Search

Byline: Oili-Helena Ylijoki (1) Keywords: academic capitalism; academic profession; academic values; disciplinary culture; market-orientation; university research Abstract: During recent years universities have engagedincreasingly in academic capitalism as aresponse to the decrease in budget funding andthe external push towards entrepreneurialactivities. This paper explores on the microlevel what impacts the changing fundingpatterns have on university research, how thechanges are responded to in different researchunits, and how researchers experience them.Based on focused interviews with seniorresearchers in three different types ofresearch settings in Finland, the paper arguesthat engaging in academic capitalism iseveryday reality in all units but takes adiversity of forms depending on how close ordistant the field is from the market. Inaddition the disciplinary and institutionalcultures shape the process of adaptation to thechanging environmental conditions. It isconcluded that increasing market-orientationdoes not displace traditional academicpractices, values and ideals as researchers tryto accommodate them to entrepreneurialactivities. However, especially due to thegrowth and intensification of project work onshort-term contracts, achieving a balancebetween the two value-sets is at present feltto be increasingly difficult, thus generating avariety of tensions in the daily work of theresearchers and even endangering the quality ofresearch. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Tampere, 33014, Finland Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

Byline: Mathieu Albert (1) Keywords: economics; entrepreneurial science; knowledge production; social science; sociology; university studies Abstract: Based on the conceptualframework of Pierre Bourdieu, this studycompares the impact of pressure to develop tieswith non-academic organisations on two fieldsof research, namely: sociology and economics.The study highlights the dynamics particular toeach discipline and shows that a soundunderstanding of transformations affectinguniversity research cannot exclude analysis ofthe specificity of each one. Two cohorts ofprofessors were studied in two Quebecuniversities: the first cohort was made up ofprofessors who received tenure between 1974 and1983, and the second between 1989 and 1998. Theresults suggest that pressures in favor ofpartnership with non-academic organisationshave not had the same impact in sociology andeconomics. While research practices haveundergone transformations in each discipline,the nature of these transformations differs inan important way. The results also contradicttwo popular models in knowledge productionstudies, which are the Entrepreneurial Science,and Mode 1/Mode 2 models. Although these modelsclaim that academic research orientation hasbecome geared towards problem-solving, ourresults indicate, however, that the oppositetrend has been taking place in sociology andeconomics. Author Affiliation: (1) Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), Universite du Quebec a Montreal, P.O. Box 8888, Station Centre-ville, Montreal, (Quebec), Canada, H3C 3P8 Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

Byline: Simon Marginson (1), Gary Rhoades (2) Keywords: academic capitalism; comparative education; globalization; markets; methodologies; nation-state; neo-liberalism Abstract: This paper offers an overarching analyticalheuristic that takes us beyond currentresearch, anchored in conceptions of nationalstates, markets, and systems of highereducation institutions. We seek to shapecomparative higher education research withregard to globalization in much the same waythat Clark's (1983) ``triangle'' heuristic hasframed comparative higher education research inthe study of national policies and highereducation systems. Our ``glonacal agencyheuristic'' points to three intersecting planesof existence, emphasizing the simultaneoussignificance of global, national, and localdimensions and forces. It combines the meaningof ``agency'' as an established organization withits meaning as individual or collective action. Our paper critiques the prevailing framework incross-national higher education research,addressing the liberal theory that underpinsthis framework, the ways scholars address therise of neo-liberal policies internationally,conceptual shortcomings of this work, andemergent discourse about ``academic capitalism''. We then discuss globalization and ourheuristic. Finally, we provide examples of howstates, markets, and institutions can bereconceptualized in terms of global, national,regional, and local agencies and agency. Author Affiliation: (1) Faculty of Education, Monash University, VIC, 3800, Australia (2) Center for the Study of Higher Education, College of Education, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ, 85721, USA Article History: Registration Date: 12/10/2004