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While the formal structures of universities may predominantly reflect ceremonial rather than functional purposes, attempts at changing them are usually a fertile ground for academic conflicts. Taking this apparent contradiction as a starting point, the aim of this article is to explore the intriguing role of formal structures in academic settings. Drawing on a case study of a merger and organizational restructuring process in an academic research centre, it shows how symbolic responses to institutional pressures may have actual consequences on research practices, beyond myth and ceremony.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how research managers and directors conceive, adopt and adapt organizational structures to regulate and stimulate academic research.

The study used principles of a grounded theory approach for collecting and analysing data in interviews with research directors and programme managers working at universities within the discipline of Business Administration in The Netherlands.

In total, four clusters of concepts emerged from the data, related to: the definition of organization structures; the effects and by‐products of providing structures; academic research as management object; and using organizational structures. The collected clusters show that research universities adopt all kinds of organization structures (formal, informal, narrow, broad, intentional, emergent) and that the perceptions and practices of research managers are crucial for deciding whether these structures may become “seeding” or “controlling”.

The “practice turn” in organization studies has highlighted how important work practices of individual knowledge workers are, but so far has not paid systematic attention to the role of management, or has even downplayed that role. Structuration, which is a key management domain, is not inherently “good” or “bad” (seeding vs controlling), nor is avoiding structuration. Research managers as quintessential knowledge managers appear centre stage in making structures work or not. What makes structures “seeding” (or not) is their selection, combination, adjustment and/or intentional ignoration in practices of management knowing. An important mechanism is that of negotiation in attempts to accommodate possibly divergent interpretations. The concept of management knowing introduced and elaborated claims that management knowledge and practices are intertwined and not independent management knowledge categories.

In this chapter, the authors analyze the relationship between academia, organization, and gender in Chile. In particular, the connection between academic practices, management, and hegemonic masculinity throughout the history of Chilean universities. The authors took a critical approach from the field of gender and organizational studies, shedding new light on a longstanding problem: gender-based violence in universities. The authors will discuss how the centrality of management in Chilean universities makes sense in a late and globally connected capitalist scenario, characterized by the introduction of managerialism and business logic in higher education. Consequently, the practice of management acquired a central and hegemonic status that articulates the rest of the academic practices, organizing them not only in terms of the hegemony of management but also in terms of male hegemony.

This paper aims at studying implicit knowledge management practices in research groups using a theoretical model of knowledge creation. The goal is to identify factors that contribute to high knowledge productivity. Based on the findings of a study of German research groups, implications for developing countries shall be discussed.

A total of 15 in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews with heads of German academic research groups in the field of physics were conducted. The questions referred to the current practices of knowledge creation and knowledge management and to the subjective assessments of these practices.

The study identified human resource management as the weakness of the German knowledge management practice. There seems to be an inherent contradiction between the goals of attracting promising students to a career in science and securing mobility. Knowledge management and infrastructure otherwise seems well‐developed and the heads of research groups consider themselves very important for knowledge productivity.

Because of the small sample‐size and the limitation to only one research field and one country the results cannot be generalized. The survey thus has to be regarded as a pilot study.

The paper provides useful information on factors influencing knowledge productivity in research groups.

This study shows how 152 researchers from several research centers of a Portuguese university perceive the facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. Three domains are considered – knowledge gathering, creation, and diffusion. Three dimensions of barriers and facilitators were considered – individuals, socio‐organizational processes, and technology. Regarding both barriers and facilitators, but mainly barriers, the findings suggest that researchers are more sensitive to the “soft” aspects of knowledge management (i.e., individuals, socio‐organizational processes) than to the “hard” ones (i.e., technology). This suggests that, although technology is an important facilitator, it is people and their interactions that create knowledge and promote the knowledge flow.

Small and specialist inter‐disciplinary conferences, particularly those relating to technology enhanced learning such as International Conference on Information and Communications Technology in Education, provide valuable opportunities for academics and academic‐related/professional staff to report upon their research and development activities, including their insights into teaching practice. However, the existence of such conferences is now under threat due to a global shift towards quantitative research assessment exercises, which favour bibliometrics, such as citation counts and impact factors, over peer review. The purpose of this paper is to contextualise the discussion by describing the nascent qualitative research assessment in Australia and its implications for small conferences. It also aims to present heuristic strategies to ensure that publications are recognised by quantitative research assessment exercises.

