Let’s pretend we’re a corporation: an introduction to the academic/corporate convergence

Abstract

There is a growing perception that higher education increasingly follows what Cary Nelson calls the business or “Industry .. handbook of relevant strategies and techniques” of employee management, seen by many in the demise of tenure and the increase in part‐time hiring. As an academic/corporate convergence this trend, however, extends beyond higher education’s use of corporate employee management strategies. As higher education becomes a profitable venture, following business’s “handbook” becomes symptomatic of a profound blurring between corporate and academic entities that beckons a reassessment of higher education’s overall direction in light of its relationship with the corporate world. As we’ll see in the demise of tenure and the growth of the part time position, academia is increasingly following the corporate or “industry ... handbook of relevant strategies and techniques” of employee management (Nelson, 1997b). The presence of a corporate paradigm in academia is, however, not limited to employee management practices. As higher education becomes profitable through the use of new technologies, following the corporate “handbook” becomes symptomatic of a far more significant blurring between corporate and academic entities that, because of the drastic and fundamental changes it poses for academia, warrants that academia both reconsiders its internal structure and its overall degree of separation from the corporate arena.