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Whether we call it ‘managerialism’ (soft or hard), ‘new managerialism’ or ‘New Public Management’ (NPM), the management narrative in both rhetoric and practice has penetrated higher education systems and institutions nearly everywhere. With its roots in a neo-liberal ideology, higher education management reform is part of a global trend where market ideology and market or quasi-market modes of regulation are fused with a set of management practices drawn from the corporate sector: privatisation, downsizing and outsourcing, budget diversification, benchmarking, performance appraisal, quality assurance and so on. Through such means as mission articulation, strategic planning, evaluation and commercial marketing, higher education managers are to ensure that their institutions become more entrepreneurial, adaptive and commercially responsive.

One of the most important groups of academic managers impacted by the managerialist push is the one charged with the stewardship of the basic academic units: departments/schools, faculties and, in some cases, research centres/institutes. These organisational entities are at the operational base of higher education institutions, closest to the action with respect to teaching and research, and best placed for implementing institutional policies and strategies. The roles of middle-level academic managers in charge of these units are changing in response to political and institutional pressures to adopt more ‘professional’ management approaches and attitudes: being able to define missions, objectives and strategies; having the capacity to manage financial and human resources; and to assume strong leadership – in contrast to traditional academic styles of negotiation and consensus building. In short, under the new ‘managerialist’ pressure, performance in academic leadership roles based upon research reputation and to a lesser extent on teaching and scholarship appears to give way to performance based upon management capabilities.

In recent years, there has been considerable expansion of the management responsibilities of deans of faculty, heads of departments/schools and other equivalent middle-level academic management positions. As part of the so-called process of ‘centralised devolution’, universities have devolved many academic and financial responsibilities to faculties and departments/schools, treating them as separate cost centres. This has placed middle-level academic managers in a pivotal role between central management predilections and academic values and control. In many institutions, the deanship and headship have changed from short-term elected positions to appointed positions with clear job specifications to provide strong academic and administrative leadership. Enhanced expectations and greater role definition of the middle-level academic manager are in clear contrast to earlier times when the position was perhaps considered a ‘good citizen’ chore. This book examines from an international comparative perspective the dynamics of the part played by middle-level academic managers in the transformation (or otherwise) of university governance and management. Some basic themes the book addresses include the following:

  • To what extent internationally have middle-level academic management positions moved from elected, collegial positions to appointed executive ones?

  • Are those who hold these positions academics or managers (or both)?

  • Has there been a re-norming of the values and expectations of middle-level academic managers?

  • How do the new expectations placed on middle-level academic managers impact on the academic profession as a whole?

  • What networks, internal and external, are available to middle-level academic managers to influence the shape of their respective higher education institutions and systems?

  • Are such positions as dean and head of department/school a distinct ‘class’ of academic manager or are they divided along traditional disciplinary lines? Has this changed in recent years?

  • Are there similarities between higher education institutions and other professional bureaucracies, for example, research hospitals, with respect to changes in role expectations for middle-level management?

  • For whom do middle-level academic managers speak?

This introductory chapter sets the scene for the more detailed examination of the role of middle-level academic managers in the higher education systems of ten countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The book rests on the assumption that an understanding of the role of the ‘modern’ dean and head of department/school must be embedded in the dynamics of wide-scale system change. The next section of this chapter outlines some of the broad changes in higher education systems that have helped shape and reshape the role of middle-level academic managers. This section is intentionally quite general for, as many of the subsequent chapters demonstrate, authority and control within individual institutions vary substantially according to the history and context of particular countries.

This is followed by a more specific discussion of NPM which has penetrated higher education from a number of different angles. Next, a brief review is provided of the main conceptual and empirical issues of concern to middle-level academic management that helped frame the country-specific analyses of the subsequent chapters. The final section of this introductory chapter provides an overview of the book’s contents.

As much as is possible when dealing with contributions from a number of distinct cultural, political and educational systems, the book attempts to adopt a common interpretation, if not definition, of what is meant by middle-level academic management. First, the term middle-level academic manager is used to distinguish between these managers – institutional chief executive officers at the top of the organisational structure – and other types of academic managers, such as course coordinators at the bottom of the structure. Second, the term is used in a broad generic sense so as to accommodate like positions in different national contexts. Nonetheless, in most instances, it is deans of faculty, heads of departments/schools and research directors who are being referred to. Of course, it is also recognised that there may be a hierarchy amongst the middle-level academic managers themselves. Generally, for example, deans have more power and authority than heads of departments – although some of the chapters in this book suggest that the roles of heads of departments/schools and research directors are becoming more like that of the dean, to whom they traditionally have been subordinate. Finally, it is recognised that both within and across systems, there is variability in these positions, depending on institutional size and other factors. What might be labelled a head of school position in an institution with 40,000+ students, could well be comparable to a dean’s position in a much smaller institution.

