The study explores how program and department leaders in academic institutions in Israel and the Czech Republic manage during a crisis, reflecting their perspectives on higher education policy-governance. It details the various approaches these middle managers use and their resilience.

Resilience

Resilience represents the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of adversity, challenges, and change. It includes the capacity of individuals and organizations to withstand and recover from traumatic events, such as disasters, as noted by Bonanno et al. (2010). This resilience extends to professional domains, as Grabarski (2023) illustrated, through adaptability and career resilience observations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In organizational contexts, Carmeli (2013) and Fisher et al. (2019) discuss the cultivation of resilience through leadership and organizational culture, underscoring its importance across various life and professional domains. The resilience explored in the business sector, especially during times of organizational change, is highlighted by Foerster & Duchek (2018). An industry-specific perspective is examined in the airline industry's development of resilience following the 9/11 attacks (Gittell et al. 2006), while Williams & Gruber (2017) offer a comprehensive overview of organizational resilience in crises, showcasing various strategies and approaches employed to withstand and recover from crises. The concept of leadership resilience, as explored by Forster-Duchek (2017), highlights the role of personal qualities and strategies in effectively navigating leadership challenges.

The current study focuses on the resilience of middle management levels in both countries and traces their characteristics during periods of crisis.

Departments and program heads in the academy

Traditionally, universities have been praised more for their academic prowess than their management abilities, a trend influenced by their historical societal role. In recent decades, universities have experienced profound transformations, facing a more complex external environment and evolving stakeholder demands. They've also grown larger and more complex, driven by increased student enrollment and specialized research. These shifts have led to a new paradigm in management and leadership, aligning more with a managed professional public organization model (Boer, Goedegebuure & Meek, 2010).

In this context, program and department heads occupy some of the most critical and challenging positions in higher education (Tietjen-Smith, Hersman & Block, 2020; Maddock, 2023). Heads are responsible for the daily operations of their units, including setting strategic goals and ensuring efficient functioning. They handle budgeting, resource allocation, and programmatic decisions (Machovcova et al., 2023). They build social networks and manage relationships and resources, helping their teams compete in the academic world, characterized as a quasi-market environment. Their goal is to attract students and secure research funding (Bobe & Kober, 2015; Deem, 1998).

The research questions: What are the coping characteristics of the academy's heads of the programs and departments with the challenges that include financial strains, new systems of assessment as well as COVID-19 epidemic, in the comparison between Israel and the Czech Republic? What distinguishes the resilience of the heads, and what are the causes of this?

This qualitative research is interpretive and based on semi-structured interviews. The participants are 27 heads of programs and departments in the academy in Israel and 26 from the Czech Republic were interviewed, which represent 23 academic institutions in both countries. The study was conducted between 2015-2022. The interview protocol included more than 25 questions about components of their role and challenges they faced during their service in the managerial role. Sample questions from the interviews: What was your more challenging experience in the role of department head? What characterized research in your program/department's research centers/labs during the pandemic? What did you research during that period? In your opinion, how was your research influenced by this period? How were the heads` operations different from the way it functioned before the crisis? What difficulties did you encounter when heading the program during the pandemic? (with students, lecturers, etc.). Context The Czech Republic's higher education has evolved from distinguishing research-focused institutions from teaching-focused ones to now predominantly embracing research-oriented academia. However, a dual system persists with the Academy of Sciences focusing solely on research, while universities and tertiary education providers integrate both research and teaching. Our study will concentrate on these dual-role institutions. Similarly, Israeli academia has shifted towards research-oriented institutions, influenced by two converging trends. Initially, colleges specializing in teacher training began emphasizing research, encouraging faculty to engage in research activities, although this shift is ongoing and lacks strict penalties for non-research-active lecturers. Concurrently, in the early 2000s, academic institutions were established in less developed areas to bridge social disparities. These institutions, unlike research-centric universities, some globally recognized, initially placed less emphasis on research. However, over time, a growing number of lecturers have started to participate in research, driven by career advancement criteria set by the National Council for Higher Education.

The study brought up five categories that can shed light on the processes that led to resilience (although the institutions in the countries showed a different configuration of resilience): 1. Heads workload: Work overload stems from Student matters and their distress; Lecturers needs; Administrative tasks; Family or personal hardships. 2. Orientation of program heads for students: Dedicating the heads' time and focusing on student affairs. 3. Orientation of program heads for research: Dedicating the heads' time and focusing on their personal research aspects. 4. Higher education policy: Heads referring to the guidelines of the state and the institution and creating activities that go beyond them. 5. Organizational culture: Key characteristics of institutional culture that transcend differences among institutions (e.g., cooperative/centralized approaches, reward/sanction systems, and perceptions of organizational effectiveness). Each country and its development of higher education culture showcase distinct and unique strengths and resilience factors in action. The response of academic heads to the crisis varied significantly between the Czech Republic and Israel. In the Czech Republic, the emphasis was on research. Heads generally focused on advancing their teams' research efforts, aligning with national policies that link an academician's survival to research output. This approach aimed to gain a competitive edge over their peers. In contrast, in Israel, the focus was on student retention. Israeli institutional policies usually reward leaders who excel in research with job security and tenure. However, during the crisis, there was concern that student departures could jeopardize future employment prospects for these leaders. The study also reveals some personal characteristics of the heads, such as their desire to act as role models for their teams and their vision of higher education in the next decade. This optimism was translated into management practices in the units they were responsible for.

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