scholarly journals Knowledge as a fictitious commodity: a Polanyian reading of the 'digital economy'

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonino Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
New Public ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the attempts to use Karl Polanyi's framework to make sense of current developments have multiplied, producing a noticeable and lively debate. This debate centres on the notion of double movement put forward by the Hungarian thinker in his masterpiece – The Great Transformation. The paper is a contribution to this debate. The first part addresses a series of questions that make the interpretations of the double movement advanced so far not very compelling. To this end, a close reading of Polanyi's text, with the aim of dismantling and rearticulating its analytical structure, is carried out. The upshot is a dynamic and multistage picture of the double process as a recurrent and vortex-like attempt to progressively commodify natural and social resources against growing opposition. The second part employs this revised reading of the double movement to explain the collapse of the postwar consensus politics, the success of the neoliberal counterrevolution and the development of the knowledge economy. The claim put forward here is that, in addition to sustained efforts to deepen previous forms of commodification (land, labour and money), we are witnessing a fullblown attempt to turn knowledge into a new fictitious commodity. Building on the idea of digital Taylorism, the paper tries to show that information and computer technologies are being used to standardise and routinise a growing number of intellectual, professional and managerial activities which were able to escape previous attempts in this direction. Once again, at the forefront of this process there are powerful state actors, who are using New Public Management policies strategically to: support the enclosure of intangible cultural resources through the creation of intellectual property rights regimes, and undermine the counter-reaction of negatively affected societal actors by rising the collective action problems they face.

Engagement, Resistance and Restructuring: A Legal Challenge

Somatechnics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-287
Author(s):  
Nan Seuffert
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Legal Challenge ◽  
New Public ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
The Impact

The raft of neoliberal and new public management policies and discourses that have risen to prominence in universities in the last few decades, combined with steep decreases in public funding, have resulted in profound changes to all aspects of university functions across not just Australia and New Zealand, but many countries with comparable public university sectors. These changes have impacted on strategic priorities, faculty and administrative structures, terms and conditions of academic and administrative staff employment, academic freedom and the role that universities play in a democracy. Scholarship on the impact of neoliberal economic and new public management policies in universities has blossomed in recent years. This scholarship has included some discussion of the extent to which individual and collective resistance to these changes, by academics and others, is possible, and the potential challenges of such resistance. This article considers a legal challenge to a restructuring, or ‘organisational change’, proposal at a New Zealand university. It begins by analysing the legal challenge in the context of neoliberal economic and new public management policies in universities in Australia and New Zealand, with a focus on the implications of the changing governance policies and structures in universities, and academic engagement with, and resistance to, those policies. It then discusses the case, considering the issue raised in light of recent scholarship. It argues that the case is relevant today as an example of a form of collective resistance to problematic aspects of new public management policies in universities.

Beyond collusion and resistance: Academic–management relations within the neoliberal university

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cris Shore ◽  
Miri Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
New Public ◽  
Academic Management ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Systemic Constraints

As an early pioneer of market-led institutional reforms and New Public Management policies, New Zealand arguably has one of the most 'neoliberalised' tertiary education sectors in the world. This article reports on a recent academic dispute concerning the attempt by management to introduce a new category of casualised academic employee within one of the country's largest research universities. It is based on a fieldwork study, including document analysis, interviews and the participation of both authors in union and activist activities arising from the dispute. Whilst some academics may collude in the new regimes of governance that these reforms have created, we suggest that 'collusion' and 'resistance' are inadequate terms for explaining how academic behaviour and subjectivities are being reshaped in the modern neoliberal university. We argue for a more theoretically nuanced and situational account that acknowledges the wider legal and systemic constraints that these reforms have created. To do this, we problematise the concept of collusion and reframe it according to three different categories: 'conscious complicity', 'unwitting complicity' and 'coercive complicity'. We ask, what happens when one must 'collude' in order to resist, or when certain forms of opposition are rendered impossible by the terms of one's employment contract? We conclude by reflecting on ways in which academics understand and engage with the policies of university managers in contexts where changes to the framework governing employment relations have rendered conventional forms of resistance increasingly problematic, if not illegal.

scholarly journals New Public Management New Public Comparison Meta-Analysis Developed and Developing Country policies

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Dyah Mutiarin ◽  
Misran Misran
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
General Management ◽  
Analysis Process ◽  
New Public ◽  
Management Policies

