Culture clash or ties that bind? What Australian academics think of professional staff

This paper uses a framework analysis to explore the opinions a cohort of Australian academic staff hold towards professional staff. Five indicative themes were identified from the extant literature on university professional staff: the professional other; managerialism; an expensive bureaucracy; com...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of higher education policy and management Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 545 - 557
Main Author Gray, Stephen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.09.2015
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Academic staff attitudes
administration
Administrative Organization
Ambivalence
Australia
Bureaucracy
College Administration
College Faculty
Colleges & universities
Commercialization
complementary agendas
Distributed leadership
Foreign Countries
Higher education
Internet
Interprofessional Relationship
Interviews
Labour force development
Leadership
Managerialism
Online Surveys
Opinions
Professional occupations
Professional Personnel
School Personnel
Semi Structured Interviews
Social Distance
Staff
Staff utilisation
staffing strategy
Surveys
Teacher Attitudes
Teacher Surveys
University administration
University faculty
university management
University planning
Workforce
Workforce planning
Australia
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Summary:This paper uses a framework analysis to explore the opinions a cohort of Australian academic staff hold towards professional staff. Five indicative themes were identified from the extant literature on university professional staff: the professional other; managerialism; an expensive bureaucracy; complementary agendas; and the third space and beyond. These five themes formed the basis of an online survey and semi-structured interviews that gathered data on academics' opinions towards professional staff at both the local, departmental level and of those in central, divisional units. The interview and survey results revealed that the academics involved in this project held departmental professional staff in high esteem but that there was ambivalence directed to those in central units. The second part of this paper uses Sharrock's Four Agendas model to consider ways in which institutional leaders can capitalise on the existing strengths in the academic-professional working relationship towards fulfilling their strategic goals in a rapidly changing environment.
Bibliography:Refereed article. Includes bibliographical references.
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management; v.37 n.5 p.545-557; October 2015
Special themed issue : MTEM Special Issue
ISSN:1360-080X
1469-9508
DOI:10.1080/1360080X.2015.1079397