Hard Labour Academic Work And The Changing Landscape Of Higher Education

Drawing on data from Australia, England and New Zealand, this book addresses how neo liberal policies of successive governments have decreased autonomy of academics and increased regimes of surveillance, radically altering how academics think about and engage in their intellectual work.

Drawing on data from Australia, England and New Zealand, this book addresses how neo liberal policies of successive governments have decreased autonomy of academics and increased regimes of surveillance, radically altering how academics think about and engage in their intellectual work.

Leadership in universities is physically, intellectually and emotionally demanding work. It involves multiple and complex tasks and responsibilities such as staff management, strategic management, operational planning, financial and resources management, policy development, quality assurance processes, improving student outcomes, and engaging with community and the professions/industry. Leadership is not simply the act of being a leader, it is the act of leadership that projects ‘success’ and ‘desirable’ attributes. Leadership has the capacity to be deeply seductive yet it is not an immediately attractive option for women, particularly for those who carry the burden of family and domestic responsibilities, for whom finding a space for leading is no easy task. Yet despite the almost pessimistic research evidence, women are in senior leadership positions in higher education, however precarious their numbers. There can be little doubt that universities benefit from diversity in their student and staff population This book addresses the central questions; Who are the women who survive and occupy elite leadership roles in universities? How might their leadership be shaped by and a consequence of institutional climate? What strategies do they learn and adopt and how do they lead and manage their female colleagues? What about those women who do not ‘fit’ the gender script? The chapters overview the changing policy landscape in higher education; provide a critical commentary on the interplay between gender, leadership, higher education, and organisational diversity, and draw on education and critical management literatures in order to offer a broader understanding of gender and elite leadership; This book will be essential reading for anyone involved or interested in higher education policy and management, academic leadership, organisational diversity and gender studies.

Over the last three decades, higher education institutions have experienced massive changes. In particular, institutions of higher education have been positioned as a means to contribute to the knowledge economy and gain a level of competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Advancing Knowledge in Higher Education: Universities in Turbulent Times addresses ways in which knowledge is shaped, produced, and reworked to meet international demands for productive workforces. Divided into three sections that interrogate the higher education policy context, knowledge production, and knowledge workers, this reference publication focuses on the role of higher education in business value creation and competitive advantage, serving as a useful reference for academicians, professionals, researchers, and students.

Academic Working Lives: Experience, Practice and Change examines the ways in which lecturers and their roles have developed in the modern academic workplace. The book offers insights into changing occupational roles, institutions and the adaptations around flexible and mobile working in everyday professional life. The editors have drawn together an impressive range of research perspectives and themed topics that cover the key aspects of academic professional identity and relationships, as well as reflecting experiences of learning and development at work in today's academy. The contributors explore lecturers' everyday working experiences in the light of the impact of policy changes, and the modes of academic leadership and management in contemporary higher education. Contributions reflect situations and contexts from across the UK and internationally, in taking account of the changing workforce, evolving pedagogies and new technologies in the working lives of today's educational professionals.

Education Game Changers is written for an international readership. This book refers to all education levels and sectors and builds on research in educational leadership, education business, and organizational change. Karen E. Starr describes policy paradoxes challenging the sustainability of educational provision as we know it and the imperatives they present for educational leadership, business, and governance. This book critiques the paradoxical education policy context while exploring alternative futures they may spawn. It ponders both possibilities and pitfalls that cannot be ignored by instrumental players such as governments, policy-makers, educational leaders and business managers, researchers, and analysts. This book unveils rising cases of education business failures around the world, the paucity of governance and business skill on educational boards, and the irrational contradictions faced by governments in determining education policy.

Calls up the international evidence and arguments to investigate how academic labor is being reconstructed, transformed, and reorganized in response to the global restructuring of capitalism. Illustrates new social relations being forced in the academic workplace; new paradoxes, dilemmas, and contractions to replace the old ones; and a shift from indirect control to more ideological forms working through corporatist notions of quality, excellence, output, efficiency, and effectiveness. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Labour of Words in Higher Education: is it Time to Reoccupy McPolicy? critically examines a widespread tendency in university policy to attribute the academic labour of staff and students to strategies, technologies and socially constructed buzz phrases.