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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Richard Hull
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UK universities have always had hybrid organisational forms – a mix of bureaucratic structures and procedures, supposedly ‘collegial’ or professional values and processes, nakedly feudalistic patronage for senior appointments, and competition between departments for resources. There have been some immense organisational changes over the last few decades, many of which have been well-charted:- measurement of the quality of teaching and research, and consequently new layers of administration, new procedures and new prescriptions on the quality of teaching and research; the emergence of organisational cultures which attempt to promote the student as ‘customer’ and the research audience as ‘user’; and the increasing use concepts and techniques from private sector management. Some commentators have consequently suggested that UK universities are increasingly pervaded by what has been called New Public Management, and losing the collegial forms of working and consensual decision-making (Chandler et al, 2002). This paper will first elaborate the distinction between the ideal-types of ‘predominant’ and ‘intermediate’ collegiality first suggested by Waters (1989) and recently applied to UK Universities (Hull, 2006). The “predominantly collegiate” type is characteristic of larger organizations such as hospitals that combine professional and administrative activity, with the latter subordinate to the former. Internal authority is collegiate insofar as members agree to be bound by consensual or majority decisions taken within differentiated professional activities or disciplines. However, external relations, such as those with hospital patients, are not totally “undivided and absolute”, but mediated by a variety of administrators and rules. Resource allocation is administered through classic bureaucratic means. The “intermediate collegiate” organisation also pertains to large organisations, but in this case relations between professional and administrative activity is reversed. As with the “predominantly collegiate” type, external authority is mediated and bureaucratic. However, professional employees within the organisation are subordinated to the administrative framework and are granted relatively little autonomy. Whilst there may be some measure of collegial decision-making within professional groupings, this takes the form of professional advice to the administration, which may overrule it. Whilst these ideal types provide a useful starting point for investigating contemporary changes in UK universities, there are some features they do not capture. In particular, there is no allowance for what Weber called the ‘patrimonial’ type of administration, and the extent to which rational-legal bureaucracies may yet retain substantial elements of patrimonialism. As Theobald (1982) argued: In place of well-defined spheres of competence, the patrimonial bureaucracy is characterized by a shifting series of tasks and powers commissioned and granted on an ad hoc basis by the ruler/chief. I will suggest that the concept of patrimonial bureaucracy is a necessary and useful addition to the ways in which we describe contemporary changes in UK universities. Chandler, J., Barry, J. and Clark, H. (2002), “Stressing academe: the wear and tear of the new public management”, Human Relations, Vol. 55 No. 9, pp. 1051-69. Hull, R. (2006), “Workload allocation models and ‘collegiality’ in academic departments”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 19(1), pp. 38-53. Theobald, Robin (1982) “Patrimonialism”, World Politics, Vol. 34(4), pp. 548-559. Waters, M. (1989), “Collegiality, bureaucratization and professionalization: a Weberian analysis”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94 No. 5, pp. 945-72.
Author(s): Hull R
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: Post-Bureaucracy and Organizational Changein the Knowledge Society
Year of Conference: 2007
URL: http://www.essex.ac.uk/afm/PBO/Schedule.html
Notes: Workshop organized by Martin Harris and Harro Hopfl.
