How complex domination enables selection: Academic hiring conventions in a Pakistani university

ABSTRACT

The heterogeneity of criteria and of the faculty members involved in assessing candidates for academic positions raises the question how colleagues can find a common operational mode that enables them to select candidates. In this paper, we draw on convention theory (CT) to examine how powerful actors foster quietude and confidence in prevailing conventions which perpetuate their privileges. Findings from a study of a university in Pakistan show how actors use coordinative power to amend regulations, but also highlight how participating colleagues may resist this. The findings help to explicate the notion of complex domination and enrich CT scholars’ understanding of factors that can exacerbate inequalities in hiring.

KEYWORDS:

• Convention theory
• complex domination
• engagement
• hiring
• university
• Pakistan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Qamar Ali http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1252-8630

Julia Brandl http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9586-6461

Notes

1 Other modes of engagement are planned action and exploration. We do not explicate these modes here since the distinction between publicly justifiable and familiar engagement is sufficient for our purposes.

2 According to the constitution of Pakistan, public sector universities are autonomous in all administrative matters.

3 The Ordinance of the university is issued by the respective provincial Government, or the Government of Pakistan in case of a federal university, at the time of its establishment. It provides a complete nomenclature and definitions of all authorities of the university.

4 An Urdu word with the dictionary meaning ‘recommendation’, but in practice stronger and deeper than this. A candidate who influences the hiring process through strong recommendations from either a politician, or a bureaucrat, or any influential person is called a Sifarishi candidate.