The influence of organisational features in high-ranked universities: the case of Australia

ABSTRACT

This article examines the influence of major institutional components, academic support mechanisms and organisational climate on scholarly productivity in high-ranked universities. Qualitative data were collected from senior academics working in high-ranked Australian universities. The data were examined using thematic descriptive and content analysis techniques. The results indicate that academic support practices help save time by providing excelled knowledge related to new pedagogies and research preparation and by offering project management support. Results also show that a participatory work environment and fair institutional policies and practices generate intrinsic and extrinsic incentives to enhance academic role performance. Accordingly, to promote their institutional prestige, university managers should operate selective financial and human resource investment strategies. To elevate the ranking of their institutions, they need to establish essential academic support structures and institute multi-directional communication networks with less bureaucracy, simplified hierarchical structures, effective reward systems, well-designed career planning and informative performance reviews.

KEYWORDS:

• University rankings
• high-ranked universities
• organisational features
• support practices
• organisational climate

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Prof. Anthony Welch, The University of Sydney, for his collaboration and guidance during the research in Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author’s visit to Australia was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) with Reference No: B.14.2.TBT.0.06.01-214-6041.