentiation of Universities

摘要

This study is motivated by a theoretical deficiency in the research on internal resource allocation and functional differentiation of higher education institutions in relation with their prestige maximizing behaviors. Our finding, despite its purely theoretical nature, suggests that a prestige-maximizing college or university achieves the highest potential prestige by optimally allocating its limited resources and equalizing the prestige of the closely associated academic departments or disciplines. The result certainly indicates that the interdisciplinary activities and functional differentiation, which represent two major efforts found in the recent higher education community, have indeed counteractive effects on their separate objectives.