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Constructing Organizations: The Example of Public Sector Reform
Abstract
Organizations are socially constructed phenomena. A crucial task for organizational research is to analyze how and why people construct organizations rather than other social forms. In this paper, it is argued that recent public-sector reforms can be interpreted as attempts at constructing organizations. Public-sector entities that could formerly be described as agents or arenas have been transformed into 'more complete' organizations by installing or reinforcing local identity, hierarchy and rationality. This interpretation helps to explain important aspects of the reform process.
... Greenwood et al. (2011) argue that position, structure, ownership/governance, and identity frame organizations' institutional complexity experiences and response repertoire. Based on the constructing complete organizations argument of Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson (2000), Seeber et al. (2014) use the dimensions of identity, hierarchy, and rationality to examine the changing organizational forms in HE. While the agency framework of Huisman & Burgoa (2023) includes elements of legitimacy, identity, and image, Thoenig & Paradeise (2016) argue that organizational processes, including human resources management, a common corporate identity, and governance style, are decisive for building the strategic capacity of universities. ...
... The obtained strategies with direct quotations were thematized inductively. For this purpose, the discussions on organizational actorhood (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Krücken & Meier, 2006;Zapp et al., 2021) and previous findings regarding the organizational dimension in HE (Fumasoli et al., 2020;Seeber et al., 2015;Thoenig & Paradeise, 2016) were our fundamental reference points. For inter-coder reliability, the encodings suggested by two of the three researchers have been deemed appropriate. ...
... It was determined that the positioning strategies of Turkish public HEIs exploit fifty-one positioning strategies for the themes of goal orientation, elaboration of formal structures, collective resources, social citizenship, identity, boundary spanning, accountability, and image. It can be claimed that the research results are based on a unique combination of different classifications in the relevant literature (Greenwood et al., 2011;Fumasoli et al., 2020;Huisman & Burgoa, 2023;Seeber et al., 2014;Thoenig & Paradeise, 2016) compatible with constructing complete organizations by Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson (2000). The ability to produce and modify certain types of organizational skills and knowledge in a way that is difficult to imitate (Maassen et al., 2011) requires coordination across the domains of culture (changes in meanings, roles, and identities), structure (changes in the organization of people and work), and resources (both people and funding) (Pinheiro & Stensaker, 2014). ...
This study explores the positioning strategies within the Turkish higher education sector, focusing on how public universities establish their organizational actorhood. The research involved analyzing the differentiation strategy sections from the strategic plans of 125 public universities in Türkiye. Using both deductive and inductive thematic analyses, the study revealed that Turkish public universities place a strong emphasis on research, which could potentially reinforce the existing hierarchy among the three core missions of modern higher education. The analysis identified fifty-one distinct positioning strategies, categorized into the themes of goal orientation, elaboration of formal structures, collective resources, social citizenship, identity, boundary spanning, accountability, and image. While the findings suggest that Turkish public universities are making strategic efforts, there remains a need to bolster regulatory environment-based incentives within a unique, tailored model.
... In this paper, we address the implementation gap by specifically focusing on contexts where policy implementation has been largely delegated to partially autonomous public service providers (Christensen, Laegreid and Røvik, 2020) as part of the process of decentralizing and autonomising public sector activities promoted by new governance models such as New Public Management (Ferlie et al., 1996;Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000). While their mandate is largely defined by the State, these organizations (for example: universities, schools, and public hospitals) also behave as strategic actors pursuing their goals (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000) and are exposed to external pressures from society, professional communities, and economic markets. Therefore, they may respond to policy interventions in unexpected and heterogeneous ways (Durand et al., 2019;Oliver, 1991), thereby influencing the effectiveness of policy implementation (Christensen, Laegreid and Røvik, 2020). ...
... While these organizations are still part of the public sector and endowed by an explicit mandate to achieve policy goals, they are situated farther from the public administration and frequently deliver services on a cost basis in market settings (e.g., competing with private providers). In many countries, policy reforms were introduced to transform these organizations into strategic actors (Arellano-Gault et al., 2013;Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000) and to grant them more strategic and managerial autonomy (Verhoest et al., 2004), albeit with substantial cross-country variations in terms of the extent and type of autonomy (de Boer et al., 2007;Seeber et al., 2015). ...
... Second the literature suggests that both individual organizational characteristics (Durand et al., 2019) and the field's structure (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011) affect organizational responses. Accordingly, we consider the extent to which HEIs have been constructed into a strategic actor and have been granted strategic and managerial autonomy (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;de Boer et al., 2007;Christensen, 2011) and to which extent academics maintained their power and resisted pressures toward managerialization (Townley, 2002). Further, we analyze the extent of resource dependency from the state and of financial autonomy as a major driver of organizational responses (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). ...
The goal of this paper is to contribute toward bridging the gap between policy design and implementation by focusing on domains, such as education, healthcare and community services , where policy implementation is largely left to the autonomous decision of public service providers, which are strategic actors themselves. More specifically, we suggest that two characteristics of policy design spaces in which policies are designed, i.e., the level of ideational coherence and the prevailing function of the adopted policy instruments, generate systematic patterns of responses in terms of the extent of compliance with policy goals, the presence of strategic gaming and possible defiance. We illustrate our model through a contrastive case study of the introduction of performance-based funding in the higher education sector in four European countries (France, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom). Our analysis displays that policy designs chosen by governments to steer public systems have different trade-offs in terms of responses of the public organizations involved that are essential to effectively implement governmental policies. The model we are proposing provides therefore a framework to understand how these interactions unfold in specific contexts, what are their effects on the achievement of policy goals and how policymakers could exploit their degrees of freedom in policy design to reduce unwanted effects.
... Previous higher education studies explored how the strengthening of managerial core (Donina & Paleari, 2019;Gornitzka et al., 2017;Kretek et al., 2013) and the re-conceptualization of universities into more 'complete organizations' (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersen, 2000;Seeber et al., 2015) affect university governance and how the governance changes fit into the local academic traditions (e.g. Christensen et al., 2014;Donina & Paleari, 2019). ...
... It was accompanied by declining powers of academic collegial bodies whose role was confined to academic matters (Sahlin, 2012). Thus, in many countries, the traditional models of self-governance, 'republic of science' (Polanyi, 1962), 'republic of scholars' (Brubacher, 1967), 'organized anarchies' (Cohen et al., 1972) and 'loosely coupled systems' (Weick, 1976) have been replaced by vertical decision-making processes, featuring a system of appointments and transformation of universities into so-called 'complete organizations (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersen, 2000). ...
... In short, there was the perception that Polish universities were unable to connect with the changing society and economy (EC, 2017, p. 61). Therefore, it was deemed necessary to transform them from loosely coupled organizations into tightly knit ones (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersen, 2000) by increasing organizational autonomy, strengthening the role of academic leadership, shifting from a horizontal to a vertical decision-making process and limiting the role of academic collegial councils (senate, faculty council). The reform thus aims to make universities more accountable through the involvement of external stakeholders in governance. ...
This article explores rectors' perceptions of the changes to university governance in Poland, especially the impact of lay members on university councils. We investigate whether these new governing bodies make Polish universities more relevant to the needs of the economy and society. Empirical data from a large-scale national survey of Polish public universities, carried out with the support of the Rectors' Conference (KRASP), provide a mixed picture of how the university councils have been adopted and used in the govern-ance process. On reflection, rectors regard university councils as benign, with respect to key values of Polish universities (institu-tional autonomy and self-governance) but largely ineffective in contributing to the decision-making process. Overall, the university councils represent an important but only symbolic change in the governance of Polish universities.
