25 research outputs found

    Occupational knowledge and practice amongst UK university research administrators

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    With the exception of lecturing staff, research on occupational groups and cultures within the UK higher education system is relatively sparse. This paper focuses upon one specialist group, to-date under-researched but which plays a central role in contemporary higher education administration: graduate research administrators. This occupational group is of particular interest as its members administer and manage an increasing complex and key area of university life, which in many cases appears to span the putative occupational divide between ‘academic’ and ‘administrative’ work. Based upon qualitative interviews with 27 research administrators, and using some of Bourdieu's conceptual devices, the paper analyses particular kinds of informal occupational knowledge and practice, necessary in order effectively to ‘do’ the complex task of research administration in the pressurized environment of contemporary British higher education

    The bureaucratisation of Australian unions? Evidence from a national survey

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    Using data drawn from the authors’ own 1996 Australian National Trade Union Survey, this paper examines the size and implications of union bureaucracies in Australia. In particular, we critically evaluate the arguments of Bramble (1995b) that the growth of Australia's ‘new generation’ of union officials has had the effect of ‘deterring democracy’. We find that while the evidence of increasing numbers of union officials is mixed, there are some trends that are contributing to higher union official density rates while other trends are lowering those rates. However, we find no support for Bramble's central claims that union bureaucratisation and managerial-service unionism have led to less democratic practices in Australian unions. Rather than being concerned with the number or class character of officials, we suggest that organisational features such as delegate structures are more relevant to the issue of union democracy
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