The cost of managerialism in the university: an autoethnographical account of an academic redundancy process
<p class="first" id="d272181e69">This paper presents an autoethnographical account of the events associated with the author's redundancy from a tenured academic position at Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. I...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Pluto Journals
2015-05-01
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| Series: | Prometheus |
| Online Access: | https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.1080/08109028.2015.1092213 |
| Summary: | <p class="first" id="d272181e69">This paper presents an autoethnographical account of the events associated with the
author's redundancy from a tenured academic position at Murdoch Business School, Murdoch
University, Perth, Western Australia. It is argued that managerialism, a social philosophy
that sees the management of a university to be little different from the management
of a for-profit business, provided university management with a rationale for a course
of action that imposed heavy costs on individuals and undermined core academic values.
The apparent weakness of the protection provided by tenure is highlighted by the mechanisms
through which university management exerted control over the academic employment relationship.
The cost of imposing management's will to win at all costs corrodes valuable aspects
of academic work, such as collegiality, trust and the sharing of information. The
paper shows that the various mechanisms of control imposed by a university management
that adheres to managerialist principles can destroy much of what is worthwhile in
the university. What is left is something with little spirit and nothing worthwhile
to manage.
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| ISSN: | 0810-9028 1470-1030 |