Academic manager or managed academic? Academic identity schisms in higher education

Abstract

The relationship between values and academic identity has received scant attention in the higher education literature with some notable exceptions (Churchman, 2006; Harley, 2002; Henkel, 2005). This paper contends that the perceived need to align all academics around corporate values and goals has given rise to academic identity schisms in higher education. Central to the academic identity schism is the notion of person–organisation values fit and the degree to which the ideologies and values of academics are congruent (the ‘academic manager’) or incongruent (the ‘managed academic’) with the prevailing discourse of corporate managerialism. To reduce the prevalence of academic disengagement and make it easier for academic managers to gain the support of the managed, the paper proposes two inter-related strategies for bridging identity schisms in academe.