1 The Changing Management Context

In analysing the national contexts in which higher education reforms are occurring, most of the chapters in this book refer to two key factors which are crucial for an understanding of the way in which higher education governance and management have been framed: the re-conceptualisation and reconfiguration of the state steering of higher education systems and the introduction of private management models and approaches to higher education institutions. These two factors coincide in a change dynamic having a strong neo-liberal ideological underpinning. As Meek, Goedegebuure and De Boer point out in their contribution to this book, the roots of higher education restructuring are, to a great extent, based on a set of neo-liberal principles that aim to promote changes in the way in which public entities operate. The contributors to this book, taken as a whole, identify a number of trends influencing the management focus of most higher education institutions:

  • an articulation between self-governance and market competition promoting institutional ‘corporate culture’ and entrepreneurship as the main drivers of efficiency;

  • competition among autonomous higher education institutions, and the relationships they establish with other ‘stakeholders’, as crucial factors in the diversification of financial resources and the emergence of new forms of institutional control;

  • the pursuit of organisational efficiency to the detriment of traditional forms of academic decision making and professional cooperative interests; and

  • the avoidance of conflict that slows decision making through the unification of internal governance and management structures and concentration of power at the top of an administrative hierarchy.

While in many jurisdictions, the state has moved away from direct control of higher education to steering from a distance, deregulation has been accompanied by the dual pressures of enhanced management performance and accountability. Governments appear distrustful that deregulation and enhanced institutional autonomy will by themselves achieve the desired efficiencies and objectives for higher education. In fact, increased institutional autonomy (as opposed to academic or scientific autonomy) has often been accompanied by the limitation of collegial forms of governance in favour of concentrating power and authority at the institutional level in central bodies and executive managers (Shattock, 2006). The tensions that these changes in internal and external forms of control over higher education bring to the fore are apparent in nearly every chapter of the book.

2 New Public Management and New Managerialism

As argued elsewhere (Meek, 2003), any specific discussion of higher education management must be set within the broader context of NPM. NPM and related managerialist concepts have dominated public sector reform over the last two decades as OECD governments respond to declining economic performance, fiscal deficits, changes in the patterns of demand for government services, greater consumer expectations about quality of service and reduced community confidence in the ability of government to deliver services.

One of the main principles behind NPM is that while public actors such as government should maintain core public service values, they should place greater emphasis on achieving the desired results or outcomes of services rather than on the processes and rules of service delivery. It is assumed that efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery will be achieved through the use of private sector management techniques, such as specifying service objectives and competition for customers, performance measurement, decentralisation of decision making and the use of markets to deliver services. Based on public choice theory with its central tenet that all human behaviour is motivated by self-interest (Kamensky, 1996), NPM assumes that market competition rather than centralised bureaucratic regulation will deliver to the public ‘value for money’ from public expenditures.

While NPM has been characterised in a number of ways, Keating and Shand (1998, p. 13) succinctly summarise many of its purported key features:

  • a focus on results in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, quality of service and whether the intended beneficiaries actually gain;

  • a decentralised management environment which better matches authority and responsibility so that decisions on resource allocation and service delivery are made closer to the point of delivery, and provides scope for feedback from clients or other interested groups;

  • a greater focus and provision for client choice through the creation of competitive environments within the public sector organisations and non-government competitors;

  • the flexibility to explore more cost-effective alternatives to direct public provision or regulation, including the use of market instruments, such as user charging, vouchers and sale of property rights; and

  • accountability for results and for establishing due process rather than compliance with a particular set of rules, and a related change from risk avoidance to risk management.

Under NPM the public are clients of government, and administrators should seek to deliver services that satisfy clients. In higher education, too, students are referred to as customers or clients, and in most systems a labyrinth of quality assurance and accountability measures has been put in place to ensure that academic provision meets client needs and expectations. According to Considine (2001, p. 145), higher education institutions are ‘being “enterprised” by a powerful logic of managed performance, executive centralisation and a new code of corporate governance’.

