Claire (2017) 'Underpinning excellence in higher education an investigation into the leadership, governance and management behaviours of high-performing academic departments.', Studies in higher education., 42 (2). pp. 210-231. Further information on publisher's website:
Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.
AbstractThe changes in government funding alongside external pressures of increased international and national competition has meant that higher education institutions need to excel in a turbulent environment. The leadership, governance and management of academic departments are key concerns. This study investigates the correlation between behaviours, attitudes and competencies at a department level and overall departmental performance in terms of hard data measures. The research question this paper seeks to address is: what are the leadership, governance and management behaviours that are associated with high-performance in academic departments?More than 600 people across 50 academic departments in five UK universities were surveyed through the use of three research phases consisting of open-ended questionnaires, critical-case sampled semi-structured interviews and a fixed-response survey. Synthesising the data and findings of the study revealed a thematic framework of eight broad themes that contribute to excellence in academic departments. These were in the areas of change management, research and teaching, communication, strategy and shared values, leadership, departmental culture, rewards and staffing. The behaviours associated with each of these themes were used to construct the Underpinning Excellence model.