Towards a micro foundation of leadership, governance, and management in universities

The role of the associate dean in UK universities: distributed leadership in action?

“…Thus, it can be seen that while key cross-university tasks and projects are being delegated to associate deans, the real accountability and power remain at the top of the organisation (Bolden et al 2008;Corrigan 2013). The reason for this is perhaps due to the increased external accountability pressures that higher education senior leadership teams are under (Blaschke et al 2014). For example, one of the main dilemmas that universities face in relation to how it is organised is the tension between adopting certain common leadership structures and styles which are perceived as vital in order to survive the current market and demonstrate institutional accountability, while at the same time being expected to be innovative and entrepreneurial in their approach and outlook (Stensaker and Norgard 2001).…”

“…Without this clarification, academics may well remain ensconced within their traditional 'tribes and territories' (Becher and Trowler 2001) and not feel confident or willing enough to contribute to the leadership of any new cross-curricular projects being led by associate deans. Such a lack of role clarification and purpose may also anger those critics who see such cross-disciplinary initiatives as being a form of isomorphism between the public and private sector, believed to be a result of increasing neo-liberal reforms and New Public Management practices, all of which are perceived as being a threat to traditional academic values built on collegiality and traditional academic identities built on the notion of discreet academic disciplines and departments (Blaschke et al 2014;Hartley 2009). This may well mean that institutions could lose out on the crucial 'grass roots' leadership activity of academics not in formal positions, which can be very influential in effecting organisational change (Kezar et al 2011).…”

“…Accordingly, although the practice of distributing leadership is widespread across the sector, associated issues such as problems with accountability and power (Bolden et al 2008;Corrigan 2013), differences between delegation and real authority (Owens and Valesky 2011), tensions between isomorphism and its perceived negative effect on academic values and identities (Blaschke et al 2014;Hartley 2009), and links to discursive leadership practices (Fairhurst 2008;Fairhurst 2009;Whittle et al 2015;Wodak et al 2011) have not been sufficiently addressed. It is these key issues that this article seeks to explore.…”

Online leadership discourse in higher education: A digital multimodal discourse perspective

“…Blaschke et al, 2014;Cooren et al, 2011;Taylor and Robichaud, 2004) go further: as Cooren et al (2011) explain, communication cannot be considered to be simply one of the many factors involved in organizing, and it cannot be merely the vehicle for the expression of pre-existing 'realities'; rather, it is the means by which organizations are established, composed, designed, and sustained … Organizations are … ongoing and precarious accomplishments realized, experienced, and identified primarily -if not exclusively -in communication processes . (p. 1150) A key issue in the study of higher education communication, as elsewhere in the social sciences, is the challenge of integrating micro-and macro-levels of analysis (Blaschke et al, 2014;Kuhn, 2012;Taylor, 2011), that is, 'how to "zoom" in on a conversation and then out to see it in context' (Taylor, 2011(Taylor, : 1285. Taylor makes a relevant distinction between the 'conversation' and the 'metaconversation': while the former enables 'locally constituted organization', the latter is 'a conversation of conversations' through which the organisational identity emerges and is constituted (Taylor, 2011(Taylor, : 1279.…”

“…Rather than formal, written proclamations of policy, important institutional 'authoritative texts', as discussed by Blaschke et al (2014), are no longer written documents only. As our analysis has shown, they are just as likely to be mediated in the form of a carefully produced multimodal video text, or couched in the relatively informal, conversational style of a video blog.…”