Although there is a definite blurring around the edges, it is nonetheless worthwhile to distinguish between the two concepts of ‘NPM’ and ‘new managerialism’. Deem and Brehony (2005) emphasise the ideological differences of the two concepts. Those who believe that public sector reforms are merely technical devices to achieve greater efficiency usually use the term NPM (e.g. Hood, 1991; Pollitt, 1993, 2003). In contrast, those using the term ‘new managerialism’ stress the ideological component of the phenomenon. For authors such as Clarke and Newman (1997), Deem and Brehony (2005) and Reed (2002), managerialism is far more than a technical activity, but one charged with political and ideological significance. Managerial reforms are ideological in the sense that they are used to serve or ‘promote interest and maintain relations of power and domination’ (Deem & Brehony, 2005, p. 218). However, new managerialism should not be regarded as a monolithic ideology. It is, in part, based on pragmatism, rather than a humanist ideology of management, where one has to do whatever has to be done in a way that gives the best results with the least resources – the key words are efficiency, diligence, rationality, consistency and justifiability (Gustafsson, 1983). Following Trow’s (1994) lead, it is also useful to distinguish between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ managerialism.

Taken as a whole, the chapters in this book demonstrate a diversity in the way in which managerialist trends manifest themselves in different countries. In some countries, such as Australia, the hard version of managerialism seems to prevail amongst many of the middle-level academic managers studied in that country. In comparison, in the Netherlands, a softer approach appears to be the norm. In France and Canada, deans and heads of departments seem more protected against managerial intrusion. Canada is one of the countries where the higher education system has been more resistant to NPM dictates, maintaining many of the more traditional approaches to academic management. In France, Italy and Norway, the traditional bureaucratic power of the state over higher education institutions has been transferred, in some respects, to institutional-based governing bodies and executives. In the United States, market-based steering of higher education appears to continue. But, nearly everywhere, there seems to be a considerable expansion of the management responsibilities of middle-level academic managers. The form this takes and its consequences, as this book demonstrates, is what is important – the devil indeed is in the detail!

3 Higher Education Reforms and Middle-Level Academic Management

This book is one of the few in the field that examines from an international comparative perspective the dynamics of the part played by middle-level academic managers in the transformation (or otherwise) of university governance and management. While at the systems level much has been written about the new approach to managing higher education institutions, important questions remain. In fact, as research has increased on the topic, so has the realisation that the way in which the academic profession is responding to new managerialist realities is more complex, conflicted and contextualised than initially assumed. Teichler (2003, p. 179), for example, argues that, so far, much of the analysis of the impact of new managerialism has come from those who hold ‘high expectations’ for its benefits. As a result, he maintains that a number of fundamental research questions are yet to be adequately addressed:

  • Is the increase of costs (both human and monetary) incurred by the ‘managerial university’ a worthwhile investment?

  • To what extent do we observe growing resistance, circumvention and deviancy on the part of the academic profession?

  • What kind of power structure is likely to emerge in the ‘post-managerial’ or ‘post-entrepreneurial’ higher education system?

  • What kinds of realignments of the evaluation systems take place?

  • Is there a loss of creativity of academics?

  • Do we observe a growing interest in deliberate disinformation on the part of all administrative actors in order to raise the institutional position in a competitive environment?

Also, much of the research and analysis of change in management control and characteristics has been carried out at the sector level, the broad institutional level and/or has been concentrated on central leadership positions, such as vice-chancellors, rectors and governing councils. Outside of the United States, remarkably little is known about middle-level academic management in higher education. There is a growing body of literature on the changing nature of the academic profession (e.g. Altbach, 1996; Coates, Goedegebuure, van der Lee, & Meek, 2008; Enders, 2001; Enders & Teichler, 1997; Goedegebuure, Coates, van der Lee, & Meek, 2009; RIHE, 2008; Trowler, 1998). And there is also a growing body of literature analysing the perceived nature of change in higher education and relating this in general to issues of governance and management (e.g. Amaral, Jones, & Karseth, 2002; Amaral, Meek, & Larsen, 2003; File & Goedegebuure, 2003; Paradeise, Reale, Bleiklie, & Ferlie, 2009). But in-depth empirical studies on the effects of external change on internal institutional management are few and far between. This book adds significantly to the relevant literature through its focus on the attitudes and behaviour of academics occupying key positions of power and authority in basic academic units in a variety of different political and cultural settings.

