Search

This paper draws on an international study of the management challenges arising from diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education. These challenges include, for instance, the introduction of practice-based disciplines with different traditions such as health and social care, the changing aspirations and expectations of younger generations of staff, a diffusion of management responsibilities and structures, and imperatives for a more holistic approach to the “employment package”, including new forms of recognition and reward. It is suggested that while academic and professional identities have become increasingly dynamic and multi-faceted, change is occurring at different rates in different contexts. A model is offered, therefore, that relates approaches to “people management” to different organisational environments, against the general background of increasing resource constraint arising from the global economic downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an empirical study associated with earlier reviews of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education (Whitchurch, 2004; 2006a; 2006b). The study draws on the narratives of 24 individuals to illustrate that identity movements cannot be captured solely in terms of a shift from 'administration' to 'management', or of a collective process of professionalisation. Contemporary ideas about the fluidity of identity (Delanty, 2008; Taylor, 2008) are used to theorise the empirical data, and to develop a conceptual framework that describes emerging identities by means of three categories of bounded, cross-boundary, and unbounded professionals. This framework demonstrates that professional staff are not only interpreting their given roles more actively, but that they are also moving laterally across functional and institutional boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledges, relationships and legitimacies. It is suggested, therefore, that the roles and identities of professional staff are more complex and dynamic than organisation charts or job descriptions might suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Comments on the art of good management in England. Initiatives for good management developed in the sector; Leadership abilities of administrators and managers; Significance of communication in good management.

Editorial. Comments on the strategies that provide assistance for managers in achieving goals. Use of benchmarking as instrument of persuasion in gaining understanding and co-operation of colleague; Relevance of public relations on the daily life; Introduction on the use of electronic diaries.