... Finally, our findings will be discussed in relation to previous research, and the aim of the article. Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000) argue that various governments with different ideologies in many OECD countries have introduced and implemented many public service reforms in haste and with little or no resistance. In these reforms, chief executives are regarded as managers rather than civil servants. ...
... In these reforms, chief executives are regarded as managers rather than civil servants. Since managers are allowed greater discretion in their work, Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000) believe that the role of leader is emphasised in these reforms, and a need for training in leadership and management emerges. Management accounting techniques are then used to control people accountable for results and activities. ...
This article analyses union journals in Sweden and Finland since 1990. In doing so, the article recognises the journals as principals’ collective professional voice regarding major education reform dynamics. Our findings suggest that principals in both Nordic countries, as collective actors, have clearly influenced reforms of the school system significantly. The unions serve as a strong voice with major influence in both professional and reform ambitions. However, the main arguments for the respective professional projects were similar, although professional ambitions were different in both cases: discretion for more educational leadership, without explaining what educational leadership means in detail.
... A central component of the so-called new public management reforms was to change various departments of the public administration into legal persons by turning them into business corporations controlled by the state or local government or by outsourcing them to corporations under private control (Christensen and Pallesen 2001). Remaining departments were given such legal-person characteristics as autonomy, ownership-like capacity, and actorhood (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000). The traditional view that state authorities were mere agents for a higher political level and that schools, universities, or hospitals were mainly arenas for work controlled by professionals was replaced by a view of these units as highly autonomous actors. ...
... Other authors used the concept of organization for the same phenomenon. Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000) described the new public management reforms as a massive-scale construction of organizations, but not organizations in the traditional sense of a group of interacting people. The fact that departments, schools, and universities in the public sector employed people for cooperation towards a common goal was not a new phenomenon. ...
The social construction of legal persons developed in the Western world about one thousand years ago has historically influenced the construction of organizations, including monasteries, guilds, cities, universities, states, associations, and businesses. Yet the notion of legal person was not present in influential, early definitions of organizations; rather organizations were understood as systems of interacting physical persons. This understanding is problematic in several respects, whereas the notion of legal person helps to explain many fundamental characteristics of organizations. Furthermore, a definition of organizations inspired by the notion of legal person makes it easier to distinguish clearly among the three phenomena that constitute the main objects of organization studies: organizations, organizing, and the organized. A clearer distinction among three concepts has the potential to revive old questions and generate new questions for organizational research.
... This could-in terms of Arora- Jonsson et al.'s (2020Jonsson et al.'s ( , 2021 framework-be explained by pointing to how several elements required for competition were missing. Schools were not constructed as actors that took initiative to alter the number of students; instead, schools were agents that fulfilled various duties given by the municipality (cf Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). Moreover, there existed a desire among principals to have many students, but it was a generalized desire that was not connected to or seen as being affected by similar desires of other principals. ...
... An additional precompetition change concerned the organizational identities of schools. A change in the identities of schools from that of agents conducting duties, to that of actors taking initiatives (cf Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson, 2000) was a key shift in making principals construct their perceptions of competition. This meant principals had to assume increased responsibilities, including strategy and marketing work (Erixon Arreman and Holm, 2011a, b)-most clearly visible in the near frenzy-like program profiling among certain schools. ...
Significant efforts have been made to promote competition in public service sectors, expanding the reach of competition into non-economic fields. Surprisingly little is, however, known about the process by which competition is introduced into such settings. We examine this process, focusing on a Swedish municipality’s efforts to implement competition for students among its schools. By incorporating recent theoretical advancements regarding competition as an organized relationship, and utilizing a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, we shed light on the organizational efforts undertaken by politicians and bureaucrats to teach their schools to compete. We find that introducing competition can be complex, time-consuming and that it requires substantial organizational commitment. We highlight the existence of varying perceptions of competition among different stakeholders following its introduction. These findings suggest the need for future research that addresses questions about the costs of, and interests behind, introducing competition, as well as questions about responsibility for the subsequent effects of competition.
... During the last decades, organizational and decision making structures within universities have been informed and justified by two broad set of ideas. According to the first, one may consider the university as a "republic of scholars," whereas the second regards the university as a "corporate enterprise" (Brunsson and Sahlin 2000;Musselin 2007;Neave 1998;Olsen 2007). In the former case, institutional autonomy and academic freedom are considered two sides of the same coinwhich means that leadership and decision making are based on collegial decisions made by independent scholars. ...
... Still, there is an ongoing controversy as to what kind of organizations universities are or ought to be. The NPM ideal implies that public agencies (public universities included) ought to become "complete organizations" (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000) with clear goals and managerial capacities to operate as strategic actors. From an alternative perspective, it is argued that by the very nature of their missions, universities are "specific organizations" that operate with unclear technologies and under conditions that call for bottom-up decision making. ...
... As Czarniawska and Joerges (1996, p. 24) put it, the translation perspective is attractive because 'it comprises what exists and what is created; the relationship between humans and ideas, ideas and objects, and humans and objects -all needed in order to understand what in shorthand we call "organizational change"'. Previous research has shown that public organization's adaptation of ideas tends to follow certain patterns (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000;Czarniawska 2005;Sahlin-Andersson and Engwall 2002). Social services in Sweden possess high degrees of self-government, and adaptation of ideas can be viewed as following norms, ideals, and values (Corvellec and Eriksson-Zetterquist 2017). ...
... In der Forschung werden Hochschulen häufig als »besondere Organisation[en]« (Musselin, 2007) bezeichnet, da sich durch zahlreiche Reformbemühungen der Wandel der Hochschulen von der Institution zur Organisation verfestigt hat (Meier, 2009;Pellert, 1999). Damit einher ging ein »Rückzug des Staates« (Kehm, 2008, S. 18) von einer engen Prozess-hin zu einer Output-Steuerung, die Hochschulen im Rahmen des New Public Management rationalisieren (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000) und durch Leistungsanreize die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit erhöhen sollte (Huber, 2020). Dies festigte das Verständnis, Hochschulen nicht nur als Institutionen, sondern auch als Organisationen zu betrachten (Pasternack, 2019;Wilkesmann & Schmid, 2012). ...
Sowohl Digitalisierung als auch Diversität zählen derzeit zu den zentralen strategischen Zukunftsaufgaben von Hochschulen. Im Hochschulkontext werden die beiden Themenfelder jedoch häufig getrennt voneinander betrachtet und ihre Verschränkungen nur punktuell thematisiert. Im Sinne einer integrativen Hochschulentwicklung gilt es,die beiden Themenfelder stärker zusammen zudenken und einen genaueren Blick auf die Verschränkung von Digitalitäts- und Diversitätsfragen zuwerfen. Dieser Beitrag greift ausgewählte Aspekte auf, die für eine produktive Bearbeitung dieses Themenkomplexes relevant sind. Dabei wird mit einer organisationstheoretischen Brille das Verhältnis dieser beiden Zukunftsaufgaben in der Organisation Hochschule betrachtet.
Both digitisation and diversity are currently at the forefront of universities’ strategic agendas for the future. In the context of higher education, however, the two issues are often considered separatelyand their interrelationship is only occasionally addressed. In terms of inclusive higher education development,it is important to consider the two issues together and to look more closely at the inter-relationship between digitalisation and diversity issues. This article takes up selected aspects thatare relevant for a productive approach to this complex of issues. The relationship between these two future tasks in university organisationis examined from an organisational theory perspective.
... In response to the dynamic shifts in society, in many systems, universities have begun to evolve as organisations. Universities have adapted their organisational structures, transforming from loosely coupled communities of professionals into more 'real' or 'comprehensive' entities (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Seeber et al., 2015). Universities have also become increasingly hybrid organisations, influenced by the aforementioned changes. ...
