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The Managerial Turn in Higher Education? On the Interplay of Organizational and Occupational Change in German Academia

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Abstract

The managerial turn in academia is currently broadly discussed. Based on empirical data gathered from a sample that includes all German universities, we can give a broad and fine-grained account of this turn. What we can clearly see is that whole new categories of administrative management positions have been created over the last years. Furthermore, within the non-academic staff we can see a profound restructuration. Lower-level positions like those for clerical work decreased, while higher-level positions in the administration increased. However, and in contrast to studies of countries, we do not observe a general shift from academic to non-academic positions. In addition to the statistical analysis of survey data and personnel data, we conducted seventy in-depth interviews with heads of administrative management units, in particular those being created over the last two decades, for example, on quality control, technology transfer, and career service. Although we clearly see important changes indicating a managerial turn in higher education, core characteristics of a professional organization whose basic processes are ultimately controlled by academics and not by administrators or managers have been retained. These findings call for further cross-national research.

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Notes

  1. According to official statistics, at German universities there are 8,110 persons employed in university administration and management that belong to the status group of “higher grade” of which only some occupy a leadership-position (Statistisches Bundesamt 2009: 10).

  2. The head of university administration, similar to the position of a vice-president for finance and human resources, administrative director or provost in Anglo-American higher education systems but in Germany traditionally referred to as “Kanzler,” are not easily located within this categorisation. Like the president/rector and the vice-presidents, they are part of the university leadership team and according to most state laws, the academic senate is involved in their appointment. Therefore, they belong to the first group. However, as senior civil servants they are full-time administrators and not academics and therefore also belong to the second group.

  3. Contrary to appropriations in other contributions in higher education research using the terms “non-academic staff” and “administrative staff” synonymously, in the German context non-academic staff cannot be equated with administrative staff. Based on the attribution of different work areas according to statistical reports, non-academic staff at German universities differentiate between the following categories of non-academic staff: administrative staff, technical staff, library staff and other staff (Statistisches Bundesamt 2009, Erläuterungen).

  4. For further results and discussions concerning gender issues in German higher education management, see Krücken et al. (2012).

  5. Systematic studies on academic backgrounds and career paths of higher administrators at German universities have not been conducted so far. However, there are general surveys on administrative elites in Germany (Derlien and Mayntz 1988; Derlien 2003; Bogumil et al. 2012). These studies show that members of these elites most typically have a law degree and pursued a distinct career path within the realm of public administration.

  6. For similar results with regard to public research organizations in Italy, see also Coccia (2009).

  7. In this, we find another interesting parallel to the inception of management in the business sector. According to Chandler (1977), during the managerial revolution managers had field-specific expertise, as they were experts on specific sectors of mass production or distribution. A railroad manager could hardly transfer his skills to the retail sector. Over the 20th century, however, the sharp boundaries between sectors became blurred and management was increasingly seen as a generic competence that could be learned and trained and that diffuses widely across countries and sectors (Sahlin-Andersson and Engwall 2002). It is an open and highly interesting question whether we will observe a similar trend in the higher education sector.

  8. In addition, see the account by Hüther and Krücken (2011) of the differences with regard to the top management level. According to the analysis presented, university leadership in Germany is comparably weak due to various aspects that mainly relate to the high degree of autonomy of the professoriate. Nevertheless, we assume that the top management at German universities, which is by and large composed of university professors, can bring about more profound changes than the administrative middle managers we analyzed in this paper. Likewise, further analyses should also include the changing role of deans in the management of higher education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel (INCHER-Kassel), Moenchebergstrasse 17, 34109, Kassel, Germany

    Georg Krücken & Albrecht Blümel

  2. German Research Institute for Public Administration Speyer, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Straße 2, 67324, Speyer, Germany

    Katharina Kloke

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  1. Georg Krücken
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Correspondence to Georg Krücken.

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Krücken, G., Blümel, A. & Kloke, K. The Managerial Turn in Higher Education? On the Interplay of Organizational and Occupational Change in German Academia. Minerva 51, 417–442 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-013-9240-z

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