LAUSR

Reputation and status are important concepts for organizations because their various constituencies form perceptions, images, and interpretations that are consequential. We collected data from a sample of 54 universities that changed their NCAA classification during a thirty-year period. As often promised by university administrators, our results suggest that increasing the level of commitment by changing athletic classifications has a direct positive effect on the university’s athletic reputation, academic status, and endowment. We find a positive relationship between academic status and the university endowment, although it is not statistically significant. Athletic reputation correlates positively and significantly with university endowment, but the marginal effect of improving one spot in the Sagarin ratings corresponds to only a $300,000 increase in the endowment. Based on these results, we provide a discussion that offers implications of these findings as well as directions for future research.