The focus of this single site, qualitative case study was on public research university STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) faculty and their perspectives on, and behavior towards, indirect cost recovery. The explanatory scheme was derived from anthropological theory and incorporated organizational culture, resource dependency theory, faculty socialization studies, and political bargaining models in the conceptual framework. The informants were tenured and tenure-track research university faculty in STEM fields who were highly successful at obtaining federal-sponsored research funds, with individual sponsored research portfolios of at least one million dollars. The data consisted of 11 informant interviews, bolstered by documentary evidence. The findings indicated that faculty socialization and organizational culture were the most dominant themes, while political bargaining emerged as significantly less prominent. Public research university STEM faculty are most concerned about the survival of their research program and the discovery facilitated by their research program. They resort to conjecture when confronted by the issue of indirect cost recovery. The findings suggest institutional administrators rebalance the emphasis on compliance and hierarchy when working with expert professionals such as science faculty. Instead, a more productive focus might be on communication and clarity in budget processes and organizational decision-making, and a concentration on critical administrative support that can relieve faculty administrative burdens.