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'Wasta' is one of the most critical challenges to organisations in Jordan and the Middle East due to its informal nature and the influences it has on various professional decisions made. Views on it vary and are contradictory. Despite the negative perceptions and its perceived harmful effects, its use is commonplace. Studies on Wasta and the factors affecting its use are limited, specifically in the context of higher education. This research explores the power of informal networks 'Wasta' and the motives behind individuals' involvement in a Jordanian higher education institution. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 academics with experience working in private and public universities. The findings identified various motives that work on the societal, organisational, and individual levels that encourage its use in academia and make it a powerful tool for obtaining what is desired yet conceivably deserved. This is the first study that pragmatically contributes to the understanding of the contradictory views of Wasta as well as its prevailing power in affecting work processes in academia.

Studies debating the applicability of conventional human resource management to higher education institutions relating to particular characteristics of academic staff members and their roles have not considered Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan. This research explores challenges to incorporating effective human resource management in Jordanian higher education institutions based on in-depth interviews with 21 academics with experience working in public and private universities in Jordan. Five major challenges were identified: (1) the lack of a comprehensive evaluation system for academics; (2) the negligence of the significant role human resources departments may play; the nature and characteristics of academic institutions themselves; (3) the underdevelopment of human resource management practice in Jordan; (4) the ethos of academic staff members; and (5) the role of "wasta" (a local variant of nepotism) in influencing various human resource-related decisions. This paper provides unique insights on the successful management of human resources in academic institutions locally, regionally, and possibly internationally, giving due consideration to contextual factors (e.g. national culture) that affect operations. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are presented at the end of the paper.

In a super-saturated world of academia, the real power has slowly moved from academics' ownership of their own means of production to a more managerial ethos, with all the accompanying control systems, surveillance, bureaucracy, performance audits and judgements that that entails. Student evaluation of teaching (SET) has become a significant evaluation tool, focusing on front-line contact and quality of teaching, allowing students to make that judgement call. This leaves out a large part of the picture of how institutions are managed and function, putting the onus on the academic and their relationship with students, teaching capability and cohort results. This leads to a sense of unfairness and poses questions about the validity and reliability of judgement calls based on student evaluation of teaching data and subsequent fairness in reward and recognition. This work considers the perceptions of Jordanian academic staff in a private institution of the use of SET as a summative tool for performance appraisal. This research has confirmed that the use of SET as a dominant, if not sole, factor in judging performance can extenuate academic stress. Thus SET results need to be used in a measured way.