This study investigated the extent to which centralization and formalization are related to professional development practices, using institutional support as the connecting link. The population chosen for the study consisted of four-year universities and colleges located within the 50 American states and the District of Columbia. A stratified sample of 129 comprehensive institutions and 120 liberal arts colleges was selected from this population. The instrument used in collecting the data for the study was a self-administered questionnaire entitled "Professional Development of Faculty: Structures, Policies and Practices." The questionnaire consisted of a partial list of the items used by Centra (1976) in his national study on faculty development practices. This partial list of practices provided the basis for a comparison of an aspect of Centra's findings with the findings of the present study. Data for the study were collected from the questionnaires completed by chief academic officers of the institutions in the sample. A total of 178 (71 percent) completed questionnaires were used in the analysis. The results of the study suggest that the two organizational structural variables, centralization and formalization, are directly related to institutional support for professional development practices. However, formalization of procedures accounted for a larger portion of the variance in institutional support than did centralization of authority. The findings also indicate that differences in institutional attributes such as type (comprehensive versus liberal arts), control (public versus private), size, and faculty union do not account for significant differences in institutional support for professional development practices. Finally, the results suggest that institutional support for professional development practices among four-year universities and colleges is, on the whole, quite limited. One implication of the findings of this study is that academic professional development is not getting the attention it merits in four-year universities and colleges. Academic administrators can enhance institutional support for professional development by centralizing and formalizing many of the existing practices.
