How Organisational Change Influences Academic Work: The Academic Predicament Model for a Conducive Work Environment (Routledge Research in Higher Education)

Higher education institutions around the globe are facing complex issues that disrupt the usual roles and purposes of centres of learning and research. Forces such as globalisation, burgeoning knowledge-based economies, rapid adoption of new technology, and global competition are changing the work and lived experiences of academics across the globe.

This book addresses the unprecedented effects of these global pressures, including the COVID-19 pandemic, on university work and the resulting opportunity for innovative disruption. It presents the voices of 16 Australian university academics, framed by standpoint theory, which provide a unique perspective and insights into the rapid shifts impacting universities and how these affect academics’ work lives. The stories uncover cases of disappointment and frustration, bullying and morale loss, alongside positive change and the awareness of the need to change expectations. This work informs the development of the Academic Predicament Model (APM), which points to the erosion of academic professionalism and identifies how such change in university work consequently de-professionalises academia in Australia. The long-term effect is to challenge the place and function of higher education institutions.

The need for transformation, and potential for its outcomes, has never been greater, nor has the risk that the elements of the Academic Predicament Model will be amplified, causing the de-professionalising of academia to be further accelerated. This book will be of interest to researchers in higher education exploring neoliberalism and its impact on education and academics’ work.

Sureetha De Silva has taught Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary students and has worked in Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, and Sri Lanka. She has been a librarian at the British Council Library and has worked as a research librarian within the Australian university sector. She is a freelance writer and a translator in English and Sinhalese.

Donna Pendergast is Dean and Head of the School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University. Beginning as a secondary teacher and working in universities for over two decades, Donna received the Vice-Chancellor’s 2016 Research Supervision Award for Excellence and the ACEL 2018 Miller-Grassie Award for Outstanding Leadership in Education.

Christopher Klopper is Dean, Australian College of the Professions, Australia. His career, spanning over 25 years, has afforded him 10 years of experience as a music teacher and curriculum leader in South Africa, and 15 years as a teacher educator and leader of learning and teaching in Australian higher education.