... Wir konzentrieren unsere Analyse auf außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtungen. Damit lässt sich einerseits pragmatisch eine Fokussierung der Fragestellung erreichen, andererseits spüren wir der These nach, dass außeruniversitäre Forschung als beabsichtigte Differenzierung von universitärer Forschung entsteht, um andere Forschungsbedingungen zu etablieren oder andere Forschungsergebnisse zu erzielen als an Universitäten. Zugleich sind außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtungen typischerweise "vollständige" Organisationen, während europäische Universitäten (gerade im Vergleich zu den US-amerikanischen Universitäten) als weniger formalisiert und managerialisiert gelten dürfen (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Clark, 1995;Cole, 2009;Seeber et al., 2014). ...
Der Beitrag diskutiert den Zusammenhang von Organisationsform, institutionellem Kontext und der konkreten Forschungstätigkeit außeruniversitärer Forschungseinrichtungen im 20. Jahrhundert. Hierzu bezieht er sich auf Erkenntnisse der fünfzehn Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes. Es werden die zentralen Forschungsfragen vorgestellt, entlang derer die Beiträge abgefasst wurden, sowie die daraus verallgemeinerbaren historisch-soziologischen Befunde. Weiterhin wird ein konzeptuelles Schema zur Einordnung historischer Fälle vorgestellt. Das Ergebnis unserer Analyse lautet: Die Erneuerung der Forschung findet auf zwei Weisen statt. Entweder werden für neue Forschungsthemen und -gebiete neue Forschungseinrichtungen und teilweise neue Organisationsformen etabliert, oder ein wissenschaftlich erfolgreiches Thema oder Gebiet wird organisational in Form neuer Forschungskapazitäten expandiert.
... Wir konzentrieren unsere Analyse auf außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtungen. Damit lässt sich einerseits pragmatisch eine Fokussierung der Fragestellung erreichen, andererseits spüren wir der These nach, dass außeruniversitäre Forschung als beabsichtigte Differenzierung von universitärer Forschung entsteht, um andere Forschungsbedingungen zu etablieren oder andere Forschungsergebnisse zu erzielen als an Universitäten. Zugleich sind außeruniversitäre Forschungseinrichtungen typischerweise "vollständige" Organisationen, während europäische Universitäten (gerade im Vergleich zu den US-amerikanischen Universitäten) als weniger formalisiert und managerialisiert gelten dürfen (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Clark, 1995;Cole, 2009;Seeber et al., 2014). ...
Das Buch untersucht, wie die organisationale Gestaltung von Forschungseinrichtungen ihre inhaltliche und methodische Ausrichtung beeinflusst und wie sich Disziplinen und Forschungsfelder im Laufe der Zeit gewandelt und an neue institutionelle Kontexte angepasst haben. Die präsentierten historischen Fallgeschichten werden mithilfe eines gemeinsamen Analyserasters in Beziehung zueinander gesetzt. Auf diese Weise sind über die Einzelfälle hinaus allgemeine Einsichten möglich. Hierzu gehört, dass sich neue Forschungsgebiete häufig besser in Forschungseinrichtungen außerhalb der Hochschulen etablieren lassen. Auch können Forschungsgebiete dann erfolgreich etabliert werden, wenn Institute und Zentren ein Mindestmaß an organisatorischer und finanzieller Selbstständigkeit erhalten. Dabei erscheint die Rechtsform weniger bedeutsam zu sein als die mittel- und langfristigen Finanzierungsbedingungen. Es sind in erster Linie die finanziellen Arrangements, die die Organisationsform einer Forschungseinrichtung prägen und nicht umgekehrt. Der Band vermittelt Erkenntnisse zu neuartigen Organisationsformen und der Transformation von bestehenden Forschungseinrichtungen in den Natur-, Sozial- und Technikwissenschaften. Die zeitliche Abdeckung der untersuchten Einrichtungen umfasst das gesamte 20. Jahrhundert und reicht häufig bis ins 21. Jahrhundert hinein. Der Band ist daher nicht nur für Wissenschafts- und Technikhistorikerinnen sowie historisch orientierte Soziologen und Politikwissenschaftler von Interesse, sondern auch für Entscheidungsträger in Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik.
... The driving principles behind the reforms in Scandinavian HEIs have remained remarkably consistent, centering around the values of quality, efficiency, and relevance [Bleiklie & Michelsen, 2019]. In short, therefore, Scandinavian HEIs are becoming more active, promotional, and "complete" organizations -characterized by a well-defined identity, a hierarchical structure, and the capacity for rational action [Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000]. ...
This study explores the evolving, however also "messy", role of communication professionals in higher education institutions (HEIs), who are involved in organizational science communication. Despite substantial growth and professionalization within HEIs' communication departments, limited research delves into these professionals' own perspectives and their self-understanding. Our investigation employs a metaphors-in-use perspective, through 26 interviews in ten Scandinavian HEIs. The paper contributes to the research on organizational science communication by unraveling the metaphors used by communication professionals: the salesman, the marketplace-facilitator, the police, the missionary, the storyteller, and the overhead-cost, gaining an understanding of how communication professionals perceive their own role.
... A related issue is how public hierarchies simultaneously are loosened up and confirmed when the power superior communicates to lower levels: Do as we say -behave as an autonomous organization. Public institutions within a hierarchy become partial organizations striving to become what they can never be(Andersen and Pors, 2017;Brunsson and Sahlin- Andersson, 2000). ...
In this essay, we introduce recent debates on both concepts of organization and organization's future. Since Max Weber's ideas gained acceptance, there has been a strong link between social theory (rationalized modernity) and a concept of organization (bureaucracy) in organization theory as well as organizational sociology. Today, organizational scholarship challenges, but at the same time defends, this classical link. We argue that both positions can be substantiated empirically. This situation motivates a debate on updating and revitalizing the link between organizational concepts and social theories that we aim to put forward with this special issue of Critical Sociology. We discuss the assembled contributions in relation to this fundamental conceptual debate of organization research and conclude that the richness of social theories can still serve as an inspiration to explain recent organizational phenomena.
... Research institutes such as the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, the National Research Council in Italy and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in China are funded by the state directly. In many countries, governments have also assigned the block grants system to universities in ways that are challenging to characterise as competitive mechanisms for research funding (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000). The block grants system offers notable benefits that enable scientists to dedicatedly pursue their research goals amidst uncertainty and over prolonged periods, thereby relieving them from the burdensome task of continual resource acquisition. ...
The funding of scientific research is a critical concern for universities. Although the peer-review grants system promotes competition and research excellence, it is resource-intensive and disadvantageous for junior faculty members. Conversely, the block grants system offers an alternative, enabling universities to nurture talent and sustain long-term research. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is transforming university research and intensifying funding competition, necessitating a re-evaluation of the balance between peer-review and block grants systems. This paper advocates for a mixed funding system, with a greater emphasis on the block grants system, to establish an effective approach in supporting diverse research pursuits in the GAI era. By recalibrating the balance between peer-review and block grants, this proposed system aims to alleviate administrative burdens while providing a dependable foundation for early-career scholars. However, empirically substantiating this argument is challenging due to the recent emergence of GAI with insufficient data. To address this, we examine China’s science and technology system, which has recently experienced a significant increase in research grant applications. This case study offers insights into GAI’s potential effects on research funding. Our analysis contributes to the ongoing debate on optimal research funding strategies in the face of rapid technological change.
