Hiring Faculty: The "Best Fit" or "Best Athlete".

This article presents the author's response to researcher Larry E. Rittenberg's arguments that support hiring the "best fit" for a member of a college accounting department. The author agrees that mechanically pushing the idea of the "best fit" could lead to over-representation of particular sets of skills, and under-representation of others. Furthermore, he argues that this just represents a collective judgment on the relative merits of specific sets of research skills, and goes well beyond hiring. The central issue is the underlying preferences of the faculty. Further, the author notes that Professor Rittenberg argues that each department has a "specific mission." The author believes that he would rather be agnostic about mission statements and hire the best people, and let them mold the mission of the future. It may be difficult to recognize the best athlete at the "rookie" level. Perhaps, but those enormous salaries represent the option value of the prospect, and the uncertainty that Professor Rittenberg identifies.