Leadership Narratives: Storying As A Process Of Change In The University

Author(s):

Naarah Sawers(submitting)Jill Blackmore(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 04 E JS, Leadership in Higher Education

Paper Session Joint Session NW 22 with NW 26

Time:

2015-09-09

09:00-10:30

Room:

395. [Main]

Chair:

Liudvika Leisyte

Contribution

Universities exist in challenging, fastly-moving contexts where policy shifts, mobile students and academics, personalized multimodal learning, intensified international competition for students and funds, industry partnerships, cross institutional alliances, standards and accreditation frameworks (Bologna), increased accountability and reduced funding (Altbach et. al, 2010) all impact how universities position themselves to face the future. A body of cross national literature demonstrates that universities have undergone significant organizational restructuring to prioritize and market themselves as a brand with increased focus on leadership or ‘leaderism’ (Gunter 2013). Indeed, leadership has become understood as critical to what are now increasingly complex multinational corporations with multiple, often contradictory, obligations and aims.

Scott et. al. (2010) argue that higher education literature fails to theorize change and yet fundamental change has been undertaken.Furthermore, change strategies have not been exceedingly helpful in their capacity to guide institutions, and we know even less about how to facilitate major, institution wide, change (Kezar and Eckel 2002). This paper examines how executive leaders in three universities un/consciously mobilise narratives through a process of storying about the necessity, nature and intended outcomes of change. In it we consider the source of the story, the production and articulation of the storyline, and the institutional effects. We attend to storytelling or institutional narratives as a mechanism for mobilizing change in universities.

In our study we employ Bourdieu’s (1996, 1990) concepts with regard to leadership habitus and the logics of practice that pervade the field of higher education. We argue, as does Kezar and Eckel (2002) that much leadership and change theory in the academy has been at a generalized level of corporate strategies. Our research reflects the change practices of many university executive managers in seeking external advice rather than internal expertise, resulting in institutional restructuring often designed by management consultants who treat universities as any other organization but fail to address the university’s specific core obligations and functions. The processes and practices of changing institutional cultures and practices, often context specific, are neglected. These questions suggest the potentiality of, and also problematize, concepts such as institutional and leadership habitus (Bourdieu 1997). We work with Bourdieu and through feminist theory to ask about the practices of agents and their interdependency and relationality in order to attend to the intricacies of change in universities (Adkins and Skeggs 2005, McNay 2000). We call upon Czarianwaksi’s (1997) notion of institutional narrative to uncover and scrutinize contemporary ‘leadership narratives’. The examination is twofold: what are the new narratives about leadership in the higher education sector, and how do leaders employ narratives / storying as part of their repertoire of strategies mobilized to undertake organizational change.

Method

This research in this paper developed from of a three-year Australian Research Council funded longitudinal study entitled Leadership in Entrepreneurial Universities: cross-national investigations of engagement and diversity. The project involves research into three Australian universities – a research intensive, a university of technology and a regional university – all undertaking significant organizational reform. In each university we conducted interviews with academics at all levels, those in formal management positions from Heads of School, Deans through to the Vice Chancellors, as well as key individuals in human resources, equity and the national education union. We also interviewed mid-career, early-career and post-graduate students to determine how they viewed their career opportunities and decisions. Leadership was used as a lens through which to better understanding the rapidly changing contexts and conditions of academic work and how leaders were addressing these challenges. In each interview, we asked for individuals to be identified who are 1) currently in a leadership position and are seen to be good academic or managerial leaders; 2) who are identified to be ‘informal’ leaders but who do not intend to apply for formal positions of leadership; 3) and those who are aspiring to leadership as indicated in seeking promotion, undertaking leadership courses and taking on smaller leadership roles. We reached those with differing forms and degrees of symbolic capital: academic, scientific and intellectual (Bourdieu 1996). The interviews, while informed by pre-determined foci, were unstructured. These detailed accounts raised issues of gender and cultural diversity through their focus on the major challenges facing the university, career pathways taken (and avoided), personal accounts of experience with leadership, future career aspirations, how university decisions around promotions and recruitment are made, priorities and practice, and inter/disciplinarity. Against the background of an analysis of Australian higher education policy, extant statistical data and university based policy texts, organizational structures and strategic plans, we addressed how each university sought to brand themselves, to position themselves strategically through storying in competitive global markets, and how this informed the academic habitus.

Expected Outcomes

Czarniawska (1997) sees narrative knowledge as the main source of organizational knowledge and leadership narratives as a primary mechanism of organizing change. Vice-chancellors and executives mobilize particular storylines in order to promote, justify and mobilize organizational change. We discuss how a particular story comes into being and then the processes of its production and circulation throughout the university. The source can be anything from a one off example of what is not happening or failure (e.g. student evaluations) or as a policy text that will frame and inform the implementation of reform (e.g. a blueprint). Some stories are mobilized unconsciously, others are used to enhance and extrapolate a particular story line based on a single example until it becomes a ‘truth’ extrapolated across the institution, sometimes leadership narratives are used to justify various policy moves or new directions, to rectify errors or to reject other explanations. All imply a level of rationality that is not evident to those who are the expected audiences. While narrative is used to build culture (i.e., what is valued here and how we work), it is also creates exclusions (about what is not valued). Such narratives achieve what is now considered in most universities to be critical, such as alignment of individual academics, units and research with Faculty and University wide policies. These storylines are then relayed through various executives members as they circulate within the close knit communities of meetings at executive level, even though some may see them as being incorrect, inaccurate or not a good representation of either existing or desirable practice. The paper examines the multiple sources of their storyline and ways it becomes naturalized within the organization. It also considers the benefits and dangers to the individuals and organizations of a definitive narrative.

References

Adkins, L. and Skeggs, B. 2005. Feminism After Bourdieu. Blackwell, London. Altbach, PG, Reisberg, L & Rumbley, LE 2010, Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an academic revolution, UNESCO and Sense, Rotterdam. Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Polity, Cambridge. Bourdieu, P 1988. Homo Academicus, Polity, Cambridge. Bourdieu, P. 1996. State Nobility: Elite schools in the field of power. Stanford University Press, Standford C.A. Czarniawska, B. 1997. Narrating the Organization: Dramas of institutional identity. University of Chicago. Gunter, H. 2013. Distributed Leadership: a study in knowledge production. Educational Management, Administration & Leadership. 41(5): 556-581. Kezar, A. and P. Eckel. 2002. The Effect of Institutional Culture on Change Strategies in Higher Education: Universal Principles or Culturally Responsive Concepts?  The Journal of Higher Education. 73(4): 435-460. McNay, L. 2000 Gender and Agency, Reconfiguring the subject in feminist and social theory. Polity Pres. Scott, G., S. Bell, H. Coates and L. Grebennikov. 2010. Australian higher education leaders in times of change: the role of Pro Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. 32(4): 401-418.

Author Information

Naarah Sawers (submitting)

Deakin University

School of Education

Burwood

Jill Blackmore (presenting)

Deakin University

Fitzroy North

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