MOTIVES OF HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHERS' ACADEMIC ACTIVITY: INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

This article is devoted to the problem of classification and characteristics of different motives to academic activity of Russian university lecturers. The purpose of this article is representation of the results which belong to the current stage of research in the topic called ''Economic and non-economic motives of university lecturers' academic activity''. The purpose of this research stage is detection, classification and description of basic motives of university lecturers' academic activity. During the process of the research we applied methods of bibliographic, statistical, typological, and system analysis. The information base for analysis was represented by scientific publications of Russian and foreign economists and sociologists, fundamental classical works in economics, statistical data of monitoring of the Russian higher education sphere focused on university lecturers' labour motivation. The research is conducted in the new institutional economic theory. During the process of analysis, in the first step we formed the description of the universities' activity as a complex of transactions between two concerned parties, which are university administration and faculty members. In this case, the criteria of effectiveness of this activity was determined as the minimal level of transaction costs of each party, which is achievable by detailed differentiation of their ownership on the results of their activity and on the costs of such activity. Also, it was mentioned that for achieving the state closer to the ideal, when the costs of the process of activity are none, it is necessary to initiate the institutes of motivation in the inner processing level of university activity. This measure could allow both of the labour relations parties pursue the same goals in the achieving of effectiveness and perfection of quality of the educational product. In the next step of the analysis we formed the adapted to the higher education system descriptions of the basic concepts which are used in the article. Also we made the scientific classification of the motives according to the criteria of the place of appearance of the motive influence (inner and outer), and of the existence of the economic monetary component (economic and noneconomic). As a result, eleven basic motives were detected and described, reflecting both levels of monetary income and levels of academic (non-monetary) reward. In addition to that, it has been suggested that incomplete applying of the possibilities of non-economic motives to academic activity could create preconditions to irrational and even opportunistic behaviour of new workers of the higher education sphere. This situation can be caused by the lack or limitation of information from the university administration. In the conclusion we mentioned that according to the formed classification, outer motives are comparable with the economic ones. At the same time, inner motives have similarities with non-economic motives. Analyzing the statistic data of higher education sphere monitoring in Russia, it is possible to make a conclusion that in the period of time under research, non-economic motives are more significant than the economic ones. This fact proves the necessity of further research of this topic.