... I litteraturen finns en dominerande bild av att både det byråkratiska och det professionsbaserade idealet fått ge vika för 110 konkurrerande ideal. Framför allt har det handlat om det som beskrivs som managerialism (Waring, 2023), som inbegriper ett fokus på organisationen som självständig enhet, ledarskap i stället för chefskap och vikten av ett proaktivt förhållningssätt gentemot omgivningen (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Evetts, 2003;Learmonth, 2005). Detta ideal hamnar i vissa avseenden i konflikt med de tidigare rådande idealen. ...
... As a consequence of ongoing liberalization in Swedish education sector (Jarl et al., 2012), several schools finance their "business" via the stock market. This uniqueness is attributed to the variety of legal forms that schools can take, including those of stock market companies, making them more similar to private sector organizations (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). This pluralism poses and will continue to pose fundamental challenges from both quality and financial management perspectives within the Swedish school system (Fredriksson, 2009) and teaching profession (Arreman and Holm, 2011). ...
Purpose
This essay focuses on an argument that challenges the notion of market reform as a desirable idea. It examines how market requirements, accounting practices, political intervention and organizational conditions interact and create conflicts in the implementation of market reform. In our case study, we aim to elucidate the detrimental effects of expanding pricing mechanisms into areas typically untouched.
Design/methodology/approach
The essay adopts a critical perspective toward the marketization in the public sector organizations based on the authors' previous studies and observations of the reforms in Swedish schools over the last 30 years. The case is conceptualized within Callon’s framework of the sociology of worth.
Findings
The paper provides an example of market dynamics introduced without the presence of pricing and qualification mechanisms, resulting in a trial-and-error situation. In this context, we document and problematize a trend toward marketization that has had negative consequences for Swedish schools. In doing so, the paper shows how market requirements, accounting practices, political interventions and organizational conditions interact and create conflicts during the implementation of market reforms. The case shows the emergence of a new economic entity and its underlying rationale, the quantification/pricing mechanism, with a special emphasis on the role of accounting and the repercussions on subjectivities as values shift.
Originality/value
This paper follows up on the New Public Financial Management (NPFM) global warning debate on the emergence of pricing/charging mechanisms in public services. It provides a critical overview of the diffusion and relevance of accounting evaluation processes to sustain continuous reforms, despite claimed criticisms, limitations and (un)intended consequences. The paper also provides some reflections on new avenues for further research and some possible ways out for accounting studies.
... Modern administrative models stressed individuals, organisations, and government agencies as autonomous actors that are capable of rational decisions and management (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000;Krücken and Meier 2006;Meyer 2010). As a result, social scientific emphases on efficiency, effectiveness, and rationality become more central; building on principles of early twentieth century 'scientific management' (Shenhav 2002;Taylor 1911). ...
... The aim is to make universities more accountable, transparent, and efficient (Bleiklie et al., 2011;Ferlie et al., 2008). It in turn, led to the formal strengthening of the university leadership managerial role (Bleiklie et al., 2011) and the introduction of a more hierarchical-bureaucratic model of governance (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). ...
Public organizations have widely adopted corporate entrepreneurial strategy. The complex and financially constrained context in which public organizations operate calls for the implementation of entrepreneurial actions. Our study validates the theoretical framework of Kearney and Meynhardt (Int Public Manage J 19(4):543–572, 2016), which recognizes strategic vision and organizational factors as the main components of corporate entrepreneurial strategy and theorize its main antecedents and outcomes. Thus, by analyzing the public University of Bergamo as a single case study, we demonstrate that entrepreneurial orientation is beneficial for public organizations such as universities. Specifically, the entrepreneurial leadership was able to recognize opportunities in the unsupportive political external environment characterizing the entire Italian public sector during the period 2009-2015. The austerity policy known as the Gelmini reform was designed to make public organizations more efficient and transparent, by cutting personnel costs, by explicitly accounting for university budgets, and introducing external controls on university governance and performance. Despite the climate of general austerity, the entrepreneurial leadership succeeded in engaging several stakeholders and grounding an entrepreneurial strategy at the university. This has significantly changed the image of this public organization.
... Global development in recent decades appears to have summoned higher education institutions to strengthen and professionalise higher education management at the expense of the influence of the academic community (Christensen, 2011;Dobbins et al., 2011;Maassen & Stensaker, 2019). A transformation from loosely coupled organisations towards more complete organisations has entailed strengthened organisational identities, hierarchies, and rationality (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Maassen & Stensaker, 2019). A formerly self-governed community of scholars (with the scientific community as the main frame of reference) has now been summoned to recognise and affirm the influence of the central management, strategies, and policies in new ways. ...
Leadership in higher education is widely recognised as existing within a network of actors situated at different organisational levels and encompassing a broad variety of tasks and assignments. Leadership interactions are partly pedagogical in character, meaning that their goal is to support, both directly and indirectly, the development of the insights, understandings, and competencies of others. This chapter draws on examples of contemporary research in higher education to provide an overview of how pedagogical leadership can emerge at different leadership levels. We apply the non-affirmative theory of education to enable a conceptual understanding of the pedagogical nature of interactions among higher education leadership at and between all levels of leadership. Drawing from contemporary research concerning higher education leadership, this chapter elucidates the pedagogical dimensions of leadership at various levels in higher education.
... When firms became contemporary organizations, they started to be described as "postmodern" (Caporaso, 1996;Hirschhorn, 1997;Kumar, 2009;Parker, 1992) or "postindustrial" (Bell, 1976;Huber, 1984;Masuda, 1980;Touraine, 1971). Similarly, government agencies and other large bureaucracies shifted to become "postbureaucratic" (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Kernaghan, 2000). And previous forms of associational and prosocial activity become "nonprofit organizations" constituting a "nonprofit sector" as they are transformed into modern organizational actors (Hwang & Suárez, 2019). ...
What is the nonprofit sector and why does it exist? Collecting the writing of some of the most creative minds in the field of nonprofit studies, this book challenges our traditional understanding of the role and purpose of the nonprofit sector. It reflects on the ways in which new cultural and economic shifts bring existing assumptions into question and offers new conceptualizations of the nonprofit sector that will inform, provoke, and inspire. Nonprofit organization and activity is an enormously important part of social, cultural, and economic life around the world, but our conceptualization of their place in modern society is far from complete. Reimagining Nonprofits provides fresh insights that are necessary for understanding nonprofit organizations and sectors in the 21st century.
... Yliopistojen ainoa vaihtoehto ei kuitenkaan ole valita joko NPM:n (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000) edustaman yritysmallin tai perinteisen kollegiaalisen mallin (Weick, 1976) väliltä. Niiden olisi myös mahdollista omaksua molempia hallinnollisia näkökulmia edustava hybridimalli, jossa yhdistyy formaalien sääntöjen ja hierarkian sekä asiantuntijoiden autonomiaa korostavan desentralisaation mukainen johtamistapa (Enders ym., 2013). ...
Korkeakoulupolitiikkaa on muovattu uuden julkisjohtamisen ajatusten mukaisesti 2000-luvun taitteesta lähtien. Korkeakoulujen globaalistuminen on johtanut kilpailukyky- ja tehokkuusdiskurssin vahvistumiseen. Yliopistolain (2009) voimaan astuminen muutti merkittävästi yliopistojen autonomista asemaa ja hallintorakenteita sekä mahdollisti johtosääntöjen muovaamisen strategisempaan suuntaan. Kollegiaalisten perinteiden arvostamisesta huolimatta ovat managerialistiset johtamiskäytännöt tutkimusten mukaan yleistyneet myös yliopistojen toimintamallina Suomessa. Tässä artikkelissa kuvataan keskeisimmät tulokset tutkimuksesta, jonka keskiössä oli analysoida managerialistisia muutoksia julkisoikeudellisten monialayliopistojen johtosäännöissä. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittivat yliopistojen johtosäännöissä tapahtuneen managerialistisen siirtymän sekä muutokset päätöksentekorakenteissa.
