The deadly dull issue of university “administration”? good governance, managerialism and organising academic work

Abstract

This paper explores issues to do with the organisation of academic work in higher education in the U.K. When universities were well resourced elite institutions much internal university organisation involved little more than the limp administration of dull, steady state, routines. Tighter times in the 1980s encouraged the call for more efficient university management and in the 1990s the issue of good university governance has pushed to the fore. Efficient management and good governance are important but the nature of academic work and the professional sentiments of academic workers mean that management, bureaucracy and governance can only take universities so far in the organisation of teaching and research in turbulent times that call for change and entrepreneurship. “A refusal in the universities to give rational discussion of their administration a high priority must result either in tyranny mitigated by muddle or in time-wasting reduplication of effort.” (Lord Franks, University of Oxford: Report of Commission of Inquiry, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966, vol. 1, para. 491.)