Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education: Co-operation, Collaboration and Partnership 9781350043572, 9781350043596, 9781350043589

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education

Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education Series Editors: Camilla Erskine, Tanya Fitzgerald and Jon Nixon Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education provides a forum for distinctive, and sometimes divergent, ideas on what intellectual leadership means within the context of higher education as it develops within the 21st century. Authors from across a number of nation states critically explore these issues with reference to academic and research-informed practice and development, institutional management and governance and the remapping of knowledge as well as sector-wide policy development.

Also available in the Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education series Cosmopolitan Perspectives on Academic Leadership in Higher Education, edited by Feng Su and Margaret Wood Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education, Janet Haddock-Fraser, Peter Rands and Stephen Scoffham Leadership in Higher Education from a Transrelational Perspective, Christopher M. Branson, Maureen Marra, Margaret Franken and Dawn Penney Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, edited by Richard Hall and Joss Winn

Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education Co-operation, Collaboration and Partnership Edited by Lynne Gornall, Brychan Thomas and Lucy Sweetman

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 Paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Lynne Gornall, Brychan Thomas, Lucy Sweetman and Contributors, 2018 Lynne Gornall, Brychan Thomas, Lucy Sweetman and Contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xxi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image © Jobalou / Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4357-2 PB: 978-1-3501-4496-5 ePDF: 978-1-3500-4358-9 eBook: 978-1-3500-4356-5 Series: Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

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Dedicated to an inspirational colleague, gone too soon Professor Martin Rhisiart, Professor of Strategy and Innovation, Director of the Centre for Research in Futures and Innovation, University of South Wales Business School And remembering Celfyn and Gwen Thomas Jim and Anna Hudson

Contents List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Series Editors’ Foreword Acknowledgements Consensual Leadership and Higher Education Work: Introduction to the Book, Its Contexts and Concerns Lucy Sweetman, Lynne Gornall and Brychan Thomas Part One

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2 3

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1

Co-operation

Introduction Brychan Thomas Co-operation and Participatory Leadership: Building Trust to Connect Professional Bodies and Universities in Nigeria Laguo Livingstone Gilbert Insights from Early Career Academics: Making Time for Working Together in Finland Oili-Helena Ylijoki and Lea Henriksson Dilemmas for Managers in Departmental Relationships: Some Research Observations from Spain Marita Sánchez-Moreno and Manon Toussaint Co-operative Approaches to Leading and Learning: Ideas for Democratic Innovation from the UK and Beyond Tom Woodin Summary

Part Two

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20 36

53 71 89

Collaboration

Introduction Lucy Sweetman Stories of Leading and Being Led: Developing Collaborative Relationships in an English Research-Intensive University Alan Floyd and Dilly Fung Research Leaders and Student Collaborators: Insights from Canada Sandra Acker, Anne Wagner and Michelle K. McGinn

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96 113

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Contents

A Paradoxical Blend of Scientific Authority and Distributed Leadership: Exploring Higher Education Research Collaborations in Spain Julián López-Yáñez and Mariana Altopiedi Networks, Alliances and Emergent Leadership: A Large-Scale Innovation Project in UK Distance Education Roger Cannon Summary

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129 145 162

Part Three Partnership

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Introduction Lynne Gornall Decolonizing International Collaborative Work: Exploring New Grammars for Academic Partnerships in Chile Carolina GuzmánValenzuela and Ana Luisa Muñoz-García New Leadership in Commercial Organizations: Self-Management in UK International Company Settings Paul Thomas International Connections: Personal Stories and Cultural Contexts in University Partnerships from China and Beyond Brian Denman, Yumiko Hada, Qiang Liu and David Turner Valuing European Partnerships: Memories of Cross-National Leadership in UK Higher Education Projects Brychan Thomas, Lynne Gornall and Lyndon Murphy Summary

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Concluding Chapter 13 Playing Together: What Can Academics in Higher Education Learn from Musicians about Creative Leadership and Collaboration? Lynne Gornall and Daniel Bickerton

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Index

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List of Figures and Tables Figures Figure 1.1 Figure 9.1 Figure 9.2 Figure 12.1 Figure 13.1