Much of the recent policy literature has tended to assume that the new management push in higher education is universal, irreversible and irresistible. However, empirical research is emerging that questions the degree to which managerialism has changed all higher education institutions and transformed the roles of academic managers at all organisational levels (Amaral et al., 2002; Currie, Deangelis, De Boer, Huisman, & Lacotte, 2003; Trowler, 1998). At least at the level of the basic academic units, three responses are possible:

  1. 1.

    the managerialist narrative, both in rhetoric and practice, subsumes previous academic norms, values and routines with respect to academic self-governance;

  2. 2.

    the academic profession accommodates the new managerial rhetoric with little or no fundamental change in underlying values and practices; or

  3. 3.

    a hybrid management model emerges that incorporates both new managerial principles and traditional academic governance norms and values.

The chapters presented in this book address these questions from a number of different perspectives, clearly demonstrating that context and history remain powerful determinants of the way in which power is exercised within higher education institutions. But, at the same time, there are many similarities amongst the different countries’ institutional models of governance and management. A degree of loss of power by collegial bodies, the emergence of new managerial hierarchies, decentralisation and devolved accountability (performance appraisal, quality assurance, etc.) are common themes in the higher education reforms of the various countries studied in this book.

Yet, we need to be careful how we go about both assessing and interpreting the changes that have been occurring in many higher education systems for quite some time and the effects they are having on what might be called the ‘institutional fabric’ – the way in which our higher education institutions are held together internally; the way in which the different groups of internal constituents such as executives, academics, administrators and students interact with each other; and the way in which formal and informal authority and decision-making structures play out. As, for example, the recent Eurydice (2008) study shows, in many countries the formal powers of university leaders and managers have increased at the expense of more collegial or participative modes of governance. But such a broad generalisation fails to capture the nuances embedded in the different European higher education systems, making a Norwegian dean quite different compared to a British dean. Our country analyses to some extent bring these nuances to the fore but, because they approach the questions posed above from different angles and perspectives, the findings and conclusions are not always comparable on a one-to-one basis.

This highlights the need for more rigorous comparative research on higher education middle management and the final chapter in this book argues this in more detail. Middle-management positions in higher education require multiple competencies and skill sets. In this respect, they are no different from middle management in other sectors of industry or service providers. However, they do face some unique challenges that relate to the specific nature of tertiary education organisations, such as multiple missions, unclear technology and a highly specialised and at times fragmented organisation (Birnbaum, 1989; Clark, 1983; Parsons, 1971). But, at the same time, as elsewhere, there is an increased emphasis on the importance of middle-level managers, not only as implementers of directives ‘from above’ but also as strategic actors operating in the thick of organisational life (see e.g. Balogun, 2003; Balogun & Gerry, 2004). The complex set of skills and competencies required of these positions are well documented by Bryman (2007). On the basis of an extensive literature review on leadership effectiveness in Australian, British and US higher education systems, he identifies the behavioural characteristics listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Leadership behaviour associated with leadership effectiveness at the departmental level
Full size table

The characteristics in Table 1 clearly indicate that effective management and leadership at the middle level entail much more than the parodies of managerialism that are often found in the more popular discourses on higher education management. This theme will be returned to in the final chapter of the volume. The concept of multiple roles and skill sets required of middle-level academic managers adds an additional perspective to the analysis of the various country studies.

4 Outline of the Volume

As stated above, the book demonstrates the variety of ways in which different nations have approached higher education reform. And there are similar and divergent threads to the analysis of these reforms – a result of both differences in context and theoretical approach. But what each of the book’s chapters has in common is the object of study – the middle-level academic managers who find themselves at the intersection between the traditional academic profession (the academic disciplines and all the baggage that comes with them) and managerial hierarchies and expectations.

The analysis begins with Hans Pechar in the chapter ‘Academic Middle Managers Under the New Governance Regime at Austrian Universities’ who explores the deregulation of university organisational structures in Austria and discusses the emergent role of the academic middle manager. The discussion is set within the context of the organisational reforms that have occurred since the first seminal reform in the mid-1970s. Resulting issues such as bureaucratic burden, inconsistencies in the governance pattern and incentives for career advancement to middle management are discussed. Past dissatisfaction with the way in which universities were run in Austria led to several waves of organisational reforms that eventually resulted in a pattern of governance which is shaped by the NPM model.

Pechar reflects upon the differentiated impact of the transformative Austrian higher education reforms on the power of rectors and deans, the latter being the least affected. The chapter highlights an issue that is frequently ignored in this research field, that is, the transference to internal institutional relationships of external conflicts that traditionally emerged between the state and higher education institutions.

