Differences in influence: different types of university employees compared

Tertiary Education and Management, vol. 26, pp. 363–380

Abstract

Abstract Changes, improvements and innovations in university organisations regularly end up in sluggish processes and get stuck ‘somewhere’ in the organisation. It is argued that cooperation and mutual influencing of work processes between academic and professional employees of different departments can have a positive effect on these innovations. Because little is known about this mutual influence of work processes, research has been conducted on the extent of the experienced and desired influence on different types of university employees’ own work processes and the work processes of other departments. This article reports the results of a survey among different types of employees from universities from three different countries (the Netherlands, Flanders, Denmark), in which four groups of employees have been distinguished (academic staff, professional staff, academic middle managers and educational administrators). The results of the survey (N = 1397) show that the university may be seen as a patchwork in which departments and teams work independently of each other. A comparison between the groups shows that the academic middle managers and educational administrators do experience significant more influence on various processes. It is argued that these groups can play an important role during changes, improvements and innovation processes.

Authors 1

1. Ton Kallenberg corresponding Aachen Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, Lipsius Building, P.O.Box 9515, 2300, RA, Leiden, The Netherlands