Consensus Relationship Framework Chilean Doctoral Fellowship Programme International Co-operation Programme funded by CONICYT Photograph, UK visit of Euronet partners Music Improvisation (ad libitum)

28 177 177 233 245

Tables Table 5.1

Profiles of Interview Participants

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Notes on Contributors Volume Editors Lynne Gornall, FRAI, FHEA, is the leader of the Working Lives Research Team and has held academic and interdisciplinary leadership posts in HE, as well as in management, learning and enterprise. These roles have spanned the ‘story of change’ in the sector, from incorporation to the present. Key activities included teaching and projects that crossed boundaries and took risks. Identifying as a social scientist and ethnographer, and following Masters and Doctoral research, she established ‘Working Lives’ in 2007 as a cross-HEI research team, to examine the ways in which academics as key professionals worked today. The Working Lives book and research, involving a collaboration between the Universities of Glamorgan, Cardiff and Newport, has led to wide dissemination and discussion of the work. She is currently researching ‘working lives’ in the music industry. Brychan Thomas, MRI, FCollP, FHEA, is a visiting professor in Innovation Policy at the University of South Wales Business School and a doctoral supervisor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Gloucestershire. He has a science degree and an MSc in the Social Aspects of Science and Technology from the Technology Policy Unit at Aston University and a PhD in Science and Technology Policy, CNAA/University of Glamorgan. Prior to 2012, his full-time post was reader in Innovation Policy at Glamorgan Business School. He has over 370 publications in the areas of science communication, entrepreneurship and innovation and small business including 120 refereed journal articles. His books include Triple Entrepreneurial Connection: College, Government and Industry. Lucy Sweetman FRSA, FHEA, is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and a freelance writer and consultant. She is responsible for the Creative Writing programme’s disabled and vulnerable undergraduates and is the lead tutor for final year students. Following from her MRes, Lucy’s research interests range from inclusive teaching and learning pedagogies in higher education to, in the creative writing field, life-writing and collaborative

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writing in response to national and international political events. Prior to her move into higher education, Sweetman worked with and researched the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. She has lived and worked in the United States and Australia and collaborated on EU-funded projects in Poland, Ireland, Hungary and Romania.

Contributors Sandra Acker Professor Emerita, Department of Social Justice Education, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada Sandra is a sociologist of education who has held academic positions in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Her research has highlighted gender and other equity issues in the careers and workplace cultures of teachers, doctoral students, academics and academic administrators. Sandra’s publications include Gendered Education (1994), The Realities of Teachers’ Work (1999) and numerous chapters and journal articles. Together with Michelle McGinn, Anne Wagner and other colleagues, she is currently working on a research project titled ‘Academic researchers in challenging times’. Mariana Altopiedi Department of Teaching and Education Organization/Department of Educational Psychology, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Mariana is a member of the IDEA (Innovation, Development, Evaluation and Consulting) Research Group of the Department of Teaching and Education Organization in Spain. Her main research interests and fields of expertise are institutional analysis, educational leadership and educational change and improvement. Mariana has published on these subjects in many national and international journals. Daniel Bickerton Director of Undergraduate Studies, Cardiff University School of Music, Wales, UK Daniel is a composer who has written works in a range of genres. His compositional interests include intertextuality, jazz, arrangement and hybridity, as well as the reception and interpretation of contemporary music. His music

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has been described as ‘full of skittish cascades’ (The Times) and his work performed in major venues in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States, as well as broadcast on radio and TV. Daniel is also involved in teaching leadership modules, supervising jazz research projects and in writing for, arranging and supporting student ‘big band’ ensembles. Roger Cannon Research, Training and Development, Wales, UK Roger is an independent researcher with a primary interest in science and technology studies. Having held senior positions in further and higher education, and following doctoral work on innovation in learning, he now works as a part-time tutor/academic in student assessment, aviation studies, learning/music technologies and innovation management. Previous project management experience in the public and private sectors included a national role as coordinator for the UK Teaching & Learning Technology Programme, (TLTP / HEFCE), and researcher for the Welsh Net-video conference evaluation project & FE Net Wales (JISC). Currently, Roger divides his time between festival event management, aviation training consultancy and developing a research model for a transnational view of music production, promotion and management. Brian Denman Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership, Comparative and International Education, and Training and Development, School of Education, University of New England, Australia Brian is a senior lecturer in Higher Education Leadership, Comparative and International Education, and Training and Development. His research has been supported by a number of organizations, agencies and associations, including the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, Mar Elias Educational Institutions, the Vatican, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia. He has served a number of roles including Secretary-General of the World Comparative Education Societies (WCCES), UNESCO Fellow, UNE Council member, President of the Australian and New Zealand and Comparative and International Education Society (ANZCIES) and editor-in-chief of the International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives.

