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Article
Publication date: 13 September 2024

Maria Tsouroufli, Anita Walton and David Thompson

In this paper we explore the gendered ways in which academic staff resistance and compliance is configured in a post-1992 University in England, including the emotions implicated…

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper we explore the gendered ways in which academic staff resistance and compliance is configured in a post-1992 University in England, including the emotions implicated in the navigation of neo-liberalisation and research intensification of their academic institution and its associated disciplinarian mechanisms.

Design/methodology/approach

We draw on data from an interview study of a diverse sample of 32 academics of different gender, discipline and academic grade. Analysis informed by a feminist post-structuralist framework of power and discourse explored different forms of academic resistance and compliance; how the embodied academic subject was (re)negotiated within gendered discourses of neo-liberal research excellence and managerialism and the gendered emotions generated in processes of resistance and compliance.

Findings

Institutional change and expectations to engage with research performativity generated fear, anxiety and anger. Female staff appeared to actively resist the masculinized research subject performing all hours work and individualism in the context of private and institutional gendered relations and labour. Male staff though actively resisted the feminization of higher education and the neo-liberal instrumentalization of caring and therapeutic cultures and ideologically resisted the surveillance mechanisms of higher education including the REF.

Research limitations/implications

Our work contributes to scholarship problematizing the assumed neutrality of resistance and compliance and highlighting women’s symbolic struggle to (dis)identify with a masculine professional norm. In terms of theorising academic resistance to neo-liberalism and identity construction, further attention should be given to the mobilization and symbolic capital of academics and emotions positioned differently due to their gender and intersecting differences.

Originality/value

Our study addresses a gap in the scholarship of academic resistance and compliance by advancing the understanding of gender inequalities and emotions implicated in the process of resistance and compliance against neo-liberalism.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 September 2024

Martin Kornberger, Clarissa Ruth Marie Schott, Dan-Richard Knudsen and Christian Andvik

This paper aims to point to the shift in the temporal orientation, going from reporting on the past to creating insights about the future, which might be suggestive of perennial…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to point to the shift in the temporal orientation, going from reporting on the past to creating insights about the future, which might be suggestive of perennial managerial attempts to push the boundaries of bounded rationality.

Design/methodology/approach

In this essay, the authors want to critically engage with the concept of “data-driven management” in the context of digitalization. To do so, they sketch the edges of current discourses around the emerging idea of data-driven management and its relationship with the inner workings of organizations from an accounting perspective. They question the often-times supposed objectivity and increased rationality of the concept and instead introduce the idea of becoming “data-curious” (before being data-driven).

Findings

The authors observe that this push also seems to be accompanied by trends of individualized decision-making and prevailing hopes of technology to solve organizational problems. They therefore suggest that it is valuable for current debates to take a moment to give attention, in practice and in research, to the role of temporality, benefits of collective decision-making and changes in professions (of accountants).

Originality/value

The aim of this paper is to spark curiosity and engagement with the phenomenon of data-driven management by outlining a novel set of potential future pathways of research and point towards methods that might help studying the questions arising for a data-curious approach.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 August 2024

Christopher Hamerton

This paper aims to evaluate the evolution, development and endurance of the Equality Act 2010, providing a critical overview of influence and key legal principles, demonstrating…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate the evolution, development and endurance of the Equality Act 2010, providing a critical overview of influence and key legal principles, demonstrating how the Act has impacted strategic organisational and human resources policy and practice in the UK.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on a systematic review of relevant professional and academic literature, alongside an evaluation of the Act itself. The subject focus is seen as timely with the return of a Labour Government in the UK – the architects of the Equality Act – for the first time in 14 years. Due to word limitations, the treatment is condensed to provide a selective overview that will be of interest to practitioners and academics in strategic organisational management and human resources. The author is a socio-legal studies academic and non-practising barrister, with expertise in the corporate organisational field.

Findings

The Equality Act 2010, though now established, owes its historical inception to civil rights activism and a radical turn in legislative drafting and ambition – points frequently missed when discussing its scope and influence. A highly unusual anomaly is that having been created by an outgoing Labour Government its stewardship immediately passed to a Conservative administration. In particular, the principles consolidated and introduced by the Act have greatly impacted the workplace, crucially organisational behaviour and human resources practices, leading to greater responsibility and interpretive power being directed from employment lawyers towards organisational policy and professional practice.

Originality/value

The Equality Act 2010 is usually discussed as an artifact rather than a radical creation and developing entity. This short paper approaches the Act as a “living” object with an eye on future reform.

Details

Strategic HR Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-4398

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Children as Change Makers
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-713-8

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 September 2024

Malin Ågren

This study investigates how communication is used by a Swedish public authority to legitimate the responsibilization of preparedness, i.e. how the state encourages individual…

Abstract

Purpose

This study investigates how communication is used by a Swedish public authority to legitimate the responsibilization of preparedness, i.e. how the state encourages individual citizens to take more responsibility for their security.

Design/methodology/approach

A multimodal discursive approach drawing on multimodal narrative analysis of video clips and multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) is used to examine how the responsibilization of preparedness is legitimated in video material published on Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency's (MSB’s) YouTube channel.

Findings

The study finds that the responsibilization of preparedness is legitimated through an ongoing but evolving normalization of threat. The findings also show how responsibilization is legitimated in moralizing terms of individual contribution to society, which may indicate a return from neo-liberal values to more traditional Swedish collectivist values.

Originality/value

The study shows how communication around preparedness and responsibilization is discursively constructed and legitimated through multimodal features, while previous research has mainly focused on verbal or written communication.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

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