Identification and measurement of factors promoting retention of faculty: An exploratory study

The major challenge before educational institutions is to increase the employability of the pass-out graduates. One factor which surely can contribute significantly in this endeavor is the availability of qualified and trained faculty especially in the field of management and engineering. However, massive growth in engineering and management institutions in last many years has raised the demand of talented faculty in these institutions. Simultaneously such faculties have high demand in industry as well. As a result of all these factors faculty turnover is observed to be very high. Many factors contribute to this state of affairs. The objective of this research is to identify those factors which cause faculty turn over and develop a scale to measure the turn over intension of the faculty. Major factors causing turnover have been identified from the literature review. The questionnaire developed to measure turn over intension has been administered on 32 Principals/Directors of management and engineering institutes. ANOVA and Factor Analysis techniques have been used to analyze the data. Working environment, economic, research and family related issues are found to be the contributory factors towards faculty retention/turn-over.