Trouble at Mill: quality of academic worklife issues within a comprehensive Australian university (original) (raw)
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Trouble at Mill: Quality of academic worklife issues witin a comprehensive Australian university
This study describes the quality of academic worklife (QAWL) within a comprehensive university in Australia. Academics responded to the Academic Work Environment Survey, a diagnostic instrument designed to assess the relationships between and among academics' demographic characteristics (age, gender, position, discipline area), work environment perceptions (role, job, supervisor, structure, sector characteristics), and work attitudes (self-estrangement, organisational commitment). Findings revealed positive QAWL features such as role clarity, motivating job characteristics, and low levels of self-estrangement (alienation). Negative QAWL features included role overload, low levels of job feedback, and limited opportunities to in¯uence university decisionmaking. Comments indicated that many academics feel disenchanted and demoralised with the tenets and practices of managerialism. The study concludes that comprehensive universities suffer from strategic dissonance. They want to deliver cost ef® ciencies and maintain institutional reputation (i.e. centralise), but also want to serve distinct market sectors and expand their revenue base (i.e. decentralise).
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2003
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University corporatisation: The effect on academic work-related attitudes
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2011
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine the work-related attitudes (job satisfaction, job stress and the propensity to remain) of Australian academics and their association with organisational, institutional and demographic factors. Design/methodology/approach-Data were collected by distributing a survey questionnaire to 750 academics, from 37 Australian universities. Findings-The results indicate a moderately low level of job satisfaction, moderately high level of job stress, and high propensity to remain. The findings reveal that the organisational factors (management style, perceived organisational support, and the characteristics of the performance management system) exhibited the most significant association with academic work-related attitudes, with the only significant institutional factor, the declining ability of students, negatively impacting on job satisfaction and job stress. The findings revealed that work-related attitudes differ, based on discipline, with science academics found to be more stressed and less satisfied than accounting academics. Different organisational and institutional factors were associated with the work-related attitudes of academics from these two disciplines. Practical implications-The findings will make university management aware of the work-related attitudes of staff, and the factors that are associated with such attitudes, thereby assisting management in developing management policies, and taking appropriate action to address the concerns of staff. Originality/value-The study provides an initial comparison of the work-related attitudes (job satisfaction, job stress, and propensity to remain) of Australian academics across the accounting and science disciplines. The study also provides an important insight into the association between specific organisational and institutional factors, with the work-related attitudes of Australian academics across both disciplines.
The Academic Work Environment in Australian Universities: A motivating place to work
Higher Education Research & Development, 2002
This paper identifies positive (motivating) and negative (demotivating) sources of academic work motivation in Australian universities. In 1998, the Academic Work Environment Survey (Winter, Taylor, & Sarros, 2000) was administered to a stratified sample (five positions, five disciplines) of 2,609 academics in four types of university (research, metropolitan, regional, university of technology). A total of 1,041 usable surveys were returned (response rate of 40 per cent). Across the sample, academics reported moderate levels of work motivation. Work motivation was found to be relatively strong at professorial levels but weak at lecturer levels. Quantitative and qualitative findings indicated the work environment in academe is motivating when roles are clear, job tasks are challenging, and supervisors exhibit a supportive leadership style. The work environment is demotivating where there is role overload, low job feedback, low participation, and poor recognition and rewards practices. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of study findings for university leadership.
'Enough to make you sick!' Pathological Characteristics of the Australian Academic Workplace
Social Alternatives, 2022
Drawing on the authors’ experiences in the Australian academic workplace as well as relevant recent scholarship and public commentary, this paper presents a broad overview and discussion of some of the institutional and cultural characteristics of the working environment typical of contemporary Australian universities that make them prone to unhealthy levels of workplace stress and mental injury. The paper argues that if we are to resolve the contradiction between the privileged financial and regulatory status universities continue to enjoy and the corrosion of their putative commitments to the pursuit of truth and free inquiry, a new generation of university leaders will be required to commit their institutions to being open, publicly accountable and democratic in their organisation and goals.
