*4.3. Importance and Priority Ranking of Faculty Mobility*

As revealed in Table 4, the overall responses to the 27 items (1 = very important; 2 = important; ≥3 = not important) offer insight into the issues that influence decisions related to mobility. Both faculty groups ranked atmosphere of academic freedom, academic systems and policies, and quality of student source as important. Faculty members with mobility experience reported that university location and spouse's career development opportunities had a greater impact on their academic mobility than faculty members without mobility experience. It is worth noting that the faculty members, regardless of their experience with mobility, indicated that direct income and indirect income had little effect on their academic mobility.


**Table 4.** Mean score and rank of mobility impact factors.

*Rank* 1 = Very important; 2 = important; ≥3 = Not important.

#### *4.4. The Importance of Factors Before and After a Move*

Table 5 presents the level of importance for select factors before and after a move (1 = Became very wealthy after move; 5 = Became very poor after move). Personal professional development opportunities remained the most highly ranked item following a move. This result appears to illustrate that activities beneficial to one's intellectual and career development take high priority, regardless of the need for relocation. Some of the other items did not change in terms of priority order following a move, including atmosphere of academic freedom, cooperation and relationship with colleagues, social atmosphere, and workload and work pressure. The consistency in the ranking of these items appears to indicate that mobility decisions are made in a manner that ensures similar environments and expectations for work. However, some items were reported to be of greater importance following a move, such as total research funds, research equipment and library facilities, educational facilities in the community, recreational and leisure facilities in the community, and academic titles. The result is not surprising, and there is no doubt that the key factors for attracting talented scholars are academic titles, research funds, and research facilities.


**Table 5.** Ranking of impact for items related to mobility vs. amplitude of variation after mobility.
