Academic staff participation in university governance: Internal responses to external quality demands

Abstract

Higher education in Croatia is confronted with new trends and quality demands mostly connected with Bologna processes. It is assumed that Croatian universities with their existing governance structures, characterised by strong state regulation and weak institutional administration, cannot respond effectively to new demands. Findings of the survey on conceptions of governance at the Croatian universities are presented in the paper, with its main aim to explore academic staff's perception of university governance. The idea of the university as a “learning organisation” with strong leadership and engaged academic staff is taken as the desired model. Mapping the opinions of academic staff on the present governance structures, their role in governance issues, and making an inventory of their perceptions of strengths and weaknesses of governance processes, forms important background for reflections on adequate modifications in academic governance.     

Towards More Adaptive Universities: Trends of Institutional Reform in Europe

European universities are increasingly facing competitive environments, declining resources, and changing societal needs. Factors influencing this development are globalization, the changing role of the state, economic restructuring, information technology, and student and staff mobility. Adaptation to these new environmental conditions involves changes in major structures and processes of academic organization. This article describes these environmental demands and presents institutional responses illustrated through empirical results. The importance of governance, management, and leadership regarding adaptation are of special concern in this analysis. Implications for higher education research and practice include consequences for university management as well as for new areas for empirical work.     

Academics' perceptions of their professional development needs related to leadership and management: What can we learn?

Enquiries into the governance, structure and management of higher education institutions across the globe have stimulated changes to the legislative and policy frameworks within which universities operate and to their organizational structures and processes. These changes have subsequently brought into question the proper role of academics in relation to the leadership and management of their departments/institutions. While mainstream academic staff conceive of academic leadership as being strictly associated with teaching, research and community outreach, university administrators and policy makers conceptualize it more broadly. Their definitions often include the management of change, quality, information, finance, and physical and human resources - functions that many mainstream academics perceive as being the responsibility of departmental/institutional administrative or support staff. Such differences create major challenges for academic development units. What type of training should they provide? Should they embrace activities that support these new conceptions of leadership and management? These are among the central issues explored in this paper.     

Blurring Boundaries and Changing University Staff: The Case of the University of Hong Kong

In the changing higher education environment, universities increasingly engage in areas outside the traditional teaching and research missions. The new missions extend over wide yet specialized areas, such as technological advancement, internationalization, entrepreneurship, and enhancement of teaching and learning. To effectively handle these areas, universities require specific talents that may not be found in conventional academic and administrative cadres. The transformation highlights blurred boundaries between academic and non-academic spheres of the university. Situated in the University of Hong Kong (HKU), this paper explores how the university utilizes new professionals and administrative staff in new missions. Qualitative interviews with university staff reveal their profiles and perceptions in evolving organizational structures. By examining understudied subjects in Hong Kong, it discusses implications of changing university staff and how universities may optimize their new talent.     

The changing racial profile of academic staff at South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), 2005–2013

South Africa has undergone transformation since the end of apartheid governance in 1994. Legislatively enforced, this transformation has permeated most sectors of society, including higher education. Questions remain, however, about the extent to which transformation has occurred in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in general, and across the academic staff body in HEIs in particular. In this study, we examine the transformation of academic staff profiles at HEIs throughout the country. Initially, we graph the racial profile of academics across multiple positions (junior lecturer to professor) from 2005 to 2013. We then use correlational analysis to identify which characteristics of universities in South Africa can be used to explain the racial inequities evident in South African HEIs. Our results indicate that world university ranking; percentage black African staff; percentage black African student body; and whether the university is ‘historically disadvantaged’, all influence the racial profile of the academic staff body to varying degrees. The size of the overall staff and study body does not appear to influence the racial profile of universities’ staff component. We conclude that transformation of the academic staff body of HEIs in South Africa is indeed occurring, albeit slowly. Rather than seeing this as a negative, we argue that the pace of ‘academic’ transformation in the country needs to be interpreted within the framework of academic governance.     

我国大学治理结构的滞后与重塑

大学治理结构基于行政权力、学术权力与市场权力的不同特点分为三种类型,这为我国大学目前存在滞后现象的外部治理结构与内部治理结构提供了有力的参考。重塑大学治理结构,需要明确大学治理目标,重构现代大学治理理念,注重大学治理结构变迁过程中市场作用,注重强制性变迁和诱致性变迁之间的适时转化。     

