Knowledge, Higher Education, and the New Managerialism: The Changing Management of UK Universities

The nature of Higher Education in the UK has changed over the last three decades. Academics can no longer be said to carry out their work in "ivory towers", as increasing government intervention and a growing "target culture" has changed the way they work. Increasingly universities have transformed from "communities of scholars" to "workplaces". The organization and administration of universities has seen a corresponding prevalence of ideas and strategies drawn from the "New Public Management" ideology in response, promoting a more "business-focussed" approach in the management of public services.

This book examines the issues that academics now face as a result of these changes, both as the "knowledge-workers" managed, and the "manager-academic". It draws on a detailed study of academics holding management roles ranging from Head of Department to Vice Chancellor in sixteen UK universities, exploring their career histories and trajectories, and providing extensive accounts of their values, practices, relationships with others, and their training and development as managers.

Drawing on debates around "New Public Management", knowledge management, and knowledge workers, the wider implications of these themes for policy innovation and strategy in HE and the public sector more generally are considered, developing a critical response to recent approaches to managing public services, and practical suggestions for improvements which could be made to the training and support of senior and middle managers in universities.

The book will be of interest to all teaching, researching, or managing in Higher Education, Education policy-makers, and academics and researchers concerned with Public Management, Knowledge Management, or Higher Education.

Professor Rosemary Deem is currently Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol and Research Director for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. From 2004-2006 she was Graduate Dean and joint Education Director for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at Bristol. She is a sociologist who has also worked at Loughborough, York, the Open and Lancaster Universities and at the former North Staffordshire Polytechnic. She has just completed four years as joint editor of the international journal The Sociological Review (2001-5) and is on the Editorial Board of Studies in Higher Education, Equal Opportunities International and Higher Education Quarterly. Sam Hillyard is a Senior Lecturer in Research Methods in the School of Education at the University of Durham. Sam did her PhD at the University of Warwick and then worked as a Research Associate on the Economic and Social Research Council funded project 'New Managerialism and the Management of UK Universities' at Lancaster University from 1999-2000. She moved onto a Lectureship in Sociology at the University of Keele (2000-2001) and was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Nottingham in the Institute for the Study of Genetics, Bio-risks and Society (IGBiS) from 2001-2006. Her research interests include theorising through ethnographic research, sociology of education, the management of higher education, the public understanding of science and rural sociology. Mike Reed is Professor of Organisational Analysis and Associate Dean (Research) at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. Previously he was Professor of Organisation Theory, Head of Department and Associate Dean for Research at Lancaster University Management School. He was a member of the Economic and Social Research Council funded project 'New Managerialism and the Management of UK Universities' (1998-2000) on which this book is based. He is a founding editor of the journal, Organization, and has published extensively in leading journals such as Organization Studies and Journal of Management Studies.