Abstract:

Rectors and the management teams have the most important role with their authority and responsibilities in the development of public universities which have an important mission in the economic and social development of our country. The process of rector elections once in every four years became an important topic on universities' agenda that caused various discussions. As a result of these discussions rector elections are no longer to be held due to the law that has been changed in October 2016. This process has not been studied empirically in terms of the kind of decision-making mechanisms involved in the voters' perspective. In this study in order to shed a light on management election process taking place optionally in higher education institutions for dean and chairperson positions and new election system proposals, an empirical research is conducted in order to determine the criteria taken into consideration by faculty members for their voting decisions in the candidate rector elections. For this purpose, the preference of the criteria effecting the voting decision was calculated using Fuzzy AHP method with two different approaches. Next, the evaluations of the criteria in terms of the faculty members' academic titles are investigated and compared to each other. According to the results obtained from the sample, it is determined that the rank order of criteria remains the same in terms of all academic titles; however, preference value of the criteria differs across titles.

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