Christine Teelken

Compliance or pragmatism: how do academics deal with managerialism in higher education? A comparative study in three countries

Universities throughout Europe have adopted organisational strategies, structures, technologies, management instruments and values that are commonly found in the private sector. While these alleged managerial measures may be considered useful, and have a positive effect on the quality of teaching and research, there is also evidence of detrimental effects on primary tasks. The consequences of such managerial measures were investigated through 48 interviews with staff members at 10 universities in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The results were analysed and interpreted within the framework of institutional and professional theory, by linking them to three central themes: ‘symbolic compliance’, ‘professional pragmatism’ and ‘formal instrumentality’. These themes explain why and how the respondents dissociated themselves from the managerial measures imposed upon them. This occurred often for pragmatic and occasionally for principled reasons.

All are equal, but some are more equal than others: managerialism and gender equality in higher education in comparative perspective

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate what impact new regimes of management and governance, including new managerialism, have had on perceptions of gender equality at universities in three Western European countries. While in accordance with national laws and EU directives, contemporary current management approaches in universities should, in theory, stimulate equality of opportunities and diminish regimes of inequality, our findings from qualitative interviews across the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK provide a very different picture. Our data show that these new governance approaches actually re-emphasise the existing status quo in various ways and enable more subtle forms of discrimination despite the existence of a veneer of equality. Consequently, some women find themselves sidelined by the gap between formal procedures designed to deal with inequalities and the institutional cultures and practices towards selection and promotion.

Market Mechanisms in Education: school choice in The Netherlands, England and Scotland in a comparative perspective

This article analyses differences in the availability of school choice in The Netherlands, England and Scotland. A 10 variable model is used to determine that the increased availability of choice leads generally to an increased presence of the market mechanism in the three countries. However, the functioning of the market is most obvious in The Netherlands, to a lesser extent in England and even less in Scotland.

Assessing Cross-National Invariance of the Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment: A Six-Country Study of European University Faculty

This study examined cross-national invariance of Meyer and Allen’s three-component model of organizational commitment using samples of university faculty from six European countries. The analysis revealed strict factorial measurement invariance of affective, continuance, and normative organizational commitment constructs (AC, CC, and NC, respectively). While the samples failed to differ in AC and CC, substantial cross-national differences were found for NC. Results showed an invariant zero correlation between AC and CC, and NC associated positively with affective and continuance components. Procedural justice predicted AC and less strongly NC, but it had no effect on CC. A positive link with job performance was found for AC, a negative one for CC, and no association for NC. Results by and large support the generalizability of the tripartite organizational commitment model to the European context.

Scrutinizing the balance: parental care versus educational responsibilities in a changing society

This paper focuses on the pedagogical responsibilities of parents and schools, as well as the care provided by socializing agencies and local communities. A review of the literature has been carried out on the tasks of schools and parents and the relations between education, parenting and care in a changing society in eight countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Sweden and the United States. In addition, an email survey among international experts in Europe and the United States through the European Research Network about Parents in Education and the International Network of Scholars was conducted. This paper presents the results of both studies.

“How to Strike the Right Balance Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control in the Perceptions of Individual Lecturers”: A comparison of UK and Dutch higher education institutions

This paper focuses on the way lecturers observe, feel restrained by and cope with quality management systems that have been implemented in the higher education systems of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. As two sides of the same coin, quality enhancement and quality control are of increased significance in European Higher Educaction Institutions (HEIs), particularly through the Bologna Process. We are interested in the way that both enhancement and control blend into the current systems, and we are concerned for too much dominance of control, as has been suggested in recent managerial literature. Analysis of 40 interviews in both countries among researchers and lecturers in traditional and universities of applied sciences showed many similarities. It is not so much the general idea of quality management that is being turned down by the respondents. They see the benefits quite clearly. Still, the general belief is that quality management in its current shape and character does not fit with the work of the individual academic, neither their teaching nor their research. The respondents worry for and resent the consequences of increased emphasis on quality assurance and control. The developments concerning the quality management of their HEIs are perceived in terms of quality assurance by the UK respondents. Instead, the Dutch are more occupied with finding ways to “how to deal with” such developments.

