ABSTRACT
The exercise of judgment in hiring committees is part of a set of practices, ways of doing and speaking, that structure the decision-making process and allow for controlling it. We can now enrich this fi rst view by analyzing how candidate applications are dealt with. This question has often been considered from a very specifi c angle: the evaluation and “rewarding” of scholarship and research. I fi rst briefl y review the conclusions of studies focused on this point; these pertain primarily to the Mertonian sociology of science perspective. This allows for identifying the limitations of that approach and specifying the one I have adopted here, which gives priority to judgments as they are made rather than as they should be made. I then move to the heart of the matter, describing the candidate selection operations practiced by the academics studied. Overall, these operations do not vary greatly by country or discipline. One important point comes immediately to the fore: Recognizing and rewarding scientifi c quality is only one aspect of recruiters’ judgment process, albeit a fundamental one. In fact, they are also trying to appraise candidates’ teaching abilities, as well as how likely they would be to behave as good colleagues. Lastly, making use of an analytical framework developed by Eymard-Duvernay and Marchal (1997), I analyze the criteria and “evidence” or indications recruiters take into account when evaluating candidates, then using these to identify the various types of hiring academics do and the nature of the candidate abilities associated with those types.
