Abstract:
Managerialism and collegiality are employed in this thesis as constructs through
which to make sense of the changing nature of management in a South African
university. The rise and dominance of the managerialism discourse is examined
with respect to organisational change and restructuring. As principally a
qualitative research project, a single case study of the University of the
Witwatersrand (Wits) is investigated using interviews, documentary analysis and
focus group discussions as the main sources of data from 2001 to 2004. The study
is exploratory and strives to establish how and why management has changed. It
does so by investigating the underpinning changes in the organisational regime
and the different levels of management; the role of the Senior Executive Team,
the changing nature of the deanship and the head of school position as a
consequence of the merger of departments and the creation of a school structure.
Although management in higher education is recognised as having existed for as
long as the establishments themselves, the thesis is concerned with the changes in
power and authority of academic leaders, the struggle with their ‘lived’ tension
between academic leadership or collegiality and managerialism and the
implications of this for academic practice. The thesis illustrates that changes in
management at Wits demonstrate efforts towards an era of post-managerialism, in
this specific case best described as ‘contrived collegial managerialism’. The
concept of ‘contrived collegial managerialism’ refers to how the domination of
managerial practices from above has altered collegial relations from below. This
has resulted in the weakening of academic leadership with profound implications
for academic work and practice. Only through strengthened academic leadership
at the different levels of university management and primarily school and
disciplinary levels, can the university survive the indignities of the increasing
corporatisation of its strategies, processes and management practices which
constrain the opportunities for meaningful engagement and development of
intellectual projects. It is only at disciplinary level, through strengthening the
position of heads of department as academic leaders, that collegial relations can be developed and pressure towards upward accountability structures counteracted.
Without this, the university risks being consumed by corporate practices at the
expense of its unique quality and contribution to society, academic and
intellectual advancement.