我国大学治理体系规制化及其变革

科学完备的大学治理体系是提升大学治理有效性的基本前提。目前,我国大学治理体系呈现规制化特征,集中体现在政府与大学、大学与院系、学术与行政的治理关系中。造成我国大学治理体系规制化的深层次原因,主要有高度集中的政治体制的深刻影响、社会主义市场经济发育的不完善、集体主义文化的过度张扬、大学组织的学术传统不深厚等。基于院校运行的微观维度,新时代推动我国大学治理体系去规制化改革,需要正确认识大学的组织属性,培育学术文化;扩大院系组织自主权力,激发"学术心脏"活力;改革一元化权力运行模式,增强专业权力的影响力,努力探索其变革之道。     

高校办学自主权变迁的实证再研究（三）——改革开放四十年来高校学术自主权的变迁指数分析

政府简政放权、校级层面的学术治理机构设置与完善以及校院两级管理改革是高校学术自主权改革的三个主要路径。在前期研究的基础上，以这三个改革为主要内容，重新对高校办学自主权具体指标进行拆解和结构化，通过综合指数研究的方法，试图揭示改革开放四十年来我国高校办学自主权的变迁特征。研究结果表明：第一，总体上，随着政府不断简政放权，高校通过学术治理机构完善和具体学术决策权向学术权力的让渡，获得了越来越多的学术自主权，学校内部也呈现出越来明显的学术本位特征；第二，在学术自主权的变迁路径上，沿着先外部自主权后内部自主权、先“如何提供”的生产决策后“提供什么”的战略决策规律演进；第三，不同类型和不同层次高校的学术自主权也呈现一定差异性，其中部属高校和拥有博士学位授予权高校在学术自主权的增长中贡献了更多力量。     

美国营利性大学发展及其治理结构特征

美国营利性大学的迅速崛起与其颇具特色的治理结构密不可分.具体而言,美国营利性大学的治理结构表现出以下几方面特征:政府职能的"弱势"与民间组织的"强势"、董事会决策与大学成员股东化、学术与管理分家、对共同治理的重新界定以及强大的顾客服务体系.营利性大学的这种高效率的运营方式是革除传统大学治理结构弊端的一剂良药,希望能给我国民办高校以借鉴与启示.     

Practices of conformity and resistance in the marketisation of the academy: Bourdieu,professionalism and academic capitalism

The paper reports on an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with staff from four Australian universities. These universities are shown to be undergoing significant social change as processes of marketisation impact on the everyday practices of academic workers. The universities are analysed as sites of contestation between the new professional managers and the established academic profession over the control of the conditions of work, the production of expert knowledge and the worksite itself. The theory of academic capitalism is examined, and the relevance of Bourdieu’s work for the analysis of a university sector in a context of marketisation is assessed. Bourdieu’s interlinked concepts of capital, habitus and the field are employed to investigate the nature of the contestation, revealing a dynamic process in which academics innovatively respond to threats to reduce their autonomy, to increased levels of surveillance and other constraints on practice. In addition, the study illustrates the processes through which actors within the sector, through acts of both conformity and resistance, contribute collectively to the growth of academic capitalism in the neoliberal university.     

Academic work within a mode of mixed governance: perspectives of university professors in the research context of western China

Chinese higher education institutions have been subjected to the intensive bureaucratic governance led by the central authorities since 1949. Since the new public management has been a burgeoning social discourse, some reforms have been conducted recently, centering on the competitive contract-centered employment of staff, integration of industrial sectors, universities, and research institutes, and the evaluation of teaching quality at the undergraduate level. By embracing the ideas of new public management, a mode of mixed governance has evolved within the larger milieu of Chinese higher education. By in-depth interviews with 36 university teachers from a university in western China, this study finds that the distribution of income within the academic community has been polarized, so that the career development of new teachers and those in low priority disciplines is curtailed. Additionally, research is assigned more priority than teaching; institutional service has made distracted academics from knowledge. Lastly, Chinese academics’ work has been greatly affected by a mixed mode of governance spawned by the unique integration between paternalistic governance, bureaucratic management, and new public management.     

大学内部治理的学术理性探索

大学治理,理念先行。大学治理理念与大学的精神品质、学术理性价值、治理模式以及治理绩效密切相关。学术自由、大学自治是大学本质的核心属性,从而决定了大学内部治理的学术理性选择。探索实践大学内部治理的学术理性,一是要提升大学内部治理的学术活动,二是要增强大学内部治理的学术效应,三是要塑造大学内部治理的学术环境。     

构筑人类命运共同体:大学治理全球化的中国逻辑

大学治理离不开全球治理的国际政治环境,西方"逆全球化"动向与中国人类命运共同体战略形成价值张力,大学治理模式出现新的可能性。人类命运共同体是中国全球化战略的理论和实践支点,为讨论大学治理全球化提供了思想资源。理论上的大学治理全球化存在统一模式,但不是当前模式的任何一种。中国大学治理模式"强政府"的制度特征和兼容并蓄的文化基因为全球大学治理提供了更多可能性。人类命运共同体是中国大学治理全球化的实践逻辑,为大学治理全球化提供了在组织、国家和全球层面的治理框架:构筑以信任为特征的大学内部治理,构筑以提升大学治理能力为核心的大学外部治理,构筑以人类命运为支点的大学治理全球化。     

