Disciplinary cultures and the moral order of studying – A case-study of four Finnish university departments

Based on qualitative data gathered in one Finnishuniversity, the article examines disciplinary culturesof four study fields: computer science, libraryscience and informatics, public administration, andsociology and social psychology. It is suggested thatthe core of each discipline can be conceptualized asa moral order that defines the basic beliefs, valuesand norms of the local culture. Following this frameof reference, the analysis of students' accountsdemonstrates essential differences regarding how thevirtues and vices of studying are understood and whatkinds of social identities are constructed indifferent fields. The implications of the results forthe quality assessment and the development ofuniversity teaching are discussed.     

University Under Structural Reform: A Micro-Level Perspective

National governments in several countries have promoted and carried out different forms of mergers, consolidations and alliances within their higher education systems in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and governmental control to ensure that the universities more directly serve the national and regional economic and social objectives. This article sets out to explore structural reforms between and within universities from a micro-level perspective by investigating how academics make sense of and respond to the structural reforms, and how these reforms shape academic cultures, work practices and identities. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 31 Finnish academics working under structural rearrangements, five core meanings of structural reforms are discerned: structural development as part of a flood of changes, expanding bureaucracy, profiling, searching for partners and branding. The paper concludes that structural reforms along with other managerial transformations foster experiences of competition and polarization at the departmental and individual level of academia, involving redefining what it means to be a successful academic.     

Entangled in academic capitalism? A case-study on changing ideals and practices of university research

During recent years universities have engagedincreasingly in academic capitalism as aresponse to the decrease in budget funding andthe external push towards entrepreneurialactivities. This paper explores on the microlevel what impacts the changing fundingpatterns have on university research, how thechanges are responded to in different researchunits, and how researchers experience them.Based on focused interviews with seniorresearchers in three different types ofresearch settings in Finland, the paper arguesthat engaging in academic capitalism iseveryday reality in all units but takes adiversity of forms depending on how close ordistant the field is from the market. Inaddition the disciplinary and institutionalcultures shape the process of adaptation to thechanging environmental conditions. It isconcluded that increasing market-orientationdoes not displace traditional academicpractices, values and ideals as researchers tryto accommodate them to entrepreneurialactivities. However, especially due to thegrowth and intensification of project work onshort-term contracts, achieving a balancebetween the two value-sets is at present feltto be increasingly difficult, thus generating avariety of tensions in the daily work of theresearchers and even endangering the quality ofresearch.     

Different research markets: a disciplinary perspective

Drawing upon the notions of academic capitalism and the transformation of academic research from traditional academic orientation into market orientation, the paper sets out to empirically scrutinize the changing nature of academic research, focusing especially on disciplinary differences. The paper is based on a survey of heads of departments and research units at Finnish universities representing all disciplinary groups (n = 255) and on in-depth interviews with Finnish academics (n = 31) in the fields of humanities, social sciences, technology and natural sciences. Based on the survey data, the funding, selection of research topics, collaboration partners, audiences and publication forums in research are analysed. Following this, five research markets are discerned: academic, corporate, policy, professional and public market, each characterized by its own values and rationality as to what is considered the reference group, basic objective and outcome of research. The paper concludes that the transformation thesis needs to be revisited and specified since on the one hand, academic orientation still remains crucially important in all disciplinary groups, and on the other hand, market orientation entails several kinds of markets, pointing to the versatility of the university–society relationship.