Managerialism, accreditation and insecure academic employment across different higher education traditions

Abstract

ABSTRACTThrough multilevel regression analysis, we examine the impact of managerialism, particularly accreditation practices, on the increasing job insecurity in universities. We find that universities that are accredited, private, secular or non-Catholic are more likely to offer insecure jobs, but that the relevance of these factors depends on each country’s academic tradition. Universities in the USA tend to offer more job security, whilst those in Chile are the only ones with a trend toward increasing the proportion of permanent positions. Accreditation is a good predictor of job insecurity in the USA, yet it is unrelated in Colombia and Germany, and it has an inverse effect in Chile. In the USA, we argue that accreditation serves as a conduit for managerial pressure, forcing universities to invest more in administrative bureaucracies to legitimise their academic quality, often at the expense of job stability. In Colombia and Germany, we argue that universities may hire administrators responsive to accrediting agencies that do not promote nor strengthen the academic profession. The concept of decoupling allows describing these countries' inverse relationship, or lack of direct relationship, between accreditation and job security. In contrast, Chilean universities show an integration between accreditation rituals and contracting practices aimed at job security. Our findings advance our knowledge of managerialism and higher education expansion by revealing its links to academic employment.