Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of new managerialism on junior academic-managers (defined as those having informal leadership or management roles below the level of head of department). It aims to discover: whether junior academic-managers experience the same tensions as Heads of Department; whether distributed leadership is possible and/or desirable in Higher Education; and what types of support junior academic-managers might welcome. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon previous literature and a small case study of one university department in a mid-ranking UK university. Findings – Junior academic-managers experience similar kinds of tensions to heads of department. Although distributed leadership is considered a necessity in higher education, in practice, devolved leadership is more common than genuinely distributed leadership. Junior academic-managers would benefit from the same types of support as heads of department, but increased administrative assistance would be particularly helpful. Some, though not all, of the tensions felt by both groups could be alleviated if higher education institutions (HEIs) adopted a modified form of workforce remodelling, similar to that being implemented in English and Welsh schools. Research limitation/implications – The empirical data come from within one department of one university. It is debatable how far the findings of this study are generalizable to other contexts. Originality/value – There are relatively few studies looking at academic heads of department, and virtually none looking at junior academic-managers. The argument that school workforce remodelling might be adapted for the HE sector is not made elsewhere.
Highlights
This paper looks at how new managerialism has affected one department in a midranking UK university over a recent three-year period, arguing that the tensions Heads of Department (HoDs) have faced over the last ten years are being confronted by more junior members of the academy, as they struggle to lead teaching programmes and research projects in an era of ever-increasing accountability, competition and work overload
It considers how far distributed leadership might be an appropriate aspiration for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), given how heavily the concept is being promoted within the school sector
The paper ends by proposing that some elements of school workforce remodelling would be valuable to Higher Education (HE), the more strategic use of support staff to reduce the time academic-managers spend on lowlevel administration
Summary
This paper looks at how new managerialism has affected one department in a midranking UK university over a recent three-year period, arguing that the tensions Heads of Department (HoDs) have faced over the last ten years are being confronted by more junior members of the academy, as they struggle to lead teaching programmes and research projects in an era of ever-increasing accountability, competition and work overload It considers how far distributed leadership might be an appropriate aspiration for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), given how heavily the concept is being promoted within the school sector. One Story in Three Chapters This section describes the impact of new managerialism on one department of a midranking UK University over a recent three-year period (labelled Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3) It focuses primarily upon the perceptions of junior academics involved in course management or project leadership for the first time. A shortened visit went ahead, and the project leader recounted collecting the Russian academics from their hotel, and having one of them, a woman in her fifties, say, with tears of joy in her eyes, “I have waited forty years for this moment”
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