Power and the University's New Public Management – The Case of Finland seen by the University Academics and Employees

Author(s):

Arto JauhiainenRisto Rinne

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 11C, Politics of Identity

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-12

16:45-18:15

Room:

B1 132

Chair:

Maarten Simons

Contribution

In most post-industrial countries, a new university paradigm in higher education policy began to appear at the latest in the 1980s. Today universities have to balance between two extremes: traditional academic culture and market culture. Many believe that to survive and develop universities must become a business-like, marketised and for-profit institu-tion, called such as the ‘corporate university’ (Nowotny et al. 2001) and the ‘entrepre-neurial university’ (Clark 1998). The anti-thesis of the defenders is that in this way the university would be moving towards a ‘McUniversity’ or a ‘transnational bureaucratic corporation’ (Ritzer 1999; 2002; Rinne 1999). This antagonism already makes clear that we are looking at a question that is profoundly concerned with the symbolic power rela-tions of steering, governing and managing university policy (Kwiek 2006). The universities have been more ‘responsibilized’ (Neave 2000, 17). According to Martin Trow (1996), this is simply an alternative to confidence and trust, and in fact means a re-duction in the autonomy of universities. Universities are driven towards administrative procedures that are characterized by the ‘low trust/high control syndrome’. They are stra-tegically centralised, but operationally decentralised evaluation and control systems (Reed, Meek & Jones 2002, xxii). The emphasis on performance, connected with the obligation to show a profit, productizes and objectivizes the work of the public sector (Ball 2004). There are a variety of vital arguments for scepticism in the face of prophecies of both marketisers and traditionalists in this ‘second academic revolution’ (Ezkowitz 2003). First, barriers to market-driven higher education include the collegial, professional and bureaucratic nature of universities (Hay et al. 2002). Secondly, the university is a ‘bot-tom-heavy knowledge institution’, and therefore a grass-roots innovation is a crucial form of change Clark (1983, 234). Sudden and fundamental changes rarely succeed at universi-ties. (van Vught 1989). Third, the discourse upon the market-driven university is highly metaphoric: we can only speak seriously about higher education quasi- or semi-markets. Therefore, market-effects in the university are also highly questionable. (Fuller 2006; Goedegebuure et al. 1993; Cutler & Waine 1997; Watson 2002). During the last 15-20 years new trends towards market and NPM have been strength-ened in the Finnish higher education policy. Several re-constructions and reforms have been carried out concerning legislation, administration, budgeting, steering mechanism and management of higher education. Our paper is a part of the larger research project “Power, supranational regimes and new university management in Finland” (Rinne & al. 2007) This study will analyse the institutionalised operating logics of power constructed through modes of governance and management in Finnish universities. Our theoretical stance to power analysis could be characterised as discursive and structural. The purpose of the study is to analyse in which ways the new university policy, governance and man-agement have affected the work of academics and other employees and how they experi-ence the new modes of governance from the point of view of power.

Method

The empirical data was gathered from the Universities of Turku and Joensuu. The study group (N =3935) was comprised of “front line” academics (researchers and teachers) and administration staff at different levels. On-line survey method was applied. The ques-tionnaire is divided into 4 themes: 1) experiences of one´s own work and its changes 2) experiences of the effects of the new policy techniques 3) experiences and the concep-tions concerning power relations, governance and management 4) the views of the existing higher education policy and it´s consequences.

Expected Outcomes

In our paper we will discuss the theoretical background of our study and present tentative results of the survey. We are comparing and analysying the experiences and the views as well as the contradictions and similarities between different academic groups, age groups genders. We are also analyzing identities and the power relations of the academic workkers in different positions in the University hierarchy.

References

Ball, S. J. 1998. Big Policies/Small world: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34(2), 119-130. Clark, B. R. 1983. The Higher Education System. Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clark, B. R. 1998 Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organisational Pathways of Transition. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Cutler, T., & Waine, B. 1997. The politics of quasi-markets: How quasi-markets have been analysed and how they might be analysed. Critical Social Policy 17 (2), 3–26. Etzkowitz, H. 2003. Research Groups as ‘Quasi-firms’: The Invention of the Entrepreneurial University. Research Policy 32(1), 1090 – 121. Fuller, S. 2005. What Makes Universities Unique? Updating the ideal for an entrepreneurial age. Paper presented in the EUEREK Workshop in CELE in University of Turku, Finland in February 11th – 12th 2006. Goedegebuure, L., Kaiser, F., Maassen, P. & de Weert, E. 1993. Higher Education Policy in International Perspective: An Overview. In L. Goedegebuure, F. Kaiser, P. Maassen, L. Meek, F. van Vught & E. de Weert (eds.) Higher Education Policy. An International Comparative Perspective. Issues in Higher Education. Oxford: Pergamon Press for International Association of Universities, 1 - 12. Hay, D.B., Butt, F. & Kirby, D.A. 2002. Academics as Entrepreneurs in a UK University. In G. Williams (ed.) The Enterprising University. Reform, Excellence and Equity. Buckingham: SRHE & Open University Press, 132 – 141. Kwiek, M. 2006. The University and the State. A Study into Global Transformations. Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang. (In press) Neave, G. 2000. Introduction. Universities´ Responsibilities to Society: An Historical Exploration of an Enduring Issue. In G. Neave (ed.) The Universities´ Responsibilities to Society. International Perspectives. Issues in Higher Education. Oxford: Pergamon Press for International Association of Universities, 1 – 28. Nowotny, H., Scott, P & Gibbons, M. 2001. Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Reed, M.I., Meek, V.L. & Jones, G.A. 2002. Introduction. In A. Amaral, G.A Jones & B. Karseth (eds.) Governing Higher Education: National Perspectives on Institutional Governance. (Higher Education Dynamics 2) Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, xv – xxxi. Rinne, R. 1999. The Rise of the McUniversity. In I. Fägerlind, I. Holmesland & G. Strömqvist (eds.) Higher Education at the Crossroads. Studies in Comparative and International Education 48. Institute of International Education. Stockholm University, 157 – 169. Rinne, R., Simola, H., Kauko, J, & Simoila, M. 2007. Power, Supranormal Regimes and New UIniversity Management – Outlining the Late Mushrooming of NPM in Finnish Universities. Paper presented in the EERA-conference, September, 2007, Ghent, Belgium. Ritzer, G. 1999. The McDonaldization Thesis. Explorations and Extensions. London: SAGE Publications Ritzer, G. 2002. Enchanting McUniversity: Toward a Spectacularly Irrational University Quotidian. In. D. Hayes & R. Wynyard (eds.) The McDonaldization of Higher Education. Westport, CT & London: Bergin & Garvey, 19 - 32. Watson, D. 2002. Can we all do it all? Tensions in the mission and structure of UK higher education. Higher Education Quarterly 56 (2), 143–155. Van Vught, F. A. (ed.) 1989. Governmental Strategies and Innovation in Higher Education. Higher Education Policy Series 7. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Author Information

Arto Jauhiainen

University of Turku

Department of education

Turku

Risto Rinne

University of Turku

Department of Education