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This study aimed to explore the challenges academic women, especially those who were mothers of preschool age children, went through. The main guiding question of this study was "How do academic mothers with preschool age children survive in the academia from pregnancy through all the various stages of parenting and motherhood?". This study employed qualitative case study research design. The study was conducted in a faculty of a state university in Turkey. 6 academic women participated in this study based on the selection criteria. Data was collected through open-ended, semi-structured interviews and analysed through thematic analysis. The findings indicated that though academic women in the study valued the experience of being mothers, they were overwhelmed by the workload; lacked administrative support; and suffered from a never-ending struggle to balance between their academic duties and parental responsibilities.

Purpose Elements of national and organizational cultures can contribute much to the success of error management in organizations. Accordingly, this study aims to consider how errors were approached in two state university departments in Turkey in relation to their specific organizational and national cultures. Design/methodology/approach The study follows a qualitative case study design, and the data were collected through five focus groups. The cases under consideration were two state university departments of different organizational sizes. Findings The results showed that organizational and national culture elements (collectivism, high power distance and relatively low future orientation) significantly interacted with error management practices. In both of the organizations studied, there were found to be limited attempts to prevent the errors unless there was an emergent situation. Error detection was shown to be slow and hindered because of indirect communication among staff. Ultimately, effective error management in these organizations was identified as being unattainable because of negative emotional reactions to errors, lower reporting, restricted communication, potential face loss considerations and lack of feedback. Originality/value The findings of the current work extend earlier error management research with empirical data drawn from two cases in the higher education domain. Thus, the study offers preliminary research into the error process in education, and contributes to future research relating organizational culture to error processes.

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Article InfoThis qualitative study aims to explore how the culture of performativity resulting from the influences of neoliberal governmentality on the academe is perceived by academics throughout their career and interrogates how their perceptions could reflect on their professional identity. The study was conducted with twenty-four academics from state universities in Turkey. The analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed that the emerging culture of performativity in higher education institutions seems to establish three identity trajectories as perceived by academics. Accordingly, some resist to conforming to the neoliberal norms in the academe, some feel obliged to conform to these norms albeit with ethical dilemmas while some welcome and embrace these emerging norms. The findings highlight some threatening consequences of performativity as a neoliberal policy tool in higher education for both the soul of the academic profession and the quality of work in the context of Turkey. Implications are identified, which include the need to develop new policy tools prioritizing professional integrity and internal accountability to achieve desired quality in higher education.