Managerialism in UK business schools: capturing the interactions between academic job characteristics, behaviour and the ‘metrics’ culture

Abstract

Recent decades have seen the evolution of UK business schools into international mass education providers. This transformation has developed against a background of institutional changes that jeopardise work conditions in academia. As few studies have examined the relationships between organisational, social and psychological aspects of academic work life, this paper employs the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to explore empirically the interplay between business school workplace conditions, burnout and retention rates, based on a national sample. We show that higher demands and lower resources are significant in increasing burnout and turnover, whereas the ‘metrics’ culture has done much to increase workloads and reduce academic freedom and workplace support. These negative impacts can be offset by creating a collegiate and engaged work environment that promotes greater skills utilisation, autonomy and recognition. Such findings are reported for the first time in the literature with important implications for higher education and the academic community.

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