中国大学的学术逻辑与行政逻辑的互动类型

现代大学从组织形式与内涵上已经成为“学术共同体”与“科层制”复合共生体。学术权力与行政权力以各自不同的逻辑影响着现代大学内的组织决策。虽然中国大学的内部决策机制长期以来被诟病为强党政弱学术,但是对其校内院系与大学层面真实的组织决策互动缺乏细致而贴切的实证研究。由于衣科专业在中国的大学中是知识、学术和教育的实体性分类．是否设置某新专业背后既牵涉学科知识的发展、人才培养的知识基础等学术考虑,也涉及校内具体的经费、空间、人力、设备仪器等实际资源的分配决定．因此校内有关本科新专业的校内决策可以充分体现现代大学逻辑中的学术逻辑与行政逻辑的和谐与;中突的复杂互动关系,本研冤以两所案例大学于2004年至2006年年间的本科新专业设置为例,归纳了六类院系与大学层级间的互动粪型,并以具体的专业设置案例展现了不同类型下所产生的“顺利”与“难产”的专业设置决定。     

Reinventing Governance: The Role of Boards of Governors in the New Austrian University

In the last decade, the university sector in many European countries has undergone manifold changes in relation to the design of governance structures and processes. Accordingly, a board of governors with far‐reaching competences was implemented by the latest reform of the Austrian higher education system in 2002. Drawing on an empirical research project, this paper contrasts the basic ideas of this reform with insights into the concrete practice of the new governance structure. The results show that board members’ personal factors such as personality, experience, and their attitude towards the multi‐faceted nature of university governance, strongly influence the boards’ identity formation and actual work. It is concluded that such factors must be regarded when implementing governing boards in universities by means of university reform.     

Organizational socialization and induction in universities: Reconceptualizing theory and practice

This paper argues that the theory and practice of induction and socialization of new academic staff in universities have been based on a partial, corporatist, perspective influenced by now defunct structural-functionalist theory. We develop a more sophisticated theoretical understanding of organizational socialization and explore its consequences for the practice of induction of new academic staff. These ideas are based on secondary data derived from a number of studies of new academic appointees (NAAs), 27 in-depth interviews we conducted with academics in ten Canadian and English universities, both chartered and unchartered, and a five year ethnographic study of academic staff in a single unchartered English university.     

论现代大学内部治理的自治、控制与制衡

从大学的本质特征、大学的学术组织特性来看大学内部治理自治性具有合理性,而大学治理变异的多样性和大学内部治理的困境需要对大学内部治理进行控制。在自治与控制的冲突中,需要创新大学管理制度、重视学术力量的回归、借鉴西方大学内部治理的经验,以达成现代大学内部治理自治与控制的制衡。     

“Big is Beautiful.” Organisational Change in Universities in the United Kingdom: New Models of Institutional Management and the Changing Role of Academic Staff

In recent years, pressures for change in universities in the United Kingdom have stimulated the emergence of new models of institutional governance and management. In turn, these new models have led to significant changes in the position of academic staff in the running of their institutions. This paper looks at change within four leading UK universities, the motivation for change, the new models that have developed, some of the issues which have emerged and the impact upon academic staff.     

The perception of participation in executive governance structures in Dutch universities

In 1997 a new governance act, based on the principles of New Public Management (NPM) was introduced at Dutch universities. The aims were to realise integrated management, to strengthen the position of executives at the central (executive board) and faculty (dean) levels, to introduce a Supervisory Board at the institution’s central level, and to increase the leeway for universities to design its own governance structure. This article reports on a large-scale evaluation of the governance act and focuses on student and staff participation in decision-making and on the actual appraisal of different actors within the universities (leaders, managers, staff, students) of the governance structure of their university. The empirical data reveal a mixed picture regarding the appreciation of the new governance structure, but overall—in contrast with many critical reviews of NPM in higher education—there seems to be considerable endorsement for the present situation.     

“教授治学”途径探析——高校内部治理结构维度的思考

"教授治学"是中国特色现代大学制度的一个重要组成部分。"教授治学"旨在促进学术自由,完善大学治理结构,推动大学去行政化。在高校治理结构中,以"教授治学"为代表的学术权力应居于主导地位,是"教授治学"而非"教授治校",并要以学生为本位。应通过重塑大学精神,完善相关法律法规,加强组织与制度建设,拓展"教授治学"外延,来实现"教授治学"。