Seng Kiat Kok

The Move towards Managerialism: Perceptions of Staff in "Traditional" and "New" UK Universities.

The raison d’être of higher education institutions is to educate individuals, undertake research, and disseminate knowledge into the public domain. Changing values and norms in HEIs, partly as a product of “managerialism”, as well as increased competition for funding and other environmental factors, have moved autonomous institutions towards more business-like and private-sector ideals. These factors have different effects on the different “traditional” and “new” universities that operate within the higher education sector in the UK. This paper utilises the results of a UK survey of universities to determine the impact of these changes in universities. Results of a quantitative survey indicate that staff members in “traditional” universities feel strongly pressured to be research-recognised but that academic decisions are made by academics, whilst “new” universities viewed higher education as a business. Interestingly, both groups felt pressured to improve student numbers.

Underpinning Excellence in Higher Education--An Investigation into the Leadership, Governance and Management Behaviours of High-Performing Academic Departments.

The changes in government funding alongside external pressures of increased international and national competition have meant that higher education institutions need to excel in a turbulent environment. The leadership, governance and management (LGM) of academic departments are key concerns. This study investigates the correlation between behaviours, attitudes and competencies at a department level and overall departmental performance in terms of hard data measures. The research question this paper seeks to address is: what are the LGM behaviours that are associated with high-performance in academic departments? More than 600 people across 50 academic departments in 5 UK universities were surveyed through the use of three research phases consisting of open-ended questionnaires, critical case sampled semi-structured interviews and a fixed-response survey. Synthesising the data and findings of the study revealed a thematic framework of eight broad themes that contribute to excellence in academic departments. These were in the areas of change management, research and teaching, communication, strategy and shared values, leadership, departmental culture, rewards and staffing. The behaviours associated with each of these themes were used to construct the Underpinning Excellence model.

The Case of Thessaloniki’s Branding: Constructing Social Networking and CSR in the Digital Era

2012 was a celebratory year for Thessaloniki, Greece, mother land of Alexander the Great, marking 100 years since its liberation. In 2012, the municipality of Thessaloniki initiated an international sustainable development (SD) strategy. Part of this strategy was to launch a branding campaign with four thematic categories: (i) history; (ii) social activities and culture; (iii) environment and urban landscape and (iv) entrepreneurship. This chapter presents and critically analyzes these ongoing social, environmental and economic factors of Thessaloniki’s SD strategy. Maintaining as a focal point social responsibility (SR) and social networking this paper reveals the importance of innovative services in digital communication and social networking when branding a city’s profile. It presents the role of SR in branding and networking, and it outlines how Thessaloniki and its stakeholders are engaging, encountering and exploring digital and social profile potentials as well as the opportunities and perspectives for the years to come.