The Changing Nature of Academic Work: Canadian Universities and the Flexible Firm Model

Abstract

Though much literature has been produced on the topic of academic restructuring, those works concerned with the Canadian context have mainly focused on issues of corporate­university linkages, the role of state coordination of public universities, and the disparity between funding and student enrollment. Very little work has been done in documenting or analysing the role of adjunct faculty, who now make up nearly half the university faculty, in Canadian universities. Statistics Canada has only once collected data on part­time faculty, and only one current analysis of this data has been conducted (Omiecinski, 2003). The Canadian Association of University Teachers, furthermore, only publishes data concerning full­time faculty members. The implications of an emerging division between the use of full­time and part­time faculty on the nature of academic work and the quality of post­secondary education has been yet unexamined. Drawing on labour market segmentation theory, this study presents the multiple ways in which the work of academic staff in Canadian post­secondary education has conformed to the principles of the flexible firm model, first observed of private business firms in the 1980s by John Atkinson. A series of semi­structured interviews with academic faculty and administrators, as well as a collection of current secondary source data, informed the basis of this research. It was found that the changing nature of academic work in post­ secondary education is negatively affecting the quality of undergraduate education provided in Canada.