From Academic Profession to Higher
Education Workforce? Reflections on the
Academic Profession
5th Expert Seminar „Changing Academic and Teaching
Profession“ organised by CEP and ist UNESCO Chair,
23 – 25 November 2012 in Subotica, Serbia
Prof. Dr. Barbara M. Kehm
International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel
(INCHER-Kassel)
Email: kehm@incher.uni-kassel.de
Structure
1.
Introduction
2.
What is Governance and does it matter?
3.
The Impact of New Governance on the Academic
Profession
4.
The Role of the New Higher Education Professionals
5.
Preliminary Conclusions
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1. Introduction
More institutional autonomy to enable HEIs to react faster
and more flexibly to external challenges and demands.
Acquisition of strategic decision-making capacity and
professionalised management as a consequence
(actorhood).
Growth in number of highly qualified professionals to support
these processes of change (HEPROs).
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2. What is Governance and does it matter?
Governance: intentional processes of regulation
and coordination
Modes: hierarchies, markets, communities,
networks
Higher education governance: Less State, more
market, more institutional autonomy
But also: more accountability, more monitoring,
more competition
Multi-level governance: „moving up“, „moving
down“, „moving to the side“
Systems level governance
How should/can universities react to changing
conditions and external challenges?
Weakening: state control, academic self-control
Strengthening: instituional leadership,
competition, role of external stakeholders
But: Responsibility of the State is shifting to
other arenas rather than being reduced
Three new concepts of the role of the State:
(a) State mediates public/social interests and
makes HEIs contribute to wealth creation
(b) Strong role of markets but the State protects
against market failure
(c) State coordinates multiple actors and
stakeholders (network governance)
In reality: mixture of all three approaches with
an often diffuse distribution of power.
The Institutional Level
Reforms of internal strucutures and processes
Strenghtened and professionalised management
Inclusion of external stakeholders (Boards) in
strategic decision-making processes
Creation of a more integrated institution
(becoming an organisation) to enable actorhood
However, it remains unclear whether the logic of
the new strcutures and processes produces the
expected results
Essential NPM instruments:
- Lump sum budgets
- Introduction of Boards
- Professionalisation of top management/
deans
- weakening of collegial decision-making
- performance oriented salary components
and budget allocation
- goal agreements
- evaluation and accreditation
- qualitymanagement
-
establishment of institutional profiles and
branding
higher education pacts
new higher education professionals
increased competition and rankings
3. The Impact of New Governance on the
Academic Profession
Most visible: weakening of collegial decisionmaking power (abolishment of senates)
Monitoring and controlling the work of the
academic profession in terms of quality and
output
Providing incentives and/or performance related
salary components
Examples: Bologna reforms, doctoral training,
contracts with institution as employer
To summarize:
New forms of professionalisation
Work and performance is monitored
Quality notion is externalised
But: so far no restriction of academic freedom.
4. The Role of New Higher Education
Professionals (HEPROs)
Whitchurch (2008): „third space professionals“
Macfarlane (2011): „para-academics“
Rhoades (1998, 2001): „managerial professionals“
Deem (1998): „manager academics“
Rich body of literature in the last 20 years, dominantly from
Australia, Great Britain, Norway, and the USA.
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Central theme: „overcoming the simple dichotomy of
administrative versus academic staff“ (Rhoades
1998:116).
Four basic tasks and functions (Teichler 2005):
Preparation and support of management decisions
Professionalised services
Working in a hybrid sphere (between management and
services = „third space“)
Differentiation of teaching and research functions.
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First Empirical Findings
INCHER currently involved in two large projects (3 years, 4
young researchers):
(a) Influence of HEPROs on Teaching and Learning (funded
by Federal Ministry of Education and Research)
(b) EUROAC (The Changing Academic Profession in
Europe) funded by the German Research Association
and supported by the European Science Foundation
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Who are they?
The majority of HEPROs (60%) in Germany is female.
79 percent have a Master‘s degree, one quarter a PhD.
Many with experiences in academic teaching and research.
More than half have permanent positions.
More than two thirds reported that they were employed in a
newly created position.
Ca. one quarter carry out advisory, supervisory, support, and
information tasks.
19 percent see themselves in leadership functions.
17 percent have a coordinating, organising and/or managerial
function.
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What is their self-understanding?
Self-understanding as professionals still weak.
Professional identities vary.
They see themsleves as mediators between hierarchical
levels or as providers of services and support for particular
groups of (internal) clients.
Mostly they don‘t „control“.
Mainly coordination with a high proportion of advice.
Service providers or line managers.
Generalists and experts rather than specialists and
academics.
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What are they doing?
Broad variety of activities (18 areas identified)
Highest proportion of responses (27%) stated a mixture of job
tasks with no clear demarcations („unbounded“/“third space“)
Working at interfaces.
Shaping new fields of professional activity (e.g. Bologna
reform implementation, alumni work, fundraising, graduate
surveys).
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What kind of conflicts arise and with whom?
Generally positive acceptance and recognition of their work.
More appreciation from institutional management than from
professors.
Conflicts and tensions arise from professors who are adverse
to change.
Complaints: high burden of work, lack of time for further
qualification, fixed-term contracts, often high staff
fluctuation.
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Some European generalisations
The more managerial the institutional governance, the
higher the number of HEPROs.
Facilitative function is appreciated, creating additional
layers of bureaucracy is not.
HEPROs supporting institutional management are not
perceived by academics at all or their work is regarded
as intransparent.
HEPRO work creates new configurations of power
within institutions.
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5. Preliminary Conclusions
Multitude of HEPROs sharing a few commonalities (e.g.
academic background).
Heterogeneous job tasks but similar contract conditions.
Required competences: capability for independent work,
communication skills, ability to cooperate with various
status groups.
Process of professionalisation ongoing but not in the
traditional sociological sense.
Basically: formalisation of qualification requirements,
upgrading of status, emergence of a cognitive basis, and
formation of networks and a common identity.
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Academic values more important than bureaucratic values.
Relationships between HEPROs and academic staff still an
open question.
Necessary: research on identity and its links to the changing
functions and roles of academic staff and HEPROs.
Indications of a shift from pure to hybrid forms of
professionalisation.
Middlehurst (2010): The „universal higher education
professional“? Implications for changes in the ways in
which professionalization is happening in HEIs.
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Do we see a shift from the academic profession
to an academic workforce?
Yes: If we look at the contractual situation and
the forms of monitoring and control of work and
performace (most progressed in the UK).
No: In most European countries not suffciently
clear (yet). I prefer to speak of a differentiation
of academic work and new forms of
professionalisation.
Research: academic identities, job satisfaction,
changed forms of professionalisation.
Thank you for your attention !
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