... Decisions about new professorships and faculty appointments were delegated to the universities in 1993. In addition, universities were subject to the same organizational reforms as other public bodies according to widely circulated popular enterprise models (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Sahlin, 2013). With these developments, universities increasingly became organized as organizational actors (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016) and in 2011, legal requirements for universities to have collegial bodies (i.e., faculty boards) responsible for the quality and content of research and higher education were eliminated. ...
... These managerial reforms aim to initiate and stimulate organizational development (Hüther & Krücken, 2018) and an overall higher autonomy in decisionmaking (Bleiklie et al., 2017). Thus, the literature features concepts like 'complete organizations' (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000), 'organizational actorhood' (Krücken & Meier, 2006) and 'strategic actors' (Whitley, 2008). Previously decentralized, loosely coupled higher education institutions may develop into strategic actors capable of action and increasingly centrally managed organizations. ...
Universities are increasingly perceived as strategic organizational actors that position themselves in the competition for reputation, resources, and talent. This study asks whether such positioning within the organizational field can explain variance in university governance structures. We quantitatively explore and explain the distribution of governance structures in German universities based on the actual organizational structures. Using original, hand-coded data on office, election, and decision rules of 80 German state universities managed by the subnational states (Länder), our study contributes to the existing literature in two regards. First, we provide an innovative and comprehensive, as well as a detailed description of German university governance—capturing the full empirical variance. Second, we test the effects of organizational field positions characterized by (1) state legislation, (2) competition, and (3) disciplinary foci. The findings indicate significant effects on the distribution of governance structures by state legislation and unsystematic effects of strategic and disciplinary organizational fields.
... In the last few decades, in stark contrast to the older image of universities as loosely coupled, organized anarchies (Clark, 1998;Cohen et al., 1972), we have observed the transformation of universities into "complete organizations" with identity, rationality, and hierarchy (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000), giving rise to the "actorhood imperative" or the "calls for action in the name of the self " (Bloch, 2021, p. 489). Often described as the formalization and rationalization of universities (Kim et al., 2019;Ramirez, 2006aRamirez, , 2006bRamirez & Christensen, 2013) or an organizational or managerial turn (Krücken et al., 2013;Krücken & Meier, 2006), the university becomes "an integrated, goal-oriented, and competitive entity, in which management and leadership play an ever more important role" (Krücken, 2020, p. 163). ...
... In response to these competitive pressures, universities have grown more managerialized and have become organizational actors (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000;Drori et al., 2003;Krücken & Meier, 2006;Lee & Ramirez, 2023, Vol. 86;Oliver-Lumerman & Drori, 2021;Ramirez, 2010;Ramirez & Christensen, 2013), that is, autonomous, goal-oriented, and accountable entities (Bromley & Meyer, 2017;Krücken & Meier, 2006;Meyer & Bromley, 2013). ...
Higher education institutions have undergone a transformation over the past few decades, from loosely coupled systems to more centrally managed organizations. Central to this ongoing development is the increasing competition for resources and reputation, driving higher education institutions to rationalize their structures and practices. In our study, we focused on changes in job
advertisements for professorships in Germany from 1990 to 2010. Findings showed that the requirements stipulated by universities for professorial positions have become increasingly differentiated (and measurable) over time. In this context, competitive aspects, such as third-party funding, international orientation, or publications, have particularly come to the fore and grown significantly in importance. We discuss these findings in light of an increasing managerialization of higher education institutions, which has a direct effect on collegiality. We argue that the differentiation of professorial job profiles leads to even more formalized appointment processes and may push collegial governance into the background.
... The same argument goes for the use of markets and market-inspired theories, which were only considered as "useful" approaches and concepts, once market mechanisms were introduced in higher education (with the exception of early applications in the United States; Leslie & Johnson, 1974). The argument can be extended to the lack of early engagement of higher education scholars with themes like organizational identity and image: In a context in which governments largely dictated the missions of their higher education institutions and these institutions were not yet "complete organizations" (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000), higher education did not seem a priority area for studying identity, image, and related themes like branding (but see Clark, 1972, for an exception; see also Dumay et al., 2017, for an overview). These points support the overall idea that much of higher education researchers' curiosity continued to be driven by real-time challenges in higher education, and to a lesser extent by theoretical puzzles. ...
The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state and have functioned as obstacles, rather than resources, for our understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. In the last two decades, both social theory and comparative politics have attempted to overcome these limitations in their own way. Social theory increasingly acknowledged education as a global phenomenon. Theories have been developed to describe a global society evolving across borders. They show how, through processes that remain debated (cultural isomorphism, capitalism, functional differentiation), a number of structural and semantic evolutions have spread across education systems. Part I of this Handbook is dedicated to presenting, discussing, and comparing three such theories of globalization and their implications for our understanding of education and education policy. Comparative politics has for its part concerned itself with developing a more complex, less unified, and “transformationalist” view of the state by acknowledging the fragmentation and distribution of its functions among distinct domains and levels. Part II gravitates around this global constellation, with chapters focusing on global reforms, norms, and ideas put forward by supranational organizations, on international accountability processes and on the ways in which nation states or local actors adopt, implement, or resist global ideas and reforms. The two parts reflect these disciplinary approaches to the relation between globalization and education. Together, these two approaches seek to provide a comprehensive overview of how globalization and education interact to result in distinct and varying outcomes across world regions.
... It was largely possible as, since 2011, all Polish (public) HEIs are legally obliged to prepare an institutional strategy (Article 1, Sections 51 and 53 of the Act of 18 March 2011 amending the Law on Higher Education, the Act on academic degrees and title, degrees and title in arts, and amending certain other acts) as part of the legal responsibility of the rector. It is part of a broader transformation of public HEIs into 'complete organisations' (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000), which often results in nothing but a façade. The analysis of strategic documents published by HEIs demonstrates that they tend to address contemporary institutional problems related to the financial situation or demographic trends. ...
This paper addresses the problem of the development of postgraduate education in Poland. It aims to analyse how the different types of higher education institutions (HEIs), such as public universities, public universities of applied sciences (UAS) and private sector organisations, engage in postgraduate learning. It draws data from 11 case studies of HEIs which were individually studied with the help of an analysis of institutional strategic documents, as well as 49 individual in-depth interviews with university leaders and academic staff involved in postgraduate education. Drawing on this data, the paper offers two major conclusions. The hierarchy of organisational resources determines the institutional policy of HEIs and provides an account of different levels of institutional involvement in the development of postgraduate studies. It demonstrates the reason private HEIs are the most active in the market of postgraduate education followed by UAS. Second, private HEIs depict typical features for the ‘complete organisations’ helping them to acquire the lion’s share of the postgraduate market. However, public universities with traditional governance models remain relatively passive in this field, allowing individual academics to perform their business.
... These different types of positionings that we uncover in our research can add nuance to the literature that asserts a close link between competition and organisational actorhood (Arora-Jonsson et al. 2020;Hasse and Krücken 2013). This literature argues that competition and organisational agency are closely linked because competition requires organisational capacities to act collectively, something that is -among other things -rooted in organisational identity (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000) and calls to study the interplay between competition and actorhood more strongly (Hasse and Krücken 2013). According to Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson, endowing an organisation with identity means "emphasizing its autonomy, and defining its boundaries and collective resources (…) [and] also involves the idea of being special, of possessing special characteristics, at the same time as being part of a highly general category, the organization" (2000, 724, our emphasis). ...