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Alan Floyd Associate Professor of Education, Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK Alan began his career as a teacher and has taught in a range of secondary schools and colleges throughout the United Kingdom. Within the HE sector, Alan has previously lectured at Leeds Metropolitan University, Oxford Brookes University and the Open University. At the University of Reading, he has been the director of Postgraduate Research Studies and is currently the EdD Programme Director. His research is concerned with various aspects of educational leadership and management including narratives of middle leaders in HE, leadership development and distributed leadership. Alan was a contributor to the 2014 ‘Working Lives’ volume. Dilly Fung Pro-Director for Education at the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science). Professor Dilly Fung is Pro-Director for Education at the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science). She was previously Professor of Higher Education Development at UCL, and is best known for her work on Connected Curriculum, an innovative approach to developing greater synergies between research and student learning in higher education. She has also undertaken research into academic leadership and into the reward and recognition of teaching-focused academics throughout their careers. Laguo Livingstone Gilbert Education/Business and Management Consultant, Abuja, Nigeria Laguo is an active researcher in organizational behaviour and leadership. He was awarded his PhD from the University of South Wales, UK, where his research topic was ‘Leading Corporate Culture for Better Organisational Performance: A Study of the Organisational Change Agenda at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)’. He has published a number of research papers in international journals and currently works as a freelancer in both public and private sectors in Nigeria.

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Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela Researcher at the Centre for Advanced Research in Education, University of Chile, Santiago Carolina conducts research in the field of higher education with a particular interest in the impact of neoliberal regimes on the contemporary university. She has won national research grants and collaborates with various international research networks in higher education. She has published in leading journals and books on topics such as academic identity, the public role of universities and teaching practices. She also works in the theorization of the use of qualitative methodologies in education. Yumiko Hada Director of Japan, the UK, and Europe (RIJUE), Professor of Hiroshima University, Japan Yumiko is a researcher of Comparative Education and a specialist of UK higher education. She published Universities in the UK: From Elitism to Dynamism (2014), ‘Current changes within the Japanese higher education system: Past and future’ in A New Japan for the Twenty First Century (2008), ed. R. T. Segers, Changing Universities in the UK (2001) and many articles. Lea Henriksson Adjunct Professor, Research Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, University of Tampere, Finland Lea is an adjunct professor, with a double degree in sociology and social policy, affiliated at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her interests are in sociology of professions and studies on welfare state change and care work. In higher education studies, she has published on transformations of academic work and early career futures. Qiang Liu Assistant Dean, Institute for International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University, China Qiang is an associate professor in International and Comparative Education and assistant dean for International Exchanges at Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. He is also the key member of APEC Higher Education

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Research Center approved by the Ministry of Education, China, and APEC Secretariat. His research interests focus on internationalization of higher education, cross-border education and educational finance. He has already published two monographs and more than twenty peer-reviewed articles and undertaken a number of key research projects in the areas mentioned above. Julián López-Yáñez Professor, Department of Teaching and School Organization, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Julián has been working at the Faculty of Education of the University of Seville in Spain since 1988. His specialism is in the field of Educational Administration and Management. He has been visiting scholar at several overseas higher education and research institutions including University of California, Riverside; Boston College; University of Buenos Aires; CINVESTAV, Mexico; Institute of Education, University of London; University of Manchester; and Deakin University, Melbourne. Currently Julián is the coordinator for Spain of the World School Leadership Study. Michelle K. McGinn Professor of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada Michelle is based in the Faculty of Education, where she teaches research methods, higher education and writing for scholarly publication. Her primary interests are in research teams, researcher development and ethics in academic practice. She is a co-investigator on the Academic Researchers in Challenging Times project, which extends ideas introduced in Chapter 6 of this volume. Ana Luisa Muñoz-García Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Ana Luisa has a PhD in Educational Culture, Policy and Society from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. She studied history, geography and education in the Universidad de La Frontera, and did her Masters in Science of Education, Minor in Curriculum at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Working from a feminist standpoint, her previous

