William Locke

The Early Career Paths and Employment Conditions of the Academic Profession in 17 Countries

The expansion of higher education systems, new demands on institutions and growing pressures on resources have become common trends across most developed countries. They bring increased expectations of academic staff and appear to lead to greater differentiation in their work roles and activities. At the same time, the backgrounds of some academics are changing and they are developing new specialisms and interdisciplinary collaborations, becoming more mobile domestically and internationally and, for some, the profession is becoming increasingly insecure. The Changing Academic Profession study has produced a rich set of data on the preparation of academics for their roles and the individual circumstances of their working lives, among other aspects of the profession. Respondents to the survey reported on the degrees they have attained, the countries in which they studied for them, the age at which they qualified and the nature of the doctoral training they received. This paper explores the early career paths of academics, makes initial comparisons between different higher education systems and begins to explore how some of these national systems interrelate with each other through academic mobility. Respondents also reported on the disciplines they studied and now teach, the number of institutions worked in and their contractual conditions and income. These data give an indication of the various degrees of flexibility and mobility required of – or chosen by – academics in the early and later stages of their careers and the stability, or perhaps rigidity, of different higher education systems and national career patterns. The data also supplement other evidence of the employment conditions and remuneration of scholars in an increasingly globalised academic labour market. 1 , 2 The conditions of academic work are explored through analysis of the views of survey respondents on the facilities, resources and personnel needed to support it and the degree of research collaboration undertaken. Academics from the 17 countries in the study seem more content with the physical and technical resources provided by their institutions than the personnel and funds available to support teaching and research. Finally, it is suggested that the propensity for collaborative or individual research may be partially related to national differences in academics’ mobility during their training for the profession.

The institutionalization of rankings: managing status anxiety in an increasingly marketized environment

This chapter is part of a larger effort to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) as organizations are responding to marketization, and how this influences intra-institutional relations, organizational cultures, and management styles (Locke and Botas 2009; Locke 2010). A recent study for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) by the author and colleagues concluded that institutional rankings were being used for a broader range of purposes than originally intended, and bestowed with more meaning than the data alone may bear (Locke 2008). The study found, in particular, that higher education institutions in England were strongly influenced by rankings in both their strategic decision-making and more routine management processes. Case study institutions reported increasing reference to the rankings by prospective students and their families and by academics seeking job opportunities. Other studies have highlighted their use by employers in the marketing of graduate jobs and the selection of candidates (Morley and Aynsley 2007). Yet, analysis of three UK national tables and two world rankings confirmed they largely reflected institutional reputation and resources rather than the quality or performance of institutions.

The United Kingdom: Academic Retreat or Professional Renewal?

In this chapter, we report a range of findings from the UK CAP survey that are relevant to the governance and management of HEIs and seek to interpret them within the context of UK higher education, the drivers that are influencing institutions and the changes occurring within the academic profession itself. We find that academics’ views on the governance and management of their institutions are differentiated by institution type in particular, but also by age, length of time in the profession, and gender. These distinctions bring into question the dominant discourse of change in the academy as one of loss, alienation, and retreat. Our analysis suggests that a more nuanced and differentiated approach is required if institutions and academics themselves are to achieve and sustain professional renewal. In particular, institutions seeking to differentiate themselves in the market will need to develop forms of governance and management that suit their particular mission and circumstances, rather than comply with government diktats.

Conceptions of Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Implications for Future Policy and Practice

As higher education has expanded from a rather small and elite activity experienced by a minority of the population into a mass system in which it is expected that a majority of the population will, at some point in their lives, gain a higher education experience, the range of learners engaging in higher learning has grown and diversified as has the range of provision on offer.

Satisfaction in Stages: The Academic Profession in the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth

Academic staff are often presented in analysis as though they are a homogenous entity, but little could be further from the truth. In this chapter, we argue that academics differ in their responses to the changes and new influences in higher education and that this might be partly explained by differences in status within academic and institutional hierarchies, subject characteristics and generational differences. The academic staff population has been divided into three groups: a ‘young’ group of respondents under the age of 40 that entered academia via traditional pathways; a ‘mature, recent’ group of academics who are over the age of 40 and have entered the profession within the last 10 years; and an ‘older, established’ group. To provide a point of comparison, the UK respondents have been compared with equivalent age groups from the British Commonwealth countries comprising Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Comparative Perspectives: Emerging Findings and Further Investigations

In this concluding chapter, we re-examine the working hypothesis of the book in the light of the foregoing analyses by individual country. We explore where and how the hypothesis outlined in the Introduction seems to work, or not, and why. In particular, we begin to make comparisons and summaries of the foregoing material by looking at each analytical component of the working hypothesis, such as shared governance, consultative management, and so on. We examine each of these factors in turn, looking across the countries participating in the CAP study and drawing out patterns as they appear to support or contradict the general hypothesis about institutional governance and management and faculty engagement in academic decision-making. Our overall conclusion is that the hypothesis has some merit, but raises questions for further analysis of the CAP data. Indeed, the findings included in this book point to a number of areas for further research identified by the CAP study, which are outlined at the end of this chapter.

The International Study of the Changing Academic Profession: A Unique Source for Examining the Academy’s Perception of Governance and Management in Comparative Perspective

In 2004 and 2005, a group of researchers from 22 countries agreed to plan and carry out an international survey of theChanging Academic Profession(CAP), focusing in part on the theme of academic perceptions of university governance and management. Twelve of the countries represented by these researchers had participated in a similar survey in 1992 (Boyer et al. 1994; Altbach 1996), and thus the CAP study opened up for these countries the prospect of a detailed comparison of some of the 1992 results with more recent findings.

Faculty Perceptions of Government and Management

A model of higher education decision-making was prevalent with shared governance. To assess faculty perceptions of the current state of higher educational governance and management, the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) project went to the field in 2007 in 18 countries. In most of the countries, faculty were more likely to perceive they have authority individually or through academic committees and boards. There is a decline in the institutional loyalty of academics from a similar survey conducted in 1992.