This article examines how digitalisation is used for organisational distinction in the field of Swiss universities for the period 2010-2020. It shows that digitalisation does not fundamentally challenge the order of the Swiss university field but triggers competitive dynamics that are accompanied by different forms of identity articulation. The article concludes that the interplay of competition and identity articulation of actors is complex and must be analyzed in the context of relative field positions. Zusammenfassung: Dieser Artikel untersucht, wie die Digitalisierung zur organisatorischen Distinktion im Bereich der Schweizer Hochschulen im Zeitraum 2010-2020 genutzt wird. Er zeigt, dass die Digitalisierung die Ordnung des Schweizer Hochschulfeldes nicht grundsätzlich in Frage stellt, sondern Konkurrenzdynamiken auslöst. Der Artikel zeigt, dass das Selbstver-ständnis als digitale Universität mit relativen Wettbewerbspositionen im Feld verbunden ist.
... Despite clear national differences, it is safe to say that the traditional collegial governance model ("republic of scholars") has been dismantled. In its place a new model, "the corporate enterprise," has informed HE reforms since the 1980s, based on the idea that HE institutions should be managed like any other public or private enterprise (Bleiklie et al., 2000(Bleiklie et al., , 2017Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). These reforms have affected how HE institutions are managed and funded, how quality assurance and evaluation is organized, how work is organized and not least the fact that HE institutions have become integrated in standardized HE systems and supranational arrangements (Bleiklie et al., 2017). ...
The paper deals with the future of Norwegian higher education as part of a Nordic project on higher education futures. To identify future scenarios for Norwegian higher education (HE), the paper uses the theoretical lens of historical institutionalism to focus on scenario building. Like in the other Nordic countries, Norwegian HE and research are characterized by easily accessible and free public HE provision, high participation rates, and a high level of investment in HE and research. However, the question is this: If we look back at the development of Norwegian HE the last decades, to what extent can we expect present developments to persist and to what extent can we expect more or less sharp breaks and deviations from past and present developments? Departing from an institutionalist position, two historically grounded visions and related scenarios are identified: an academic excellence scenario and a national service scenario. The scenarios reflect tensions between different visions of the shape, emphasis, and orientation of HE and research. The empirical focus is on the developments of HE along five dimensions: growth, systemic integration, academic drift, labor market relevance, and governance. First, the conceptual approach is presented, outlining the use of scenarios and an institutionalist approach to thinking about the future of HE. Secondly, the paper outlines the five trends regarding past and ongoing developments. Third, some ideas about future developments are outlined, before the conclusion is drawn.
... Policy reforms inspired by NPM constitute the perfect example of contingencies shaping leadership's power. NPM policies were designed to liberate universities from direct state control and restructure them into hierarchical, rule-based institutions (Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson 2000) through regulatory reforms (Donina, Meoli, and Paleari 2015), market arrangements (Teixeira et al. 2006) and various evaluation systems (Bleiklie and Kogan 2007). Since the implementation of these policies, universities have been evaluated according to their performance and funds to be allocated accordingly. ...
We examine the political power exerted by Italian rectors by investigating the preferential treatment received by the organisational subunits they belong to in terms of personnel resource allocation. During the rectors’ mandate, their organisational subunits tend to grow significantly more (by ∼9%) than the others. The effect persists even after the implementation of the New public management-inspired policy – the Gelmini reform.
Drawing on the analysis of staff restructuring in universities around the world, the article stresses the growing share of non-academic staff, in particular highly qualified middle and senior administrative staff.
The purpose of the article is to analyze how a combination of different categories of administrative staff is represented in universities according to their functions.
Based on the cluster analysis of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations (N = 92), three groups of universities were identified according to administrative profiles: enterprising, educational and infrastructural. The first cluster is characterized by a high proportion of administrative staff engaged in general management, research, financial issues and information and communication technologies. The second cluster has a high proportion of staff engaged in providing educational activities. The third cluster is characterized by a high proportion of personnel engaged in the maintenance and operation of infrastructure and buildings. Universities with an infrastructural administrative profile are characterized by the presence of a larger area of educational and laboratory facilities per student, however, universities in the sample do not differ in terms of scientific, educational and financial activities.
This article focuses on explaining management control under post‐new public management (NPM). Drawing on the lessons from a case study, the article aims to advance the discussion of what post‐NPM, as a new governance innovation, is and what problems practitioners encounter when they try to engage in post‐NPM–oriented governance. The study reports the transformation of both management and control at the Swedish Public Employment Service Agency (PES) with the help of the framework of enabling and coercive control. The case study demonstrates how practitioners encountered problems when trying to balance enabling practices with hierarchical accountability. In the case of PES, the study shows how the organization failed to find this balance and how the problem with reduced hierarchical accountability gradually shifted the calculative practices and slowly reimposed performance measures, result‐orientation, and hierarchical control. The article contributes to the contemporary public sector accounting discussion on how and to what extent we can move beyond NPM, both empirically by following a public organization's attempt to engage with post‐NPM, and theoretically by theorizing post‐NPM as a new government innovation and placing greater emphasis on how accounting practices need to adapt to a post‐NPM–oriented governance.
In recent decades, the role o communication and PR within higher education institutions (HEIs) has grown in significance, marked by the expansion o communication departments, diversified work assignments or communication professionals, and an increasing focus on reputation and visibility. This study examines 203 job advertisements targeting communication professionals in Swedish HEIs from 1999 to 2022. Our analysis identifies a substantial shift in the expectations and roles o communication professionals. It reveals a pronounced trend o increasing expectations, necessitating candidates to possess a broader and deeper skill set to manage a wider spectrum o responsibilities in HEIs. Furthermore, while our findings signal a noteworthy transformation in the communication profession, it also shows the evolvement from a supportive unction to a strategically integral role in aiding and informing institutional management and leadership. Moreover, this study highlights communication departments as particularly flexible sites for receiving and incorporating external trends and ideas in university organizations.
The path to sustainable higher education transformation is shaped by higher education policy requirements that meet higher education practice and related challenges. A Whole Institution Approach is needed to achieve the goal of overall institutional change at universities in the sense of sustainable development, involving all key stakeholder groups. Students and student initiatives are seen to play a central role as pioneers of change. Based on political demands, committed students want to help shape change processes at universities. Within the discourse on sustainable higher education transformation, the student perspective therefore represents an important but so far little studied group of actors. This article describes sustainable higher education transformation in Germany from the perspective of organizational theory and explores the possibilities of student participation. Fundamental to sustainable higher education transformation is the high complexity of higher education as an organization, which also determines the potential for change.
Purpose
This study aims to examine the role of performance management systems (PMSs) in enabling logic blending to manage institutional complexity and tensions arising from coexisting institutional logics.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses a case study of an Australian non-government organisation (NGO) operating in an institutional field dominated by the state government, in which policy reform jolted the balance between institutional logics. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, archival documents and observations.
Findings
We find the policy reform required the NGO to transform from a wholly care focus to accommodate a more balanced approach with a focus on care coupled with efficiency, outcome delivery and performance measurement. The NGO responded by revising its purpose, strategy and operational model and by seeking to address the imperatives of two dominant and often competing care and managerial logics. We find this was achieved through logic blending, in which PMSs played a pivotal role, with the formalisation and collaboration processes mobilising different elements of PMSs, mobilising some elements differently or not mobilising some elements at all.
