This national study of academic deans examined the social and cognitive dimensions underlying disciplinary variations in respondents' self reports of their administrative behavior. Discriminant analyses identified significant linear functions that distinguished behaviors of deans from hard/pure, hard/applied, soft/pure, and soft/applied discipline groups. Findings indicate that the social dimension of academic discipline may be a factor which differentiates deans in terms of how they approach their administrative work. It is concluded that findings may partially explain the durability of discipline differences over the course of the academic career.