Academic inbreeding: oases and consequences

The article is an analytic review of academic research on the topic of universities employing their graduates. It is authors'' version of the chapter «Academic Inbreeding: State of the Literature» in: Yudkevich M., Altbach P. G., Rumbley L. E. (Eds). Academic Inbreeding andMobility in Higher Education. Global Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. The aim of the article is to systematize and discuss causes, consequences and possible methods of fighting inbreeding which is often viewed as a practice leading to contradictory results for university and academic system in general. Inbreeding is widely spread in many countries, including Russia and majority of university executives in Russia see it as an admissible thing, in fact, a method of choice. Analysis of the literature on that topic shows that main reasons for that include importance of social networking in employment, limitations existing at the academic labor market, desire to lower the costs of searching and hiring candidates from outside the circle as well as the vision of inbreeding and mobility as of an academic norm. Many researches show that university staff members who graduated from this university are different in terms of many important characteristics (such as publication efficacy, teaching settings, professional networking involvement, etc.). Nevertheless there is no single opinion on inbreeding consequences. One explanation for absence of single opinion on whether inbreeding is positive or negative is that in most countries this practice is typical of more elite universities. Nevertheless the prevailing opinion is that universities should not hire too many graduates therefore many authors look into ways of preventing inbreeding. The most effective measure against inbreeding is far formal ban, development of an open market and teaching staff mobility stimulation. On the basis of literature analysis authors formulate recommendations on decreasing inbreeding results in Russian universities. This article is of interest for university executives in charge of personnel and research as well as for researchers dealing with academic work and university management.