Originality/value
This study highlights the central role of PMSs in managing tensions between and the complexity arising from coexisting institutional logics through logic blending, a form of enduring compromise. This study extends the accounting logics and performance management literature by developing the understanding of what constitutes logic blending and how it is distinct from other forms of compromise.
The values held by policy makers can influence policy change. But what those values are and their source has received little attention. We argue that one source of these values – and associated differences – are rooted in generational ‘social frames’. We provide evidence from an exploratory survey in British Columbia, Canada, where transformative changes in water policy are being implemented, which include potential changes in water governance to include First Nations (or Indigenous Peoples). Controlling for a range of variables, we found consistent generational differences between personal and organizational values, differences in priorities, and preferences for certain types of economic instruments between Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennial respondents. We offer our thoughts as to how these differences may influence the policy process. We also call for public water agencies to develop structures that harness this diversity for internal policy learning, adaptation and innovation.
In this article, we explore the question of how membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions are used at German professorships to organize research. Using these five criteria of an organization from Ahrne and Brunsson (Organization, 18(1):83–104, 2011) as a theoretical pattern, we shed light on the meso-level of universities in the German higher education system—the professorship. It is at this level that the collaborative production of research is organized. We show which organizational mechanisms are necessary for this joint production process, how the practical implementation and interpretation of rules as an organizational process take place at the professorships, as well as various negotiations and sanctions. In the German higher education system, professors are the superiors of their academic staff. The professor decides on the hiring and renewal of employees and is the supervisor of doctoral candidates, who in the German higher education system are mostly employed as research assistants. To illustrate the characteristics of the criteria, we draw on empirical material from mixed-methods research, which made it possible to contrast and substantiate the special features of professorships in Germany from different perspectives and data.
Abstract
Universities are located between the societal macro - level and the micro - level of interaction. In integrating these elements, they are committed to the inherent logics of science and educa-tion, but as "hybrid" organizations they are increasingly infused with the logics of politics and business. In maintaining their "own" logics while balancing them against the logics of "for-eign" functional systems lies a societal task of management that goes beyond an instrumental understanding of internal coordination. It requires sensemaking. Managers should therefore be able to reflect on this role in the mirror of social science theory dealing with the relationship between organization and society.
Angesichts disruptiver gesellschaftlicher Transformationsprozesse stellt sich für eine „Hochschulbildung der Zukunft“ nicht nur die Frage, wie Prozesse des Lehrens und Lernens zukünftig aussehen werden. Vielmehr stellt sich mit Blick auf die organisationale Rahmung des Lehrens und Lernens auch die Frage, wie eine QM-Praxis in einer komplexen, unsicheren und dynamischen Welt ausgestaltet werden kann. Ausgehend von Bezugspunkten zur QM- sowie zur Organisations- und Managementforschung sowie mit Verweis auf Erfahrungen aus einem Projekt an der HAW Hamburg werden Eckpunkte für eine mögliche Neuausrichtung der QM-Praxis vorgestellt. Reflexion und Forschungsorientierung werden dabei als wesentliche Gestaltungselemente verstanden.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the pandemic affects the motivation and job satisfaction of university researchers as a whole and by their separate groups by gender, age, academic position (career stage) and degree.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors studied French universities for changes in motivation and job satisfaction among researchers under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, two hypotheses were tested, using the one-way ANOVA parametric test and the Kruskal–Wallis nonparametric statistical test with the data collected during the in-depth interviews and surveys with university researchers from the Paris Diderot University and Jean Moulin University of Lyon III in 2019 and 2021.
Findings
There were found significant differences between changes in motivation and job satisfaction of respondent groups by gender, career stage and scientific degrees. All these differences in changes confirm hypothesis about the significant impact of the pandemic on certain motivators and elements of job satisfaction of various groups of university researchers. The study showed that pandemic restrictions and fears positively affect the motivation and job satisfaction of the younger generation of researchers and males, and negatively on the older generation and female researchers. During the pandemic, early-stage researchers are mostly unhappy only with the salary and the lack of teaching skills. While experienced and senior researchers do not have time to fulfill all their duties due to overload by a combination of different forms of teaching, many teaching hours, administrative duties and mastering new communication tools.
Research limitations/implications
The results capture the selective impact of pandemic restrictions, its physical and mental effects on academic staff. Although only two universities in a single country were considered, the findings show the heterogeneity of the perception of new (pandemic) working conditions by different groups of university workers. If such heterogeneity is revealed in the example of two universities, then it is very likely to be observable also in broader studies.
Practical implications
The results of this study can help university administrations, higher education regulators and national research agencies address the needs of all groups of researchers, alleviating the most acute restrictions and fears caused by the pandemic and providing the necessary incentives for relevant groups, e.g. higher salary, teaching school and awards for young researchers and a lower teaching loading for experienced and senior researchers.
Originality/value
This is the first study that define pandemic impact on motivation and job satisfaction of university researchers in France.
The European Commission recently incentivized universities to establish alliances in order to institutionalise regional collaboration through the European Universities Initiative (EUI). Alliances are envisioned to maintain Europe’s global position and enhance regional integration. Their mission statements are ways of signalling identity and legitimacy and are used for strategic planning and performance frameworks. This study explores how 31 EUI alliances communicate their identity using insights from institutional theory and strategic balance. Findings reveal that EUI alliances anchor their identity within low risk and easily accepted areas of value to stakeholders and project homogenisation in regionally institutionalised areas. However, alliance missions also articulate in varying levels of detail a range of ambitions in claims, which demonstrate areas alliances chose to distinguish themselves. The findings provide insight into how alliances exert bounded agency within a regional initiative and highlight potentially competing tensions within the initiative.
As a result of a change of government and a period of economic crisis in Sweden, the public and the private sectors changed roles in the eyes of public opinion. The public sector, previously a positive model of social action, became an “ugly sister” of the supposedly more effective and more efficient private sector. This article, based on interviews with the General Directors of Swedish central government agencies, presents the consequences of these events for the self-image, leadership and personnel management within the public sector. The analysis suggests that a vicious circle has been formed: as long as the public sector is evaluated on the basis of criteria taken from the private sector, there is no room for improvements.
This paper examines the processes by which a form of responsibility accounting system emerges in an organizational context. The paper utilizes recent approaches to the understanding of how science and technology is created (Latour, Science in Action, Harvard University Press, 1987) to investigate the processes by which a management budgeting initiative in the U.K. hospital system takes hold (or not) in specific hospitals. The approach is critical of the notion that accounting systems are well-defined technologies which are designed and then implemented (or face resistance). Instead, the study shows that management budgeting is fabricated, put together in a changing and fragile manner. Emerging accounting systems are not fixed technologies with well-defined purposes which reflect patterns of responsibility but changing constructions. Management budgeting systems are initiated with loose characteristics, purposes and uses. In the process of their design and implementation, new possibilities for decision making and definitions of responsibility emerge. Through this study of accounting in action, the paper explores the processes by which accounting and budgeting systems bring economic logic into hospital management. It is also relevant to debates about the role of budgeting and accounting in health care organizations in many countries.
This essay reports on a series of empirical studies conducted in public sector organizations in Sweden between 1985 and 1990. The analysis for these studies employs a framework that combines institutional theory with a narrative approach. “Identity” is considered, along with the “market” and the “state,” as a modern institution. The analysis of the ways in which a modern identity is constructed supports the claim that identity has a narrative character. This perspective is then applied to interpretation of developments in public sector organizations, whose identity has been challenged and is currently reformulated.
