Salaries and impact(s) of academics: An investigation under the prism of prestige
Résumé
This paper explores whether prestige at the university level is being redefined by societal-impact-focused scholars addressing the ethical concerns of universities paying solely for academic impact. We examine this issue in the context of normative ethical principles, distributive justice and equity theory. We collect 2022 salary data of Ontarian accounting academics and investigate whether it is associated with both academic impact and societal impact measures. We provide evidence that salaries paid to Ontarian accounting academics are positively associated with societal impact, beyond the strict prestigious academic impact measured by citations. Given calls for more societal-impact-focused accounting research, this is encouraging. However, academic-impact-focused scholars continue to receive high salaries, which may be problematic as universities move to a societal-impact model; consequently, we highlight the various ethical considerations that arise as a result of this shift. We call for a re-examination of salaries based solely on academic impact.