Compliance or pragmatism: How do academics deal with managerialism in higher education? A comparative study in three countries

Universities throughout Europe have adopted organisational strategies, structures, technologies, management instruments and values that are commonly found in the private sector. While these alleged managerial measures may be considered useful, and have a positive effect on the quality of teaching and research, there is also evidence of detrimental effects on primary tasks. The consequences of such managerial measures were investigated through 48 interviews with staff members at 10 universities in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The results were analysed and interpreted within the framework of institutional and professional theory, by linking them to three central themes: 'symbolic compliance', 'professional pragmatism' and 'formal instrumentality'. These themes explain why and how the respondents dissociated themselves from the managerial measures imposed upon them. This occurred often for pragmatic and occasionally for principled reasons. © 2012 Society for Research into Higher Education

Bologna Beyond 2010 : Report on the development of the European Higher Education Area

Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve Ministerial Conference 28-29 April 2009In many respects, the Bologna Process has been revolutionary for cooperation in European higher education. Four education ministers participating in the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the University of Paris (Sorbonne Joint Declaration, 1998) shared the view that the segmentation of the European higher education sector in Europe was outdated and harmful and thus signed the Sorbonne Joint Declaration. The decision to engage in a voluntary process to create the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was formalized a year later in Bologna by 30 countries (The Bologna Declaration, 1999). It is now apparent that this was a unique undertaking as the process today includes no fewer than 46 participating countries, out of the 49 countries that have ratified the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe (1954). This means that, eventually, the joint declaration signed by four ministers in Paris mobilized numerous (higher) education ministers and high-ranking civil servants, as well as many thousands of rectors, deans, professors and students who contributed to the conception of the project and, in particular, to its implementation. No other European initiative has mobilized so many people, apart from the creation and development of the European Union. Moreover, the process has aroused growing curiosity and interest, but also some uneasiness in other parts of the world. Prior to the publication of the independent assessment the ministerial meeting of 2009 is to give policy orientations for the future of the Bologna Process. The present report proposes the possible main foci these orientations could take

On Process, Progress, Success and Methodology or the Unfolding of the Bologna Process as it Appears to Two Reasonably Benign Observers

This article examines the Bologna Process from two main perspectives: as a dynamic strategy as well as the unfolding of the methodology employed. It argues that the latter was largely determined by the former. Three phases of development are identified; the first two of which shows that the methodology was largely determined by the need to bestow credibility on the strategy. The third phase, introduced with the recent Ministerial meeting in London in May 2007 suggests that the boundless confidence in the progress achieved at system level has now given way to a new sobriety when attention to progress is translated to institutional level. It concludes that there are excellent grounds for rethinking the basic strategy behind the Bologna Process