Narrative, zombie academic leadership, and the contemporary university

ABSTRACT

This essay uses a narrative – in this case a fictional dialogue – to explore how neoliberalism and managerialism is taken forward in unexpected ways in the contemporary university. In order to make sense of zombie academic leadership, I turn my attention to how it is cultivated in the academy by using the ‘case of J’, which is taken from MacIntyre’s work titled, ‘Social structure and their threats to moral agency’. Indeed, the ‘case of J’ is used as a valuable resource for understanding how certain social structures cultivate zombie academic leaders through the phenomenon of compartmentalisation. This is then followed by a critical discussion and analysis of the fictional dialogue on zombie academic leadership. I argue that the zombie metaphor is an apt articulation of zombie academic leaders because they lack the capacity to exercise their powers of rational agency beyond what a particular role requires. I finish by briefly considering whether reform is possible or not in the contemporary university.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• fictional dialogue
• zombie academic leadership
• compartmentalisation
• contemporary university

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Although not exhaustive, for some recent, and relevant examples, see the following: A Methodology of the Heart: Evoking Academic and Daily Life (Pelias, 2004), ‘Embodiment, academic, and the audit culture: a story seeking consideration’ (Sparkes, 2007), ‘Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy’ (Burrows, 2012), ‘The spirit of research has changed’: reverberations from researcher identities in managerial times’ (Elizabeth & Grant, 2013), The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology (Smyth, 2017), Public Universities, Managerialism and the Value of Higher Education (Watts, 2017), The Idea of University: Histories and Contexts (Bhattacharya, 2019), Politics, Managerialism, and University Governance: Lessons from Hong Kong under China’s rule since 1997 (Law, 2019), Bullshit Towers: Neoliberalism and Managerialism in Universities (Sims, 2020), and Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspective (Tett & Hamilton, 2021).

2 Beyond the academic type work that is critical of neoliberalism and managerialism, it is worth considering the negative impact it can also have on a person’s health and well-being. Indeed, recent empirical research by Becker, Hartwich, and Haslam (2021) titled, ‘Neoliberalism can reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social disconnection, competition, and loneliness’, brings to our attention how neoliberalism is harmful to a person’s health and well-being.

3 Of course, a natural consequence of outsourcing work that academics do through casualisation is precarity and job insecurity. McCarron’s (2021) article in the Advocate titled, ‘Senate Committee Report exposes “deeply concerning” insecure work crisis in our sector’ provides an interim summary on the Senate Select Committee on Job Security from a higher education point of view. The findings of this report have been published in early 2022. Likewise, the article by Dobson (2021) titled, ‘Impact of COVID-19 on universities’ claims that over 40,000 jobs in the higher education sector have been lost over the last 12 months at the time of writing. For recent work on the impact of COVID-19 and universities in Australia, see the Australian Universities’ Review, Vol. 64(1), that was published in 2022.

4 For a modest sample of broadly relevant work on this topic by MacIntyre, see: ‘Utilitarianism and the presuppositions of cost-benefit analysis’ (MacIntyre, 1977), ‘Corporate modernity and moral judgment: Are they mutually exclusive?’ (MacIntyre, 1979a), ‘Social science methodology as the ideology of bureaucratic authority’ (MacIntyre, 1979b), After Virtue (MacIntyre, 1981/2007), Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (MacIntyre, 1990a), Individual and social morality in Japan and the United States: Rival Conceptions of the Self’ (MacIntyre, 1990b), Dependent Rational Animals (MacIntyre, 1999a), ‘A Culture of Choices and Compartmentalization’ (MacIntyre, 2000), and Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (MacIntyre, 2016).

5 The idea that unspeakable crimes can be committed by unremarkable people with a clear conscience is not new. In the ‘case of J’, it is not a coincidence that J’s story shares many similarities with the case of Eichmann. For a well-known account of Eichmann’s case, see Arendt’s (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. For a thought provoking psychological study that attempts to make sense of why human beings tend to be obedient to authority figures, see Milgram’s (1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Another work that is worth considering that attempts to understand the psychological and social factors which result in immoral acts being committed by otherwise moral people, see Zimbardo’s (2007) Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.

6 It is important to point out that this section builds on previous work I have done on this topic. See for example, the following: ‘MacIntyre, rival traditions and education’ (Stolz, 2015), ‘MacIntyre, managerialism and universities’ (Stolz, 2017a), ‘MacIntyre, rationality and universities’ (Stolz, 2017b), and MacIntyre, Rationality and Education: Against Education of Our Age (Stolz, 2019).