Maria J. Rosa – författare

Higher education finances lie at the crossroads in many Western countries. Hence, worldwide, the most common approach to the need for increasing revenue was to use some form or forms of cost sharing, or the shift of some of the higher educational per-student costs from governments and taxpayers to parents and students. This raises several important challenges to higher education systems. First, there is the political and social controversy associated with most forms of cost-sharing, particularly with tuition fees. Secondly, there are important issues in terms of the broad context of social policy, such as the role of families and students and the relationship that the state establishes with each of them. Third, there is the comparison of alternative instruments of cost-sharing and the direct and indirect effects of each of them, notably in terms of educational equality. Overall, underlying cost-sharing debates are fundamental questions about social choice, individual opportunities, and the role of government in society.

As academia is increasingly questioned as an elite profession, a narrative of casualisation, precarity, inequality, long hours, surveillance, austerity, erosion of pay, exacerbated competition, and harmful power relations has come to dominate. Expert contributors provide multiple perspectives on how academics are managed and how the management of academics influences their roles and careers. Chapters consider how academics’ characteristics, such as gender, age, and position in their academic career, influence or are influenced by the way in which academics are managed. Drawing together a range of theoretical approaches as well as a broad geographical coverage, this Research Handbook offers an important contribution to the debates surrounding the shifting frontiers of managing academics and the questions raised for individuals, higher education institutions, and higher education systems.

This Research Handbook will be a useful resource for academics and advanced students with an interest in human resource management, management and universities, and management education. Higher education professionals and policy makers will also find it to be a helpful guide.