Damian Ruth

Frameworks of managerial competence: limits, problems and suggestions

Purpose – To offer a coherent critique of the concept of managerial frameworks of competence through the exploration of the problems of generalizability and abstraction and the “scientific” assumptions of management.Design/methodology/approach – Employs the ecological metaphor of intellectual landscape and extends it to examining the development of the field of management, its early contours which traversed a diversity of conceptualisations such as management as an art, or an expression of personality, or as a vocation, the search for coordinates and a scientific image, and finally, a comparison of agri‐business and market gardening. The argument is illustrated by reference to particular management development programmes.Findings – The argument is made that frameworks of competence impose conceptual limitations – “monocultures of the mind” – that are destructive. Justifying coordinates in an activity that is always particular, contextual and socially constructed faces the problem of finding stable evidenc...

Management development in New Zealand

Purpose – To give an overview of prevalent views on and practices in management development in New ZealandDesign/methodology/approach – Employs a questionnaire, mainly Likert‐scale, to interview human resource managers and line managers in 86 companies in New Zealand. The research model and instrumentation is based on existing research on management development in Europe.Findings – Many of the tensions and inconsistencies exhibited between assumptions and practices and a variance of views indicate that at national level management development is rather incoherent and further research would be justified. For example, it is widely assumed that experience makes a good manager, but mentoring is rated lower than external courses as a source of development. There are often substantial disparity of views between HR managers and line managers.Practical implications – Firms wishing to develop coherent management development processes could be guided by the disparities revealed in this research.Originality/value – ...

Leader as priest: Plucking the fruit of a flawed metaphor

This paper takes its cue from Hatch et al. and their metaphor of leader as priest. This metaphor is extended in order to critically assess the importation of the discourse of spirituality into the arena of corporate leadership. In exploring this extended metaphor it becomes apparent that the concept of a spiritually informed corporate leadership is flawed. We may expect individuals to behave ethically and morally, but we should not confuse this with good or bad corporate leadership and link such leadership to corporate action. By pushing the limits of the leader-priest metaphor, we do not claim to vitiate the value of the metaphor, but we provide different perspectives on some standard questions and show that the problem of reprehensible corporate action might be more productively addressed as an issue of poor quality social and legal design rather than a spiritual or moral deficit.

Teaching strategy: reflections on professional practice

This paper explores how strategic management concepts, especially the notion of ‘wicked problems’, can be useful in analysing the professional practice of teachers in higher education. The keeping of a dialogical journal with a colleague helped illuminate that strategic management and education have much in common. Both are situated in unstable, unpredictable environments where contradictory demands and conditions exist. The keeping of the journal points to some of the difficulties in self-reflection illustrating the need for a more refined understanding and definition of reflective practice in education. The paper does not attempt to promote an agenda for efficient teaching, or suggests what teachers should do. However, clearly distinguishing between educational problems and technical or managerial problems will serve the educational interests of teachers, students and institutions.

Identity, Institutions and Systemic Change The Case of Higher Education in South Africa

This article reports findings related to race, ethnicity and institutional type from a more extensive study on the perceptions of South African academics on academic workload. An attempt in a South African university department to distribute workload fairly indicated this task involved personal and sensitive concerns, which often had to do with biographical and situational variables. That attempt inspired this study which investigated the relationship between social group and institutional type, and views on the composition and distribution of aspects of academic work, determinants of teaching load, determinants of remuneration, the purpose of staff development programmes, and decision-making in departments. It was found that social group and institutional type are significant factors in views on the composition and distribution of academic work, on remuneration and on the purpose of staff development programmes. There is a disparity between what all groups think should be the case and what actually is the case, and yet there is a general satisfaction with decision-making processes. These findings suggest that the systemic and organizational transformation of higher education in South Africa is embedded in the complexities of social identity and institutional type. This has implications for the management and leading of systemic transformation in other countries.

With the eyes of others: an ethnography of an academic office

ABSTRACT The author raises questions about ethnographic methodology through exploring the implications of using observations produced by his colleagues about his office as data for his research. This process blurred the boundaries between researcher, method and the object and subject of research. It meets some criteria for ethnography and not others, and does not evidence clear definitional boundaries for any sub-genre such as autoethnography or collaborative authoethnography. Besides raising definitional challenges and the blurring of roles in research, the study also illustrates how the methodology revealed tensions over collegial trust, boundaries and privacy. The authors colleagues exposed aspects of the authors identity that were opaque and even invisible to the author. The author accordingly raises questions about the locus of ethical concern. Thus, issues of roles, definition, trust, boundaries, privacy and method were entwined.

Professional academic development through professional journal dialogue

This paper presents the cooperative analysis by a lecturer and an academic development practitioner of a reflective journal dialogue over the 12 weeks of teaching a postgraduate course. Through a retrospective analysis of the journal the present paper explores the following issues: the framing of an inquiry; the personal–professional nexus; and tensions in professional academic practice. These issues encompass educational dilemmas for both the lecturer and the academic development practitioner in the areas of assessment, judgement, evidence, accountability, responsibility, authority and professionalism.

Anxious academics: talking back to the audit culture through collegial, critical and creative autoethnography

ABSTRACT Our New Zealand university recently required us to produce portfolios for a research evaluation process. At a presentation promoting and explaining the process, we raised questions and objections. Pointlessly, it seemed. But we continued to rail and rant about it. One of us set in motion the following discussion, presented here as a series of critical and creative autoethnographic responses. We have resisted, with some anxiety, the urge and the expectation to theorize our experiences or to situate them within ‘the literature’. Our proposition is that ‘giving voice’ in the manner in which we have done so is an affective means of ‘talking back’ against neo-liberal regimes of performativity which may also be effective as a form of localized resistance, strengthening our ability to cope with the anxiety such regimes provoke. We hope our efforts encourage others to develop critical, creative and collegial responses to academic audit regimes.

What is your MBA for? What’s the story?

This article shows how the MBA plays a role in some students’ lives that goes beyond conscious cost–benefit analyses and instrumental value and engages the personal and intimate. It presents a thematic analysis of essays written by MBA students exploring what their MBA was for. The analysis revealed that the MBA functioned as an element or character in a life story and how, in some instances, doing the MBA was not about the MBA as such. The article advances our understanding of the MBA as an element in a life story, as a rite of passage, and as part of the intersection of boundaryless careers and changeable life patterns. Enhancing the awareness of this on the part of students may improve their understanding of what they are doing by embarking on an MBA and could enhance the ability of faculty and business schools to address the sometimes less explicit interests of their students. The article also confirms the value of a qualitative ‘storied’ approach to the study of the MBA.