In the chapter ‘The Changing Role of Academic Leadership in Australia and the Netherlands: Who Is the Modern Dean?’, Meek, Goedegebuure and De Boer present a comparative study of the deanship in two countries – Australia and the Netherlands. The NPM movement promoting private sector management practices in public sector bureaucracies has impacted higher education institutions in both countries. In Australia and the Netherlands, as elsewhere, universities are being asked to be more entrepreneurial, financially self-sufficient and innovative, while at the same time having their performance assessed and held accountable with respect to a variety of external compliance structures and policies. The focus of this chapter is on the changing role of the academic deanship; it is based on empirical research and attempts to assess to what extent the deanship currently reflects the importation of the rhetoric and management practices of the private sector into higher education. Are today’s deans the stereotyped managers that many of our colleagues over coffee and drinks make them out to be? Has managerialism become part and parcel of everyday academic life? Or is the situation far more complex as suggested by the outcomes of some similar studies into this phenomenon? In attempting to answer these questions, the authors examine how far managerial power has the capacity to completely subsume collegial forms of self-governance and traditional academic autonomy.

The chapter by Jef Verhoeven explores facets of managerialism in Flemish policy and institutions of higher education through addressing four questions: (i) What is managerialism and what are its characteristics? (ii) How did the national policy makers make way for managerialism in institutions of higher education? (iii) Are there indicators of managerialism in higher education research of the 1990s? (iv) Do deans, heads of departments and heads of research units perceive the current management of institutions of higher education as having characteristics of managerialism? The empirical research reported in this chapter demonstrates that managerialism is not present in Belgium universities in its extreme forms. A relatively large group of middle managers still prefer a collegial attitude, and they criticise some of the less pleasant consequences of managerialism. Based on a review of the relevant literature and a survey of deans and heads of departments of Belgium higher education institutions, Verhoeven discusses the extent to which deans and heads are open-minded in adopting managerialist principles and if there are identifiable differences between universities and university colleges.

The chapter ‘The Roles and Responsibilities of Middle Management (Chairs and Deans) in Canadian Universities’ examines the roles and responsibilities of department chairs and faculty deans in Canadian universities to determine whether these academic middle-management positions are changing in terms of mandate, orientation and scope. Lydia Boyko and Glen Jones question if the positions and roles of Canadian deans and heads of departments have changed in response to the influence of NPM. Their chapter is the result of a content analysis of institutional documents and collective bargaining agreements related to appointment processes.

Boyko and Jones’ review of institutional policy documents and faculty association collective agreements at 30 public universities across Canada reveals no significant formal shifts in middle-management functions in recent years. The incumbents of both department chair and faculty dean positions are predominantly academics, primus inter pares, who are largely concerned with internal management of financial and human resources. The chair’s job does not appear to be professionalising. It involves a highly internal recruitment process for a short term of office with modest remuneration. The dean’s situation is somewhat less clear; decanal salaries are growing substantively higher than comparable compensation for their senior academic peers. A major factor inhibiting dramatic change in these roles may be faculty unionisation. Collective agreements prescribe selection requirements, specific duties and reporting relationships. An increase in newly created functions at the executive level, with a focus on ‘advancement’ and ‘external relations’, including fundraising, may also be a reason for the steady nature of the expectations of the chair and dean. Lack of change appears to be related to the historical maintenance of the traditional power structures in which deans and heads of departments operate within Canadian higher education institutions.

The chapter by Stefano Boffo investigates the changes in the role of Italian middle-level university management in the light of the new managerialist orientations prevailing in most Western countries. Using sociological concepts as his main theoretical tool, Boffo begins his chapter by analysing the recent changes in the Italian higher education system and their impact on middle-level academic management within institutions. The present role and perspectives of middle-level managers in Italy, and in particular deans, are explored through the lenses of the disciplines, the specialisation of the university and the public or private status of the institution. A brief comparison with France highlights the presence of a growing managerial component in the dean’s role in the Italian case in response to reform; and while the deans still have a major reference to academic values and practices, they are pushed to acquire and exert some management capabilities. It seems quite improbable that in the Italian context the weight of academic values, norms and routines will be substantially taken over by new managerial values and practices – rather, a hybrid model is quite likely to emerge.

Stéphanie Mignot-Gérard’s contribution is an analysis of the leadership styles of the presidents and deans in French universities. The results she presents in the chapter ‘Presidents and Deans in French Universities: A Collective Approach to Academic Leadership’ are drawn from a qualitative study in four institutions where 250 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The relations among these academic leaders as well as the respective conceptualisations of their roles are under scrutiny. The study of the discourses and behaviour of the institutional and intermediate academic leaders indicates that academic leadership styles vary intuitively across institutions. The analysis of the data suggests that each style is consistent with the position of power held by the leader in the internal system of relations among the three lines of authority (academic, administrative and deliberative) that form the university governance structure.