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studies have explored issues related to education and poverty and construction of knowledge in academia within the framework of internationalization policies. Her current writings focus on issues of power and knowledge in academia and the ways academic work has been regulated by neoliberal policies. Lyndon Murphy Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK Lyndon has held academic and management positions in both further and higher education, including posts of senior lecturer, academic subject leader and associate head of school. He currently teaches undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, specializing in Strategic Management and Innovation Management. He has industry experience of operational and management roles in small business, and current research projects include the role played by social and network capital to explore SME and organizational activity. Marita Sánchez-Moreno Professor, Department of Teaching and Education Organization, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Marita is a professor in the IDEA (Innovation, Development, Evaluation and Consulting) Research Group of the Department of Teaching and Education Organization in Spain. Within the Faculty of Education, her teaching and expertise are in leadership and management in education, research and knowledge management and higher education research. Projects include professional practice and knowledge networks, women and management, gender mainstreaming in organizations, and social change and innovation in education. Marita has seventy-two publications in these areas. Paul Thomas Director, DNA Research and Associate Professor NEOMA Business School, Reims, France Paul is known by the BBC as ‘The Business Doctor’ and is an experienced and respected speaker, author and thought leader on matters relating to organizational change and complexity. His focus is on the structures that allow people to thrive and flourish within twenty-first-century organizations through

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the lens of complexity. Previously, he was a university head of leadership and leadership fellow in higher education and is currently a university research fellow. His work has taken him to India, China, Malaysia, Pakistan, the United States and many European countries. He completed a global action research project on leadership and complexity thinking, visiting nineteen countries in six months. Formerly, he was regional chair and chartered fellow for Wales for the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and a fellow of the Institute of Consultancy. Paul is author of the books Leadership from the Frontline (2013) and Reinventing Leadership (2015). Manon Toussaint Research Fellow, Department of Teaching and Educational Organization, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Manon’s research work takes place in the Department of Teaching and Educational Organization, Faculty of Education. She has received academic awards, as ‘Premio Universitario Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla’ and ‘Premio Extraordinario de Fin de Estudios’. She is currently working with a predoctoral contract financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. Her expertise is in educational leadership and management, higher education and pedagogy, and she specializes in teaching and school organization. David Turner Professor, Institute for International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University, China David has wide-ranging interests in the field of education studies. His book, Theory of Education, presented an approach to viewing education as a complex system, shaped by the choices that individuals make. It won the World Education Fellowship Book Award in 2005/6 and was followed by Theory and Practice of Education, published in 2007. David views the role of theory in education as providing a coherent critique of policy and also a framework for institutional improvement. He is committed to the need to accommodate diversity in the education system and his current work on quality and league tables is an effort to implement an approach that allows for diversity of mission in higher education.

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Anne Wagner Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario, Canada Anne’s teaching and research interests include the areas of gender, race, social justice, (higher) education, critical pedagogies and violence against women. Her PhD research was in Sociology and Equity Studies. Prior to higher education, she worked as a clinical social worker where the primary focus of her work involved violence against women and youth. She is a co-investigator with Sandra Acker, Michelle McGinn and other colleagues on a research project titled ‘Academic Researchers in Challenging Times’. Tom Woodin Reader in the Social History of Education, Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL Institute of Education, University College London, UK Tom teaches the history of learning and education. He has written widely on co-operation and education including editing Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values and Community and Mutual Ownership – A Historical Review: http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/community-mutual-ownership. He has also written on worker writers and community publishing and Working Class Writing and Publishing in the Late Twentieth Century will be published in 2018. Oili-Helena Ylijoki Adjunct Professor of Social Psychology and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, University of Tampere, Finland Oili-Helena is an adjunct professor of social psychology and senior researcher at the Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation studies (TaSTI) at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research interests are in higher education studies, science studies and time studies. She has investigated academic cultures, identities and careers, transformations of knowledge production and conflicting temporalities in academia.

