The worst of times? A tale of two higher education institutions in France: their merger and its impact on staff working lives

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a case study of the merger of two higher education institutions in France. The paper's main focus is not the politics that gave rise to the institutional merger, nor the rights or wrongs of the decision, nor the merger process itself; rather, it is the extent to and the ways in which these features of the transition combined to touch the working lives of the people affected by it. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 16 employees of the 2 institutions. The findings revealed widespread post-merger dissatisfaction, lowered morale, frustration and disillusionment created by people's impeded capacity to carry out their work as they wished. Drawing on Dickensian literary language to evoke the severity of the negativity expressed by most of the sample, the author suggests that, for these French education professionals, ‘the worst of times’ may be yet to come.