The authors draw on a wide literature base as well as their experience as academics, conference organizers, professional developers, and researchers to describe the changes to the culture of research assessment and research management and their observed implications for small and specialist inter‐disciplinary conferences.

Conference organizers and scientific committees should consider several strategies to maximise bibliometric impact of conference papers. These strategies include: transparency in reviewing processes; building alliances with peer‐reviewed journals; considering boutique “by invitation” conference formats; and publishing papers which are indexed and standards based. The authors also point out that small and specialist conferences should leverage their communities of practice to facilitate publication and research opportunities and thereby increase the tangible benefits of participation.

This paper is valuable to conference organizers and participants who are adjusting to a culture of bibliometrics. This paper highlights key issues as well as suggests strategies to improve impact values.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the internationalization market of higher education (HE) globally and HE field. It examines the internationalization status of HE in Jordan as influenced by institutional perspectives as an example from developing countries.

This paper adopts a quantitative research design that includes a statistical and SWOT analysis of HE in Jordan. Data were collected from different courses: documents and archival records, websites analysis, surveys, interviews with professors and administrators, and an SWOT analysis as well as TOWS matrix. The latter has been constructed as a picture of internationalized education in the Jordan that can be used as a basis for decision making and strategies for higher education institutions (HEIs).

The study findings reveal that it is important for Jordan to endorse itself as an “education hub” in the Middle East and to educate its community to the level of skills required by globalization. The challenges of internationalizing HE are revealed by the SWOT analysis and TOWS matrix that highlight a wide range of opportunities and strengths that encourages the Jordan HE system to accelerate internationalization. The opportunities include overall improvement in the quality of education, the diffusion of technology and creating a globally competent workforce. The internationalization status in Jordan HE is still in its embryonic stage. The HE should take serious steps toward the internationalization including admission of international students, foreign postgraduate students, international accreditation, global ranking, online education and smart education. These steps will help the universities leaders to improve their universities position internationally and financially.

The findings reveal implications for HE policy and strategy in the development of internationalized HE in the Jordan. The study shows how SWOT analysis and TOWS matrix can provide a solid platform against which particular case studies can be measured in terms of opportunities for and challenges of development. It also provides institutional perspectives with practical implications, focusing on some of the critical issues in this developing field for HE policy and strategy alike. A major threat to the Jordan progress in developing its HE sector identified in this study is external accreditation being seen as a signal of high quality, when more realistic standards are perhaps more relevant to the local population.

The paper is one of the very few studies in the area of the internationalization of HE in the Jordan that can contribute to the sustainability of the international dimension of HEIs. The opportunities and threats recognized in this paper can inform strategy for more balanced development of the Jordan’s internationalized HE, and for raising the quality of education overall.

University reforms have been pervasive in European higher education over decades. Analyses of these reforms are still incomplete, however. To find a more comprehensive approach in explaining the relentless transformation of public universities, this paper suggests a novel, interactionist point of view. Drawing on ideational aspects of universities as institutions, the paper first explores the differentiation of basic, influential ideas of change. A recently developed typology is then used to further elaborate upon the composition and relation of these ideas. Finally, evidence is provided that supports a non-linear dynamic consisting of reciprocal influences, which overall indicates a recursive contingency between institutional context and coexistent frames of change.

This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into an emerging postdisciplinary focus on embodied cosmopolitanism(s) as a promising way forward in tourism studies. Cosmopolitan paradigms theorize the dialectics of cultural diversity and universal rights, while feminist cosmopolitanism focuses on gender and sexuality equality and difference within this intersection. An embodied approach combines work on “the body” and “situated embodiment” with the cosmopolitan to embrace all human differences and acknowledge that the researchers’ own embodied cosmopolitanism affects research questions, ethics, and praxis toward transformation in research communities and the academy.