Managing spaces: (re)working relations of strategy and spatiality in vocational education and training

Abstract

The adoption of a more ‘open’ national training market in vocational education and training (VET) in Australia has led to considerable changes in VET organizations and considerable challenges for VET managers. Recent research has established the critical role that ‘strategy’ plays in leading and managing these organizations and the significance of strategic management as a field of managerial practice within VET. In this article, I further examine the role of strategy in the management of VET organizations by giving attention to issues of space and spatiality. Deploying concepts from actor-network theory and drawing on case data collected from VET organizations, I address strategy as a spatializing project. The argument is made that strategy is an accomplishment of a network of relations rather than an individual manager or an individual organization and can take radically different forms (‘Big S’ strategy; ‘small s’ strategy) and produce radically different effects (economic, educational). More specifically, spatial relations play a constitutive role in strategy formation in VET. Relations of spatiality and strategy are created and sustained together, and where this complex relationship is understood space can serve as a ground for critique. The paper promotes a theoretical and empirical imperative to look keenly to the spaces filled by frontline managers. Essentially interrogatory, these spaces open up the possibility of the negotiation of managerial and organizational identities across differences of strategic management and operational management and, more broadly, of enterprise and education.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research funded by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). The author acknowledges the support of NCVER and the significant contributions of David Beckett, Pam Mendes, Judith Uren and Llandis Barratt-Pugh who participated in this research through, among other things, conducting the three case studies from which the pictures of Suzanne, Sonia and Safia were chiefly drawn.

Notes

1. Known as Registered Training Organizations, once registered by a state or territory recognition authority these organizations deliver training and/or conduct assessments and issue nationally recognized qualifications in accordance with the Australian Quality Training Framework (the nationally agreed recognition arrangements for the vocational education and training sector). They include Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges and institutes, adult and community education providers, private providers, community organizations, schools, higher education institutions, commercial and enterprise training providers, industry bodies and other organizations meeting the registration requirements.

2. A provider location is a specific training site administered by a training organization for the purpose of providing training.

3. Senior managers were defined as having a high-level, specific responsibility such as heading a school, section or sector. Frontline managers are first-level managers. They are directly involved at the operational or service end of the organization. They are numerically the largest category of managers and are typically staff who are described as: program co-ordinators, program managers, head teachers (New South Wales), field officers, team leaders, course leaders, and the like.