S'appuyant sur des enquêtes réalisées dans l'enseignement supérieur et au ministère de l'équipement, les auteurs proposent une analyse des pratiques contractuelles qui ont été développées au sein du secteur public entre des directions centrales et leurs unités locales. Ils montrent tout d'abord que ces contrats valent moins par les documents qui les concrétisent que par le processus engagé pour les élaborer et les mettre en œuvre. Toutefois, si ces dispositifs contractuels ont contribué à modifier les relations centre-périphérie dans les deux cas étudiés et à accroître l'autonomie des unités locales, ils restent inscrits dans une logique de pilotage vertical et centralisateur.
The complexity of formal organizations in modern societies is explored by making reference to two institutionalized organizational types: The 'political organization' and the 'company'. These types differ to how organizational environments and inner workings are constructed. They regulate how actual organizations can be formed. But the regulation is far from perfect: many organizations contain elements from both types. Organizations are politicized and 'company-ized'. This 'institutional confusion' may arise by processes in which organizations imitate individual features of other organizations, in which they unsuccessfully try to realize one of the types or in which they adapt to changing external conditions.
This article identifies the main themes in recent changes in public sector management and shows the extent of the challenge to past organizational assumptions. While recognizing the objectives of the changes could bring benefits if realized, it argues that there are a series of issues that are unresolved. The language of consumerism, the development of government by contracts, the form of performance management and the use of quasi-markets are seen as creating problems. These are seen as deriving from an attempt to apply approaches drawn from the private sector to the public domain. It is argued that they need to be balanced by approaches that recognize the values of the public sector.
Much social scientific inquiry seeks to specify the conditions and mechanisms underpinning the flow of social practices among actors within some larger system. Sociology, rural sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, and communication studies all have rich traditions of diffusion research. 1 Virtually everything seems to diffuse: rumors, prescription practices, boiled drinking water, totems, hybrid corn, job classification systems, organizational structures, church attendance, national sovereignty. Whether viewed as a hindrance to structural-functional analysis, 2 the deposited trace of social structure, 3 or a fundamental source of social control and change, 4 diffusion seems critical to social analysis.
This article discusses: the doctrinal content of the group of ideas known as ‘new public management’(NPM); the intellectual provenance of those ideas; explanations for their apparent persuasiveness in the 1980 s; and criticisms which have been made of the new doctrines. Particular attention is paid to the claim that NPM offers an all-purpose key to better provision of public services. This article argues that NFM has been most commonly criticized in terms of a claimed contradiction between ‘equity’ and ‘efficiency’ values, but that any critique which is to survive NPM's claim to ‘infinite reprogrammability’ must be couched in terms of possible conflicts between administrative values. The conclusion is that the ESRC'S Management in Government’ research initiative has been more valuable in helping to identify rather than to definitively answer, the key conceptual questions raised by NPM.
In this paper we argue that understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts requires more than a technical description of accounting information systems as they are conceived and designed in abstract. What is required are studies of the way in which accounting systems become embodied, through use, in organisational systems of accountability. We present a framework for analysing the operation of systems of accountability in organisations, and illustrate this by contrasting, in an ideal-typical manner, forms of accountability in relationships characterised by regular face-to-face contacts, with forms of accountability in relationships which span physical distance.
The concern of this paper is to extend the critique of accounting through an exploration of the more inclusive concept of accountability. The paper begins by stating the positive effects upon the individual of being held accountable, and then goes on to explore how different forms of accountability produce different senses of our self and our relationship to others. It is argued that hierarchical forms of accountability, in which accounting currently plays a central role, serve to produce and reproduce an individualized sense of self; a sense of the self as essentially solitary and singular, nervously preoccupied with how one is seen. These effects are contrasted with what are described as socializing forms of accountability which flourish in the informal spaces of organizations and which confirm self in a way that emphasizes the interdependence of self and others. The tensions and interdependencies between these two forms of accountability are then explored. It is argued that contemporary organizational accountability is constructed around an untenable and destructive split of ethical and strategic concerns to the detriment of both. The search for the possibilities of accountability should be oriented to the reconciliation of this divide.
The limitations of formal administrative controls in organizations performing complex production tasks have created the need for less obtrusive forms of management control. When formal administrative controls cannot cater to the unpredictability of complex work demands, one strategy is to employ “professionals” who have been trained to cope with these demands and whose behaviour is primarily controlled through social and self-control mechanisms. There is some question, however, as to the effectiveness of this strategy. There is evidence that integrating professionals into bureaucratic organizations creates the potential for a “clash of cultures”. Conflict emerges when salaried professionals engage in behaviour directed towards increasing their own autonomy (or in some cases maintaining it) and management implement control systems designed to control that behaviour. This paper argues that the degree of conflict experienced will depend on the individual role orientation of the professional and the extent to which management confront professionals with bureaucratic administrative systems which restrict their self-regulatory activities. The study was undertaken in a large public teaching hospital in Australia and the results support the theoretical position taken in the paper.
Changes in public sector accounting in a number of OECD countries over the 1980s were central to the rise of the “New Public Management” (NPM) and its associated doctrines of public accountability and organizational best practice. This paper discusses the rise of NPM as an alternative to the tradition of public accountability embodied in progressive-era public administration ideas. It argues that, in spite of allegations of internationalization and the adoption of a new global paradigm in public management, there was considerable variation in the extent to which different OECD countries adopted NPM over the 1980s. It further argues that conventional explanations of the rise of NPM (“Englishness”, party political incumbency, economic performance record and government size) seem hard to sustain even from a relatively brief inspection of such cross-national data as are available, and that an explanation based on initial endowment may give us a different perspective on those changes.
El objetivo general de este trabajo es el de ofrecer un perfil completo de los or�genes, la evoluci�n y el multiforme desarrollo de la historia de la contabilidad en Espa�a, as� como de su posible evoluci�n futura. Haciendo referencia a las actividades cient�ficas y a los estudios m�s recientes se ha intentado mostrar el notable grado de desarrollo alcanzado por esta disciplina, gracias entre otras cosas a la sinergia lograda por la colaboraci�n entre las instituciones acad�micas y las organizaciones profesionales, una caracter�stica particular de la experiencia espa�ola. Inserto en un cuadro de s�ntesis general, se ofrece el relato de esta experiencia, que ha conseguido situar la historia de la contabilidad espa�ola y sus representantes en el primer lugar del concierto europeo. The general purpose of this paper is to offer a complete profile of the origins, the evolution and the multiform development of accounting history in Spain, as well as the possible directions of its future evolution. Making reference to the scientific activities and the most recent studies it has been tried to show the remarkable degree of development reached by this discipline, thanks among other things to the synergy obtained by the collaboration between the academic institutions and the professional organizations, a particular characteristic of the Spanish experience. Inserted in a general picture of synthesis, this paper offers an account of this experience, an experience that has been able to locate the Spanish accounting history and its representatives in the first place of the European environment.
A quoi sert un indicateur de satisfaction des usagers dans la gouvernance d’une collectivité territoriale ? Telle est la question à laquelle cet article tente d’apporter des éléments de réponse. S’appuyant sur les travaux analysant le contrôle de gestion comme un outil de gouvernance disciplinaire, l’étude proposée de huit indicateurs montre que les dimensions apprentissage et discipline de l’évaluation, loin d’être exclusives l’une de l’autre, sont imbriquées et adaptées à chaque contexte de gouvernance. La logique de discipline apparaît ainsi liée à la fonction cognitive d’apprentissage des services publics avec son environnement en étant source de visibilité, comparabilité et surveillance. Afin de prendre en compte les réticences des acteurs-partenaires et d’éviter l’échec des démarches, des activités de traduction sont mises en œuvre.
- Nahavandi, Afsaneh