This study aims to determine the development of research on new public management policies in developed and developing countries in the last five years. To find out, we reviewed hundreds of related journals related to new general management policies in developed and developing countries with the previous 5-year edition from 2016 to 2020. Then we compared the concepts used in new public management in developed and developing countries. This study used a qualitative research method with a review of previous research. Sources are selected articles published in the Scopus database in the last five years, from 2016 to 2020. Selected items are publications relevant to new public management policy topics in developed and developing countries. This study's results were obtained through a data analysis process using the Nvivo 12 Plus and VOSviwer applications. The results showed 90 concepts in studying new public management policies in developed countries and categorized them into five groups. Again, new public management policies in developing countries have 58 concepts and can be categorized into four groups. The significance of this research is the discovery of mapping new public management policy concepts in developed and developing countries to assist in developing a conceptual framework in subsequent studies and can see the novelty in further research.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perkembangan penelitian pada tema kebijakan manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan negara berkembang dalam kurung waktu lima tahun terakhir. Untuk mengetahuinya, kami mereview ratusan jurnal terkait kebijakan manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan negara berkembang dengan edisi lima tahun sebelumnya dari tahun 2016 sampai dengan 2020. Kemudian membandingkan konsep yang digunakan pada manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan negara berkembang. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode  kualitatif dengan mereview dari penelitian sebelumnya. Sumber dipilih yang diterbitkan di data base scopus dalam lima tahun terakhir, dari 2016 hingga 2020. Artikel yang dipilih adalah publikasi yang relevan dengan topik kebijakan manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan negara berkembang. Hasil penelitian ini diperoleh melalui proses analisis data menggunakan Aplikasi Nvivo 12 dan VOSviwer. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 90 konsep dalam kajian kebijakan manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan dapat dikategorikan menjadi lima kelompok. Selanjutnya kebijakan manajemen publik baru di  negara berkembang terdapat lima puluh delapan konsep dan dapat di kategorikan menjadi empat kelompok. Signifikansi penelitian ini adalah ditemukannya pemetaan konsep kebijakan manajemen publik baru di negara maju dan negara berkembang sehingga dapat membantu dalam pengembangan kerangka konseptual pada kajian-kajian selanjutnya serta dapat melihat kebaruan dalam meneliti selanjutnya.

"Jedes starre Konzept ist schlecht und passt net' in diese Welt"

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (148) ◽  
pp. 369-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Ludwig-Mayerhofer ◽  
Ariadne Sondermann ◽  
Olaf Behrend
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Public Employment Service ◽  
New Public ◽  
Recent Reform ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
New Procedures

The recent reform of the Bundesagentur fijr Arbeit, Germany's Public Employment Service (PES), has introduced elements of New Public Management, including internal controlling and attempts at standardizing assessments ('profiling' of unemployed people) and procedures. Based on qualitative interviews with PES staff, we show that standardization and controlling are perceived as contradicting the 'case-oriented approach' used by PES staff in dealing with unemployed people. It is therefore not surprising that staff members use considerable discretion when (re-)assigning unemployed people to one of the categories pre-defined by PES headquarters. All in all, the new procedures lead to numerous contradictions, which often result in bewilderment and puzzlement on the part of the unemployed.

Organisation des Luzerner Forstdienstes – konsequente Entflechtung von hoheitlichen und betrieblichen Aufgaben | Organisation of the forestry services in Lucerne – differentiating between sovereign and management tasks

2001 ◽  
Vol 152 (11) ◽  
pp. 453-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Iselin ◽  
Albin Schmidhauser
Keyword(s):  
Forest Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Forest Reserve ◽  
New Public ◽  
Forest Regions ◽  
Management Project ◽  
Forestry Services ◽  
The Individual

During the past ten years most cantonal forest services have undergone re-organisations. Lucerne's cantonal forest administration initiated a fundamentally new way of providing forestry services by differentiating between sovereign tasks and management tasks. By examining the individual steps of the process we demonstrate how starting with the mandate,goals were developed and implemented over several years. Product managers assumed responsibility for products, as defined in the New Public Management Project, on a cantonal-wide basis. Work within a matrix organisation has led to significant changes. Territorial responsibilities are increasingly assumed by district foresters, who have modern infrastructures at their disposal in the new forestry centres. The re-organisation has led to forest districts being re-drawn and to a reduction in the number of forest regions. To provide greater efficiency,state forest management has been consolidated into a single management unit. The new forest reserve plan removes almost half of the state forest from regular forest management,resulting in a reduction in the volume of work and in the work force. We show how effective the differentiation of sovereignty tasks and management tasks has been in coping with the effects of hurricane Lothar.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document