The spectral scientists of corridor B: Neoliberalization and its ghosts in higher education

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110548
Author(s):  
Kerry Holden
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Major Research ◽  
Institutional Management ◽  
New Public ◽  
Moral Economies ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function

This paper examines the role and function of science as a vocation in contemporary higher education. In recent decades, universities have expanded and reorganized their resources and expertise around commercially viable research avenues. All the signs point towards the creep of new public management coupled with neoliberal economic policy that starting in the 1980s had introduced accountability, standardization and internal competitiveness into public sector institutions. In this paper, I examine how the idea of the vocation is produced in higher education institutes using the example of an internal research audit that was carried out in a major research-led university between 2002 and 2005. I examine its impacts on biomedical scientists who lost access to laboratory space, a move that effectively ended their research careers. These scientists were redeployed to teaching-only positions and shortly thereafter, resurrected as ghostly reminders of the effects of audit. While teaching-only staff echoed Foucauldian critique in exposing the power/knowledge matrices of institutional management, it was their spatialization as spectres stalking the edges of research that revealed how the moral economies of science are valorized not in resistance to neoliberalization but as constitutive of it.

scholarly journals The Neoliberal University in Ireland: Institutional Bullying by Another Name?

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Margaret Hodgins ◽  
Patricia Mannix McNamara
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health And Well Being

New managerialism and the pervasive neoliberalisation of universities is by now a well-established phenomenon. Commentaries explore the political and economic drivers and effects of neoliberal ideology, and critique the impact on higher education and academic work. The impact on the health and well-being of academic staff has had less attention, and it is to that we turn in this paper. Much academic interest in neoliberalism stems from the UK, Australia and the United States. We draw particularly on studies of public Irish universities, where neoliberalism, now well entrenched, but something of a late-comer to the new public management party, is making its presence felt. This conceptual paper explores the concept of neoliberalism in higher education, arguing that the policies and practices of new public management as exercised in universities are a form of bullying; what we term institutional bullying. The authors are researchers of workplace culture, workplace bullying and incivility. Irish universities are increasingly challenged in delivering the International Labour Organisation (ILO) principles of decent work, i.e., dignity, equity, fair income and safe working conditions. They have become exposed in terms of gender imbalance in senior positions, precariat workforce, excessive workload and diminishing levels of control. Irish universities are suffering in terms of both the health and well-being of staff and organisational vibrancy. The authors conclude by cautioning against potential neoliberal intensification as universities grapple with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reviews neoliberalism in higher education and concludes with insight as to how the current pandemic could act as a necessary catalyst to stem the tide and ‘call out’ bullying at the institutional level.

scholarly journals Teaching qualitative research in adverse times

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-66
Author(s):  
Joost Beuving ◽  
Geert de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Culture ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Naturalistic Inquiry ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
New Public ◽  
Science Curricula

This article discusses how the teaching of qualitative research in higher education is threatened by the effects of new public management, by academic culture wars and by a growing belief in big data. The controversy over Alice Goffman’s book On the Run presents one recent example of this. In an effort to counterbalance these developments, this article stresses the importance in social science curricula of ‘naturalistic inquiry’ – the artisanal core of qualitative research. Explicitly acknowledging emic viewpoints, naturalistic inquiry upholds the emancipatory ideal of making society transparent to its members. Teaching naturalistic inquiry as a craft may be the best way to assure ‘qualitative literacy’ among graduates in their various careers as socially responsible professionals.

scholarly journals The changing value of higher education in England and Portugal: Massification, marketization and public good

2020 ◽  
pp. 147490412096757
Author(s):  
Mariana Gaio Alves ◽  
Michael Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
New Public ◽  
Global Discourse

This article examines how the value of higher education (HE) is currently being (re)framed in two European countries: England and Portugal. HE has been central to a global discourse on the future of knowledge economy, whilst also being subject to the policy framework of New Public Management. Being so, the changing value of HE is related to the ways in which its missions are understood and must be considered within the context of massification, as well as of a growing importance of employability. Drawing on published research and also considering national policy documents and statistical data produced by international organizations, the analysis demonstrates how HE in these two countries is currently being (re)framed, recognizing differences and similarities that express national specificities, as well as exploring how these have evolved within the wider national and pan-national policy context. Overall, the examination demanded going beyond the marketization approach by complementing it with the idea of public good and leads us to stress the importance of the tension between these two approaches as an analytical framework to better understand the changes occurring in different national contexts, within a transnational framework in which the knowledge economy and the central role of HE seems to be indisputably accepted.

About New Public Management Practices in Russian Universities (on Results of Field Studies)

Upravlenie ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
Ломовицкая ◽  
V. Lomovitskaya ◽  
Хватова ◽  
T. Khvatova ◽  
Душина ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
New Public ◽  
Control Department ◽  
And Control ◽  
Russian Universities

New public management practices in prestigious universities are researched in this paper. Based on the field study — higher-education teaching personnel (HETP) interrogation — problem areas related to university managerialism policy have been revealed. It has been shown, that the administrative machine and control department extension, as well as low level of professorship involvement in decision-making destroy the academic autonomy and create a latent conflict between managers and HETP.

scholarly journals Mapping strategic groups in higher education: Evidence on the Polish technical faculties

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Pietrzak ◽  
Piotr Pietrzak
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Public Universities ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Strategic Groups ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
New Public

According to the New Public Management (NPM) concept, public agencies (in such number universities) have to strive for the efficiency analogous to the private counterparts by among others private sector styles of management practice (‘proven’ tools). One of the groups of the ‘proven’ and widely used tools are those connected with the strategic management. Could strategic management tools be helpful for management of public universities? The aims of this paper are twofold: to discuss the potential and usefulness of strategic groups map in the higher education and to test empirically differences of efficiency between mapped groups. This article presents map of strategic groups of faculties of engineering and technology sciences affiliated at public universities in Poland. The investigation was based on the convenient sample of 48 faculties, thus the study should be treated as pilot researches. Following Ward’s method four strategic groups of faculties were delineated, namely: “Scientific Entrepreneur”, “Authors”, “Middlers” & ”Teachers”. Each of these groups is characterized in this article. Then the differences in performance according to the groups’ membership were tested. Based on the chi-square (X2) statistics we find differences in efficiency between strategic groups.

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