The academic at work: an evaluation of the changing labour process and identities in English universities

This study focuses on academics, their experiences of work and their academic identities. Over the past three decades, the Higher Education sector in the United Kingdom has been subject to a series of policy initiatives which have dramatically transformed the sector, so that it is barely recognisable from the sector as it existed during the post-war period from 1945 to 1979. This study focuses on the consequences of these changes for the academic labour process by considering the nature of the work performed by academics and how that work is managed and controlled (Braverman 1974). In addition, the missing subjective element of Braverman’s analysis is provided by an evaluation of academic responses and the formation and reformation of academic identities under identity regulation. The research strategy centred on the selection of one pre-1992 university and one post-1992 university for a comparative case study. This study is deliberately focused on the reported experiences of academics, whose major role, is teaching and/or research and not manager academics. Consequently, qualitative research which stresses the socially constructed nature of reality and provides rich descriptions is selected. This study demonstrates that managerialism is deeply entrenched within the university sector. Work intensification continues unabated, whilst academic identities are regulated to achieve managerial objectives which are centred on targets and league tables. Research outputs have been commodified and teaching quality gamed in the new target driven culture pervading the university sector. The intensification of the managerialist impetus with the accompanying loss of academic autonomy and academic voice, is converting universities from institutions of teaching and enquiry to surplus creating business corporations, with academics as wage labourers.