Re-Positioning University Governance and Academic Work

Book excerpt: This book examines changing ways that academic work is governed—from outside and inside universities—in the shifting social, cultural and political contexts of new times. Chapters trace developments in institutions, national sectors, and internationally—all applying a global scope to identify significant shifts in the broader conditions of university operation. Attention is given to governance processes across all key domains of academic work: teaching, research, leadership, management and institutional organisation. Key trends are analysed, including risk management, audit culture, league tables, techniques of accountability, and more. These investigations bring forth re-conceptions of university ‘governance’ as involving increasingly distributed and networked arrays of mechanisms, affecting academic work practices, relations, values, emotional labours and identities. Ambiguities, tensions and complexities of academic work are explored; and questions are raised as to whether prevailing managerial modes of governance can address these features of university engagement with globalising contexts.