Change in Universities and Some Consequences for Academics
As globalization and the recasting of the university as a tool of economic restructuring have advanced, much higher education has been transformed from a pedagogical exchange to a market relationship founded on the notion of the student-as-customer. This paper considers research findings drawn from an occupational case study of academics in Australian universities. Our argument challenges the current management paradigm of customer focus as a 'win-win' situation. Critical to this challenge is the issue of the primacy of the link between consumption and production and its impact on the organisation of academics' work. We explore the marketisation and organisational change of universities and some consequences for academics, including: the redesign of work practices, provision of flexible services to meet clients' demands, customising courses to fit the perceived demands of students. We conclude that in the future the commercial interests of universities are likely to dominate academics' interests in terms of their autonomy, collegial decision-making and 'academic freedom'.
Prometheus, 2015
This paper presents an autoethnographical account of the events associated with the author's redundancy from a tenured academic position at Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. It is argued that managerialism, a social philosophy that sees the management of a university to be little different from the management of a for-profit business, provided university management with a rationale for a course of action that imposed heavy costs on individuals and undermined core academic values. The apparent weakness of the protection provided by tenure is highlighted by the mechanisms through which university management exerted control over the academic employment relationship. The cost of imposing management's will to win at all costs corrodes valuable aspects of academic work, such as collegiality, trust and the sharing of information. The paper shows that the various mechanisms of control imposed by a university management that adheres to manageriali...
The Malaysian Journal of Qualitative Research, 2022
This is an exploratory study on the work-life balance of academics in some Melbourne institutes of higher education. It is important to explore this area of their lives as academics constantly face changes in terms of scope and workload. They also form the foundation of institutions of higher education. This research was done to explore where these institutes of higher education stand in terms of achieving SDG goal number 3, which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, for their academics through exploring academic lives and well-being. SDG or Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3), refers to one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. The reputation and success of institutes of higher education lie fundamentally in the work of its academics so any significant disruption to their health and well-being will have a negative impact on their quality of work and their organisation's performance. This study revealed a negative impact of changes to the academics' work-life-balance and the failure of their organisations to achieve SDG goal no 3. A qualitative approach using in-depth interviewing was used to interview nine academics, from different institutes of higher education in Melbourne, Australia. The informants included male and female academics from high and low-ranked institutes of higher education, of different positions and ages. This research used convenience and snowball sampling methods. The findings showed that the majority of informants were overworked with no clear breaks for holidays or weekends. The exception was 2 informants who enjoyed good work-life balance and holidays which may be due to their positions as Deans and Head of Programme. While mental health in education has been mainly focused on students, this research has revealed that the mental health of academics from these institutes is at a critical level and needs to be addressed.
Academic dissatisfaction, managerial change and neo-liberalism
Higher Education, 2011
This paper examines perceptions by academics of their work in the Australian state of Victoria, and places such perceptions within the context of international and Australian debates on the academic profession. A 2010 survey conducted by the National Tertiary Education Union in Victoria was analysed in light of the literature on academic work satisfaction and on corporatised managerial practice (“managerialism”). The analysis is also placed in the context of neo-liberalism, defined as a more marketised provision combined with increased pro-market state regulation. Factor analysis was used to reduce 18 items we hypothesised as drivers of work satisfaction to four factors: managerial culture, workloads, work status and self-perceived productivity. Regression models show the relative effects of these factors on two items measuring work satisfaction. This analysis is complemented by discursive analysis of open-ended responses. We found that satisfaction among academics was low and decreasing compared to a previous survey, and that management culture was the most important driver. Concern with workloads also drove dissatisfaction, although academics seem happy to be more productive if they have control over their work and develop in their jobs. Work status had little effect. In the open-ended responses the more dissatisfied academics tended to contrast a marketised present to a collegial past. While respondents seem to conflate all recent managerial change with marketisation, we pose a crucial question: whether the need for more professional management needs to be congruent with marketising policy directions.