Session Information
32 SES 10, Developing Higher Education Organizations - Research in and for Universities
Paper Session
Contribution
Universities in Germany are traditionally dominated by governmental regulations (Huber 2012). Within the universities the division of research, teaching and administration creates tension between differing functional logics. While research and teaching refers to academic interests, the university’s administration refers to labour organization. The arising coordination problems are compensated by loosely coupled structures (Nickel 2012; Schimank 2004; Weick 1976). Current reforms of higher education try to strengthen the German universities in their autonomy towards the state. Therewith however a more tightly coupling within their internal structures is necessary. New Public Management replaces bureaucracy. Such ‘manageable’ university has been focused by higher education research. But only few studies focus the university’s administrative staff as a service provider for teaching and research sectors (Krücken et al 2009; Blümel et al 2010; Stratmann 2014). Our paper seeks to close this gap. Mandated by the provost of a German university the implementation of human resources development is prepared within the scope of a comprehensive project to develop the university’s administration. The researchers’ mandate is both to focus the working conditions in the administration departments and to promote the acceptance of the project by enabling participation. The qualitative approach used in this project facilitates the researchers to deepen the understanding of workflow and working conditions plus it emphasises the views of the staff. Parallel to and with this project the researchers’ interest on the administration staff’s needs for further education emerged (Högerle 2013). This specific demand and the necessary conditions for further education will be derived from the evaluated data. The divergence of the researcher’s roles as mandated agent, as scientist with own research interest, and as member of the studied organization, has to be reflected (Hechler/Pasternack 2012). The paper is based on data given by 11 workshops with employees and managers of the administration (89 participants from all administration departments). The transcripts of the workshops are analyzed by theoretical coding. First analyses indicate that leadership is one of the most important parameters for good work and successful HRD of the university administration staff. The open procedure provides the opportunity to criticise obvious grievances in a protected space giving deep insight about employee's dissatisfaction. Another positive aspect of this approach was the inter-unit discussion of solutions that can prospectively be put into practice.
References
Blümel, A. et al. (2010): Restrukturierung statt Expansion. Entwicklungen im Bereich des nichtwissen-schaftlichen Personals an deutschen Hochschulen. In: die hochschule. Journal für wissenschaft und bildung, H. 2, 154-171. Hechler, D./ Pasternack, P. (2012): Hochschulorganisationsanalyse zwischen Forschung und Beratung. Huber, M. (2012) Die Organisation Universität. In: Apelt, M./ Tacke, V. (Hg.): Handbuch Organisationstypen. Wiesbaden, 239-252. Nickel, S. (2012): Engere Kopplung von Wissenschaft und Verwaltung und ihre Folgen für die Ausübung professioneller Rollen in Hochschulen. In: Wilkesmann, U./ Schmid, C. J. (Hg.): Hochschule als Organisation. Wiesbaden, 279-291. Högerle, D. (2013): Strukturierte Personalentwicklung. In: wissenschaftsmanagement 5, September/Oktober, 28-30. Huber, M. (2009): Von loser zu enger Kopplung. Die Entstehung risikofreudiger Universitäten und neuer Planungshorizonte. In: Weyer, J./ Schulz-Schaeffer, I. (Hg.): Management komplexer Systeme. 169-184 Krücken, G. et al (2009): Towards Organizational Actorhood of Universities: Occupational and Organizational Change within German University Administrations. Deutsches Forschungsinstitut für öffentliche Verwaltung Speyer. Stratmann, F. (2014): Hochschulverwaltung – ein blinder Fleck in den Diskursen über Hochschulmanagement und Hochschule als Organisation. In: Scherm, E. (Hg): Management unternehmerischer Universitäten. München, 157-173. Weick, K. E. (1976): Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems. In: Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1): 1-19.
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