Letter from the editors

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to this fifth issue of the year and our third as the incoming editors. In this issue, we have a collection of articles with clear management focus. This includes such topics as the role of support staff, organisational commitment, workload models, incentive payments, performance management, new university presidents and management consultants. Most of the articles have their focus on practices in English-speaking countries (Australia, UK and USA). This is perhaps unsurprising given the stronger tendency towards market-based steering and management in these countries, but these topics have far-reaching consequences. Niels Opstrup’s article (in this issue) shows their influence on management practices in Danish universities, while it is equally interesting to read Baris Uslu’s perspective as a Turkish academic researching Australian universities.

The first article, by Uslu, examines how institutional support staff contribute towards the teaching and research performance of Australia’s top-ranked universities. It is well known that Australian universities ‘punch above their weight’ on many institutional rankings schemes, but the role of professional services staff is rarely acknowledged as a contributor. Research on professional services staff tends also to be conducted in isolation of academic staff, but Uslu integrates these divisions through interviews with senior academic staff and gaining their perspectives on the importance of professional staff.

The second article, by Nathaniel Bray and Laine Williams, also focuses on professional staff. It investigates the relationship between communication satisfaction and organisational commitment. While academic staff tend to identify strongly with their disciplines (academics are much more likely to move institutions than move between departments), the commitment of professional staff towards their organisations may be under-recognised. Their article goes some way to fill this gap.

Next, we have two articles examining specific institutional management practices: workload models and publication incentive payments. Both practices can make claims for improving fairness, but they are often controversial in their implementation. Workload models may help bring greater transparency and equity for work allocation but, as discussed by John Kenny and Andrew Fluck, most academics work more than 50 h per week. This is despite workload models claiming such work can be done in a standard 37.5 h per week. Can so many academics be wrong in their time estimates or is there something wrong with the workload models? Their article offers some tangible means to derive realistic time-based standards for academic work.

Should academics be paid on a piecemeal rate per publication? Niels Opstrup discusses how publication incentive payments (or bonuses per publication) are widespread in Danish universities but implemented in different ways. Publication payments range from around US$750 per publication and symbolic gifts in some departments, to US$7,500 per publication in others. Through in-depth case studies, Opstrup finds implementation varies depending on the departmental head, whose views vary more than simply between ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’. Hard to disagree with one Danish departmental head who claims academics are more motivated to publish for cash than for champagne, but interesting that this view holds despite the prohibitive Danish alcohol taxes!

Taking a more general look at the role of performance management in UK universities, Matt Waring offers a rather scathing critique of metrics-based management. Has the extension of human resource management undermined the trust, professionalism and collaborative endeavour within the academy? This would appear to be the case, at least in the Welsh university examined in this article.

The seemingly inexorable trend towards managerialism and centralised power means it must be easy to be a vice chancellor or university president. Right? Not so, according to the 14 newly recruited university presidents interviewed for Christopher Gearin’s article. Newly recruited leaders can face enormous resistance when attempting to implement change and cannot rely just on their formal (or coercive) bases of power. Gearin offers some interesting insights into how new university presidents successfully (and unsuccessfully) navigate the early stages of their leadership, some of whom were completely unaware of the financial crises that awaited them.

When university leadership needs strategic advice on increasing institutional effectiveness, they often turn to the ‘hired guns’ or big management consultancy firms. In our final article, Kevin McClure examines how four consulting firms (Accenture, Bain & Company, Deloitte and McKinsey & Company) use ‘crisis narratives’ in order to justify private sector management techniques. Consultants also offer legitimacy to institutional leaders by offering techniques which, while perhaps unproven, are seen to be effective to stakeholders. This helps generate a type of mimicry across the sector, further entrenching the importance of management consultants.

We hope you enjoy reading the articles in this issue and find some practical benefits to your roles as higher education researcher, managers, practitioners and stakeholders.