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INTRODUCTION
Academics and research administrators are generally strong advocates of systems theory. Those who believe that research administration is a system of integrated functions stress that support activities for research are not distinct but part of an interdependent structure; funding, curriculum support, facilities design, and personnel recruitment and development rely on and support each other in a well-functioning research program.
A corollary of systems thinking is that academics are not single actors but are part of a multifaceted system both within and outside of their universities. This article focuses on a potential contribution of college-level research administrators to the enhancement of faculty roles outside their institutions. It describes an attempt to facilitate membership in scholastic networks and thereby to contribute to the reputation of colleagues and college. Specifically, we experimented with the following:
* identifying the invisible college networks of researchers in fields chosen by our active colleagues.
* disseminating preprints and reprints to that network to ensure that outsiders knew of the work of our researchers.
* encouraging scholars at other organizations to keep ours in mind when disseminating papers or organizing symposia.
The authors are the immediate past and current directors of research for Villanova University's College of Commerce and Finance. The college employs approximately 90 faculty members organized into five departments and provides both undergraduate and graduate education in business administration.
The support activities overseen by the director of research include developing a working paper series, administering the college's research awards program, assisting in research proposal development (especially for the university's competitive summer grant program), and providing assistance for the research and publication activities of the faculty (for instance, supporting the costs of professional editing of research papers).
THE ROLE OF INVISIBLE COLLEGES IN SCHOLARSHIP
Modern interest in research networks (the linkages tying researchers to each other) is generally traced to Derek Price's (1963) proposal that scholars working in the same area of research are linked together in invisible colleges through such informal ties as telephone calls, conversations at professional meetings, and preprint distribution. Sociologists such as Nicholas Mullins (1972) have confirmed Price's view: researchers do claim to be stimulated by relatively small groups of colleagues working on the same issues and building on each other's work.
In practical terms, the...