| Variable | Scale | Measure |
| Age | interval | years |
| Years in dept | interval | years |
| Role ambiguity | interval | Six items, adapted from Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman (1970), were used to measure role ambiguity. Respondents were required to indicate the extent to which they agreed with each statement, using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = disagree strongly to 7 = agree strongly. |
| Role conflict | interval | Role conflict was also measured using eight items from Rizzo et al. (1970), |
| Task conflict | interval | Rahim’s (1983) eight-item intragroup organizational conflict scale. four items (e.g., “there is friendliness among members of my department,” reverse coded) were found to load on a factor which we labeled relationship conflict |
| Relationship conflict | interval | Rahim’s (1983) eight-item intragroup organizational conflict scale. three items (e.g., “there is difference of opinion among members of department”) loaded on a second factor labeled task conflict, |
| Political perceptions | interval | A 13-item measure of political activity within a respondent’s academic department was used...designed to capture the context-specific nature of academic politics (cf. Johns 2001; Rousseau & Fried, 2001). |
| Rank | ordinal | 1= low; 2= medium; 3=high |
| Sex | dummy | 0=male; 1=female |
| salary | interval | dollars |
| level | ordinal | 1=assistant professor; 2=associate professor; 3=full professor; 4= chaired professor |
| tch_rating | interval | average rating across classes, low to high |
| minority | dummy | 0=minority; 1=non-minority |
| admin_resp | dummy | 0=no administrative responsibilities; 1=some administrative responsibilities |
| Science | dummy | 0=in sciences; 1=not in sciences |
| degree_tier | dummy | 0=degree is not from top-tier university; 1=degree is from top-tier university |
| pub_prestige | interval | index of prestige of publication record, low to high |
| fault | interval | degree to which respondent is regarded to be at fault in recent crisis |
| blame | interval | degree to which respondent was actively blamed for recent crisis |