Striving for Uniformity, Hoping for Innovation and Diversification: A Critical Review concerning the Bologna Process – Providing an Overview and Reflecting on the Criticism

The implementation of the Bologna Process (BP) did not go as smoothly as the Bologna Follow-Up evaluations suggest, and the consequences of the BP for the various European higher education systems and universities are much more diverse than represented in these various studies. Relatively few research and policy documents taking a more critical stance are currently available while a systematic overview of such studies is still lacking. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview and consequently reveal the most prominent views concerning the BP, as well as emphasise the critical developments over a longer period. A longitudinal literature review was carried out, consisting of 161 studies between 2004 and 2013, that resulted in a final selection of 91 studies. The article demonstrates that the studies available in this search show that issues concerning challenges, tensions and critical viewpoints about BP exist, and yet it confirms the need for further research. It is further suggested that demonstration of the impact of the BP discourse would benefit from the adaptation of a continuously critical reflective approach as an ongoing part of the overall discussion about the BP.

Reflecting on the Bologna outcome space - some pitfalls to avoid? Exploring universities in Sweden and the Netherlands.

Europeans have tried for decades to find a way to take a mutual stance on issues of higher education and its development. In terms of taking on the challenge of such a mutual commitment with respect to higher education, the Bologna process is a giant step for the European Union. It involves a large number of countries, representing a great variety of higher education systems, which are currently engaged in a process of striving for certain common, converging goals. The question is whether this is also the ‘right step’ in terms of the actual organisational goals of higher education institutions: teaching students to the best of their abilities, carrying out good-quality research, and serving a constructive societal role. Is the Bologna process as such helpful in achieving these goals, or do we need to acknowledge peripheral forces that are affecting the (Bologna) process to a much higher degree than we bargained for? The purpose of this article is to explore both mainstream and more tangential issues in order to cast a more critical spotlight on the outcomes of the Bologna process and its construction(s). The article attempts to contribute to the Bologna debate, with emphasis on three contradictions, by placing these issues in a broader perspective.

Organisation and leadership in higher education. Learning from experiences in the Netherlands

Similar to several other Western European countries, a ‘managerial revolution’ has swept through Dutch higher education. Partly in response to the new Act to Modernise the Structure of University Governance, many universities have set up education institutes.Purpose of the investigation was to find out whether the establishment of education institutes serves to improve education zquality. A suitable framework for analysing the information gathered was obtained by applying Ernst Marxs analytical model of the university administrative organisation. The application of this framework isolated four factors critical for the success of education institutes. In four out of the eight institutes the organisation of education is having a beneficial influence upon education quality. The director of the education institute plays an important role due to either demonstrable educational or transformative leadership qualities or by allowing teachers to take initiatives and above all making teaching teams responsible for parts of the curriculum.

Leadership in the public sector: Promise and Pitfalls

In modern societies, universities have flourished as central public institutions. Higher education and research became overwhelmingly a public responsibility and universities were perceived as contributing to the public good. Universities were heavily subsidized by governments, publicly provided by employees of the state, and closely regulated in respect to curriculum, teaching and research staff, infrastructural facilities, and achievement standards. In historical terms this is a recent phenomenon in which the development of a public mandate in higher education and research took the form of establishing publicly controlled, state-funded, state-owned institutions. Certainly, the well-established tradition of direct, extensive public responsibility for elementary and secondary education had created an important precedent for public involvement in higher levels of education. The public role of universities was reinforced by the prominent role that higher education played in building nation-states and their public sectors. Further, the emergence of the research university linked the research function to the educational one bringing science and technology into the public realm. The ‘publicness’ of universities, including the important role of government responsibility, oversight, and funding, the legal status of the organizational providers and their staff, is not only a recent phenomenon, viewed historically, but is currently being challenged in many ways. We currently observe that traditional boundaries and understandings of the public and private spheres in higher education have become blurred, in a similar way to other sectors of society that were previously under tight public control. This can be seen, among other things, in the delegation of public policy to semi-public organizations, non-governmental, arm’s-length agencies, independent regulatory bodies or public–private policy networks. It also relates to a process by which elements of the fabric of higher education and research are withdrawn from the public sphere, with universities setting up private companies, outsourcing research, teaching or support services, and the emergence of public–private partnerships or new private organizations. The opposite is also observed: the introduction of elements of the private sphere into the public realm of the university. Examples involve the state-induced enforcement of competition, the increasing 1111 2 3 4 5111 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3111 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5111 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 44 45111 5704 LEADERSHIP A-rev_156x234 mm 17/02/2012 06:52 Page 195