This volume explores the ways in which financial and human resource data can be used in reporting and analysis. With public sources of revenue stagnating or declining and tuition costs increasing, the need for improved efficiences in an insitution's internal practices has become paramount. An institutional research department can use financial and human resource data to conduct analyses of institutional business practices to forecast costs and identify revenue generation. The chapter authors review the use of personnel, expenditure, and revenue data in the performance of institutional research from several perspectives:

1. the role of organizational theory in data mining efforts
2. integration of various data sources for effective analyses
3. methodologies for more efficient faculty compensation benchmarking
4. the impact of state legislative decisions on revenue streams
5. and return on investments

This is the 140th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education report series New Directions for Institutional Research. Always timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.