Organizational structures and power in universities

• Published in: Managing the Digital University pp. 136 - 141
• Main Author: Sulkowski, Lukasz
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2023; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Divisional Organizational Structure; Duplicating; Public HEIs; Collegiate Bodies; Digital Panopticon; Tensor Structures; Organizational Structure; Strong; Entrepreneurial Universities; Horizontal Teams; Flexible Matrix; University Paradigms; Board Of Trustees; Digital Universities; Goffmanian Total Institution; Bursar; Chief Information Officers; Post-bureaucratic Organizations; HEI Governance; Advanced Knowledge Management; HEI Management; Variable Network Structures; Non-collegial Nature; Matrix Solutions; Virtual Organizational Structures
• ISBN: 1032432470; 1032432519; 9781032432472; 9781032432519
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003366409-12

Academic structures and power relations are the subjects of this chapter. The description of the danger of the university's drift towards the dystopia of power may also be the development of organizational structures, which may favor surveillance and control of academic activity. The new formation of the digital university no longer uses only corporate methods of management but couples them with increasingly perfected data collection and analysis processes, which may threaten to move towards a Goffmanian total institution, which I metaphorically describe as a "digital panopticon." This danger can probably be avoided by leaving areas of creative freedom and academic autonomy in the realm of structure and power. This would be a search for the "golden mean" between the development of control systems and the freedom of creators, teachers, students, and universities themselves.