Celia Whitchurch

Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education

This paper describes an empirical study associated with earlier reviews of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education (Whitchurch, 2004; 2006a; 2006b). The study draws on the narratives of 24 individuals to illustrate that identity movements cannot be captured solely in terms of a shift from ‘administration’ to ‘management’, or of a collective process of professionalisation. Contemporary ideas about the fluidity of identity (Delanty, 2008; Taylor, 2008) are used to theorise the empirical data, and to develop a conceptual framework that describes emerging identities by means of three categories of bounded, cross‐boundary, and unbounded professionals. This framework demonstrates that professional staff are not only interpreting their given roles more actively, but that they are also moving laterally across functional and institutional boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledges, relationships and legitimacies. It is suggested, therefore, that the roles and identities of professional staff are more complex and dynamic than organisation charts or job descriptions might suggest.

Diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education: some management challenges

This paper draws on an international study of the management challenges arising from diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education. These challenges include, for instance, the introduction of practice-based disciplines with different traditions such as health and social care, the changing aspirations and expectations of younger generations of staff, a diffusion of management responsibilities and structures, and imperatives for a more holistic approach to the “employment package”, including new forms of recognition and reward. It is suggested that while academic and professional identities have become increasingly dynamic and multi-faceted, change is occurring at different rates in different contexts. A model is offered, therefore, that relates approaches to “people management” to different organisational environments, against the general background of increasing resource constraint arising from the global economic downturn.

Managing Human Resources in Higher Education

Human resource capacity has become a critical issue for contemporary universities as a result of increasing pressures from governments and global markets. As a consequence, particularly where the institution is the employer, changes are occurring in the expectations of staff and institutions about employment terms and conditions, as well as the broader aspects of working life, and this is affecting academic and professional identities. Even under different regimes, for instance, in Europe, with the government in effect as the employer, institutions are giving greater attention to ways in which they might respond to these developments. This paper considers key issues and challenges in human resource management in higher education, and some of the implications of these changes.

Some Implications of a Diversifying Workforce for Governance and Management

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support activities as diverse as widening participation, e-learning, and business partnership. This in turn has implications for higher education governance and management structures and processes. Consideration is given to variables likely to affect institutional responses to such changes, and some suggestions are made as to possible ways forward in addressing the interests of an expanding range of professional groupings and stakeholders, as well as those of institutions as a whole. These are likely to involve the development of more flexible organisational frameworks in relation to, for instance, reward and incentive mechanisms and career pathways.

The Rise of Third Space Professionals: Paradoxes and Dilemmas

An increasing number of staff in higher education with both academic and professional credentials find themselves working on broadly based projects in what Whitchurch has described as Third Space environments (Whitchurch, High Educ Q 62(4), 377–396, 2008). Such environments do not sit easily in formal organisational structures and can be both ambiguous and uncertain. Those who work in them are likely to encounter a series of paradoxes and dilemmas, described in this chapter, and to develop their identities in relation to these. They are thereby extending ideas about what it might mean to be an academic or a professional in contemporary higher education.

L'avenir de la mission tripartite

Dans tous les pays, les partenaires de l’universite et du milieu clinique ont des objectifs similaires malgre les variations qui existent selon les contextes nationaux. Ils visent a assurer des services de recherche, d’enseignement et de soins de sante de niveau international. Mais ils font aussi face a des tensions similaires. Les partenaires de la sante et de l’enseignement superieur se trouvent confrontes a deux paradoxes centraux : ils sont interdependants (ils ont besoin l’un de l’autre pour s’acquitter de leur mission) et independants (ils sont geres en fonction de priorites differentes). Ensuite, ils s’efforcent d’equilibrer les exigences de deux maitres (la sante et l’enseignement) dont les priorites sont difficiles a concilier. La facon traditionnelle de mettre en place les partenariats se trouve partout confrontee aux repercussions des facteurs mondiaux de changement dans les services cliniques, l’enseignement et la recherche. Malgre les pressions qui s’exercent sur ses formes d’organisation, la mission tripartite demeure une activite vitale. La maniere dont elle est accomplie doit etre reexaminee. Introduire des pratiques fondees sur l’experience et des innovations dans les services, convertir la recherche en pratique, gerer une base de connaissances de plus en plus vaste, mettre au point de nouvelles formes de travail, tout cela exige une approche tripartite. Les partenariats ne se concentrent pas necessairement sur la synergie entre les missions, autrement dit sur l’integration des composantes pour produire un effet plus grand que la somme des parties. Ce rapport s’appuie sur les debats entre dirigeants d’organismes situes a la rencontre des secteurs universitaires et de sante sur l’orientation actuelle et future des relations entre les services, la recherche et l’enseignement. Il decrit quelques defis que doivent relever ceux qui gerent la mission tripartite et propose des moyens de les surmonter.