Ingvild Larsen in the chapter ‘From Democracy to Management-Oriented Leadership? The Manager-Academic in Norwegian Higher Education’ develops an in-depth analysis of the role of NPM in Norwegian higher education institutions based on a theoretical framework drawn from political science and incorporating the concepts of representative and participative democracy. The chapter describes recent changes and reforms in the governance and leadership structure in Norwegian higher education. The main questions in the analysis are the following: In what direction has the leadership structure in Norwegian higher education moved? Are we witnessing a development towards a less democratic structure with a subsequent change towards a more management-oriented structure, or is another picture emerging? There are still democratic elements in the middle-management structure in Norwegian higher education, both in formal arrangements and in how the system is carried out in practice. And, even though many democratic elements are no longer mandatory, it is still possible for the institutions to pursue a democratic structure, but not one that is prescribed and predefined by the state authorities. The structure still has some democratic features, even though changes make it difficult to use the label democracy. While it could be argued that representative democracy is under pressure, deliberative democracy seems to have established roots in the leadership style in Norwegian higher education.

The influence of NPM on changes in governmental policies designed to restructure the Portuguese higher education system and its institutions is the subject of the chapter ‘New Public Management and “Middle Management”: How Do Deans Influence Institutional Policies?’ by Teresa Carvalho and Rui Santiago. Based on a qualitative empirical study and using new institutionalism and institutional archetype theoretical concepts, the authors confront the collegial model of management with NPM in their analysis of decision-making processes. In the Portuguese context, external pressures unduly influence attempts to create a new institutional environment. But the ways in which higher education institutions respond to external pressures are also dependent on internal processes and on actors’ actions. Thus, it is important to identify the main characteristics of the actors’ institutional power, as well as their capacity to participate in and influence institutional strategies. Among these actors, deans hold a key position. The chapter analyses the position, power and sphere of action of the Portuguese deans in relation to the strategies they develop to cope with increasing state-sponsored managerial pressures. Carvalho and Santiago’s qualitative study involved 26 interviews of deans and heads of departments from four Portuguese public higher education institutions.

Paul Trowler in the chapter ‘UK Higher Education: Captured by New Managerialist Ideology?’ turns our attention to changes in middle-level academic management in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the relevant literature and primary data from two large mixed-method research and evaluation projects based at Lancaster University, as well as the author’s other research work (with smaller samples and more qualitative in nature), this chapter (i) identifies new managerialism as fundamentally ideological in nature; (ii) positions the very significant role of discourse in articulating and sustaining ideologies; (iii) asks whether new managerialist ideology and discourse have become hegemonic in UK higher education, exploring the reasons for any dominance they have achieved; and (iv) concludes with the observation that UK higher education has not been ‘captured’ by this ideology despite its apparent prevalence.

The purpose of Jack Schuster’s chapter, which is the last of the country-specific empirical studies, is to describe the ongoing transformation of the university and the emergence of perhaps a new – or at least newish – university model or paradigm rather than to attempt to depict the traits of middle managers and what exactly may be different about their tasks in this more aggressively management-oriented climate. To portray this context entails some observations about the transformation of the university itself, as well as a description of the profound changes in the composition, work and careers of the faculty. According to Schuster, understanding this context better should facilitate some insights into the implications for the complex role of academe’s middle managers.

The concluding chapter returns to the broad heuristic questions concerning the changing role of middle management in higher education raised in this introduction. Based on the rich data from the variety of national contexts presented by the country paper authors, a few tentative conclusions are stated. First, nearly everywhere, the management of higher education institutions is becoming more professional. The part-time, amateur academic manager is largely a creature of the past. Second, while the manager-academic is becoming more professional, NPM is not sweeping all in its path. Aspects of NPM are readily apparent in all of the countries examined in this volume; but simultaneously core academic values relating to autonomy and scientific freedom prevail. Academe seems more resilient to corporate-style hard management than is often presumed. Finally, the chapter concludes that this volume raises more questions than it answers about the changing role of middle management in higher education. But, in doing so, a specific agenda for future research emerges and is articulated at the end of the chapter. Central to this agenda is the notion that, similar to many other organisations, middle-management positions require a complex set of competencies and capabilities.