I agree that I'm doing what the management hired me to do, whether they like my opinion or not. I may be wrong, but I feel that professors face similar pressures in the research area concerning the marketability of their research and demand for their opinions. Started with normative observation (what should be done) and now switch to positive (what is out there).
With regard to realities, of course, a faculty member needs to publish and make his ideas known and accepted. To that extent, he or she markets the product by writing a paper in the style of a particular journal, taking it to an extra conference, etc. That is the extent of it. If the idea does not sell, it still does not matter: the next generation may appreciate it more. This is not the case in any commercial organization anywhere in the world.
Further, the compromises a young faculty member makes are precisely to receive certification. The tenure is given precisely for the purpose of relieving him from that pressure. Tenure is designed to give freedom; what one does with it is another matter. Some remain married to asking small questions and less risky projects that allow the author to maintain his presence. But many use it to pursue projects of their dreams.
The situation is much like that with U.S. Constitution that is designed to leave us free. Some use this freedom for trips to the mall; others stand up for what they believe is right. Just because not everyone uses his freedom fully (positive) does not negate the fact that that freedom should (normative) be granted. Moreover, there is no contradiction between the two: one is free not to exercise other freedoms in his possession.
Consider also that you deal with engineering and interact with scientific types. One does depend on funding because apparata and laboratories are needed: the more applied, the more funding. A theoretical physicist does not need any of that. An even better example is that of the Princetonian that solved the longest important problem in mathematics (The Fermat Theorem). The proof, which is over 700 pages long, required more than a single act of inspiration and took him seven (!) years devoted exclusively (!) to that project. That is what tenure is for: taking up a project with an almost nil probability of success.
Further, we should not be thinking so much about physics or engineering: tenure is granted to literature and sociology professors as well. Actually, it is the social disciplines that are more likely to run into resistance to new ideas, and it is those faculty members that need (and use) their tenure privileges most. Consider the fate of "The Bell Curve," for instance.
Re: Most of the research done in industry --- and that includes fields such as biomedics --- is applied.
OC: This is true. It is also often true in academic research. Again, you appear to judge from the engineering/science sample. Include research done by historians, those working in linguistics, archeology, literatures, etc.
In my area, engineering, it is an applied science…,However, there are a number of professional societies/groups which are pushing the areas of information theory and communications theory forward outside of, though not isolated from, the academic institutions. Of course, and they are doing a great job.
But note that the most of the scientific breakthroughs are those of Shannon himself and Chaitin, Kolmogorov, and a few others; they have been accomplishes long ago. Recent fundamental developments include new proofs of The Equipartition Theorem and various other issues that are part of the ergodic theory. They are done by professional mathematicians, whose results are more likely to be found in The Annals of Probability than IEEE or ACM journals. The same is true for coding: most of the fundamental research there, as I am sure you know, is done by algebraists (ergodicity and other measure and probability issues belong to the analysis of functions).
We may be an arrogant bunch, but engineers and computer scientists see their work as benefiting the society at large. No question about that (both parts).
But seriously, when I spoke of working for the community at large, I meant the immediate rather than ultimate consumption. We have to distinguish the two. Please note that the issue of tenure does not arise with regard to the latter. By the time its ultimate usefulness of something is apparent, the idea no longer meets any resistance. Today, neither the space travel nor the radios and cars we but would exist without the relativity theory, which was published in 1905. Seven years later, Pauli was writing to Einstein that by his count there were twelve (to wit) people that understood the theory. By the time it was fully accepted, it was too embarrassing to give the Nobel Prize. Isn't it telling that Einstein was never awarded the Nobel for his Theory of Relativity?
So, what matters in tenure-related matters is the immediate consumption. It is in this sense that a faculty member works for the community at large: the probability that another faculty member from your own university will read your article is almost zero. People who will consume your product work in other institutions.
This is in contrast to industry, where there is a buyer that is the immediate consumer of the product.
Not all boards and CEO/CFOs are crooks. Not all the mistakes were driven by malice, but many were made by turning a blind eye to the man behind the curtain while the growth and profits were high. Of course. The only disagreement that arouse initially was about the corollaries of that observation. I believe that in our society the burden of proof of someone's malfeasance of crime is on the accuser. This is generally accepted, except when it comes to two areas: (i) gov't and (ii) corporate management. Most people, including those on this thread, think nothing of raising an accusing finger against a specific person without the shred of evidence. That is against Judeo-Christian values; that is against our legal principles. And that was the original point I made.
Turn the tables on me. I believe that I have more than passing familiarity of management issues and practices. That gives me enough to become suspicious and raise questions in the case of Enron-like scandals. But this is not sufficient to form an opinion, let alone state it aloud: for that, my general knowledge should be applied to the specific situation at hand. I need to see the books, interview people, etc., before I can even form an opinion. And, when it comes to verdicts, that is an altogether different, legal area.
On the topic of this thread, the 1998 and 2000 H1B bills were written with poor information, One of my points was that ax ante information seems always poor ex post.
provided within an inaccurate context, One of my points was that no one knows that the "accurate" context is.
and propped up with political contributions. That goes back to the agency issues. One of my points was that senior managers are as prone to agency distortions (divergence of goals) as a night watchman who, when you do not see him, plays cards instead of guarding the shop.
To say succinctly: you expect too much from boards, senior management, and our political system. They act under limited resources of money, talent, knowledge, and time and, just like the rest of us, do their best. These positions are filled with real people that constitute a limited resource just like coal and water. Since unless proven otherwise their failures are empirically indistinguishable from mistakes, it is immoral for us to accuse them of malice or malfeasance. That, however, has become a national pastime, further fueled by the press.
Yes, there are economic benefits for driving done the cost of labor and management. In economic terms, all hired by the owners of the firm are labor. That includes everyone from the CEO down.
I still believe that the talented CEO's paid close to 500 times what their talented/skilled labor force is paid is out of wack. That is Marxist idea, which is totally discredited by now but still popular with the Europeans.
CEOs are commodities, factors of production, just as everything else. As all other factors of production, from trucks to paper supplies, they are purchased in an open market. That market is very thin and the "thinness" varies with time. If boards --- not just one particular board that may have colluded or made a mistake, but boards in the aggregate --- could purchase CEOs cheaper, they would.
I have no time to do full justice to this issues, by CEOs are not different from basketball players. If you look at all markets for talent, they have shown the same dynamic: salaries of players and actors skyrocketed in the last 5 years; it has been reported --- and angrily questioned --- why the salaried of university presidents skyrocket also (at Penn, for which I saw the number mentioned, the President receives over $800,000, whereas 5 years ago it was probably in the range of $300,000).
CEOs are a commodity, the price of which is determined by the market.
Perhaps, our paths will cross again, but presently I cannot contribute more to this thread for the lack of time.
Regards, TQ.