Academic Institutions as Corporate Enterprise: Transparency,Power and Control in Staff Appraisal |
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Authors: | Stephen Bremner |
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Institution: | (1) Department of English, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong |
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Abstract: | Institutions of higher education, especially universities, have undergone a gradual transformation in the last 20 years or
so under the pressures of accountability-related measures such as the research assessment exercise, quality assurance procedures,
outcomes-based teaching and learning, and the university rankings system. These measures have led academic institutions to
adopt practices that emphasize corporate management concerns. Universities are no longer regarded as institutions of learning
but more as corporate enterprise. One aspect of this transformation is also seen in the implementation of staff appraisal
systems and promotion exercises, which are becoming increasingly formal and less transparent, often operating behind closed
doors, and privileging increased power to decision-makers. There is a resulting danger of policies and procedures being designed,
constructed, and interpreted to assign maximum control to decision-makers over the outcome of such processes. This paper presents
analysis of a corpus of policies, rules, and procedures being used in a number of institutions of higher education, focusing
on the issues of transparency, power and control in academic appraisals and promotions, to study the extent to which these
rules and procedures are likely to make the exercise transparent and assign equitable power and control to the decision-makers
as well as to the staff at the receiving end. |
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Keywords: | |
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