Knowledge, Higher Education, and the New Managerialism: The Changing Management of UK Universities
Rosemary Deem, Sam Hillyard, and Michael Reed
Abstract
The nature of Higher Education in the UK has changed over the last three decades. Academics can no longer be said to carry out their work in ‘ivory towers’, as increasing government intervention and a growing ‘target culture’ has changed the way they work. Increasingly universities have transformed from ‘communities of scholars’ to ‘workplaces’. The organization and administration of universities has seen a corresponding prevalence of ideas and strategies drawn from the ‘New Public Management’ ideology in response, promoting a more ‘business-focussed’ approach in the management of public servi ... More
The nature of Higher Education in the UK has changed over the last three decades. Academics can no longer be said to carry out their work in ‘ivory towers’, as increasing government intervention and a growing ‘target culture’ has changed the way they work. Increasingly universities have transformed from ‘communities of scholars’ to ‘workplaces’. The organization and administration of universities has seen a corresponding prevalence of ideas and strategies drawn from the ‘New Public Management’ ideology in response, promoting a more ‘business-focussed’ approach in the management of public services. This book examines the issues that these changes have had on academics, both as the ‘knowledge-workers’ managed, and the ‘manager-academic’. It draws on a study of academics holding management roles in sixteen UK universities, exploring their career histories and trajectories, and providing accounts of their values, practices, relationships with others, and their training and development as managers. Examining debates around ‘New Public Management’, knowledge management, and knowledge workers, the wider implications of these themes for policy innovation and strategy in HE and the public sector more generally are considered, developing a critical response to recent approaches to managing public services, and practical suggestions for improvements which could be made to the training and support of senior and middle managers in universities.
Keywords:
academics,
ivory towers,
university administration,
university organization,
New Public Management,
public services management,
manager-academic,
knowledge management
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199265909 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199265909.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Rosemary Deem, author
Professor of Education and Director of Research, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, University of Bristol
Author Webpage
Sam Hillyard, author
Lecturer in Sociology, School of Applied Sciences, University of Durham
Author Webpage
Michael Reed, author
Professor of Organizational Analysis, Cardiff Business School
Author Webpage
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