Series Editors’ Foreword What are universities for in the twenty-first century? This is a question that is now debated not only within universities themselves but within wider society and across the political spectrum: we can no longer assume a consensus regarding the ends and purposes of higher education or the role of universities in fulfilling those ends and purposes. Consequently, leadership within higher education cannot simply be a matter of managing the status quo: Leadership necessarily involves an understanding as well as analysis of the twenty-first-century world and of how the university might contribute to the economic, social, cultural and political challenges that we face. In short, it requires leadership that is both visionary and programmatic: visionary in its understanding of the past as well as present and future impacts of globalization and programmatic in its grasp of how universities might respond to that impact. What might such leadership look like? This series aims to address that question with reference to academic practice and development, institutional management and governance, the remapping of knowledge and sector-wide policy development. Central to each of these areas of concern is the importance of interconnectivity in a context of increasing institutional and global complexity: interconnectivity within and across institutions, regions and cognate fields. The gathering of agreement is one of the prerequisites of leadership at every level – and that requires an understanding of different viewpoints and opinions, some of which may be in direct conflict with others. The capacity to balance, respect and contain these differences is what constitutes leadership. This inevitably raises important ethical questions regarding leadership in a more complex and subtle setting, where leadership goes beyond the ‘command’ model of telling others what to do and expecting them to do it. The twin themes of interconnectivity and ethics cut across the series as a whole. Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education focuses directly on two of the major themes of this series: internationalism and agreementmaking within a context of increasing global complexity and fragmentation. Lynne Gornall, Brychan Thomas and Lucy Sweetman have brought together an international team of experienced researchers, scholars and teachers, all of whom are committed to the idea of leadership based on deep and inclusive

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agreements achieved through an ongoing process of dialogue and deliberation. Leadership, they maintain, involves co-operation, collaboration and partnership within and across the traditional boundaries of higher education and its institutional settings: a process that necessarily involves an acknowledgement of difference and disagreement. Each of the contributors offers unique insights into how this process of ‘consensual leadership’ operates within particular institutional and cultural settings. Together they comprise a persuasive – and diversely documented – argument in favour of a democratically grounded and culturally nuanced approach to intellectual leadership through the improvisatory interplay of dialogue, negotiation and debate: an approach which is exemplified in the collaborative mode of academic working across national boundaries that brought this volume to fruition.

Acknowledgements We thank our friends, families and patient partners, in particular Zoë Elder and Anne Thomas, for missing out on home and social collaborations during part of the preparation of this book. Many people have supported this project. They have positively encouraged our enquiry to reassert the creativity of academic and educational working, its collaboration and innovation. You all readily understood that much pedagogic, research and project work, its crossing of organizational, national and personal borders, is instinctively collaborative. It is a feature of our system, which is global, but one we underplay. These efforts and products, their ways of leading and working, are often not celebrated, still less rewarded or even seen. And it is not always easy work. We thus thank colleagues and informants, co-learners and, in particular, the busy academics and authors who have contributed to this volume. Their lives would mean editing at stations and airports between external teaching or conferences, around their counselling and marking pressures, in place of holidays, translating or analysing data – instead of more bids for money, working, relaxing or sleep. We acknowledge it all – thank you. Others have contributed written ideas, offered practical help, given time to discuss or made well-being inputs that have kept us adjusted and focused, all have been appreciated: Catherine Butcher, Dr Justine Mercer, Maria Tress, Dr Rose Usoro, Grace Long, Dr Machi Sato and Shinji Tatsishi, Jude Warren, Professor Helen Phillips, Chayoung Jeong, Dr Susy Rogers, Chandan Shah, Eryl Mills, Sheila Lehman, Pedro Cravinho, Emma Pringle, Professor Virginia King, Jonathan Morgan, Professor Linda Evans, Dr Lyndon Murphy, Val Walsh and Hilary Hudson. To musicians Alison Rayner, Rhys Phillips, Adam Glasser, Atsuko Shimada, Jean Guyomarc’h, Alexa Dene, Andy Nowak, Ashley John Long, Steve Lehman – thank you for the inspiration and the discussions – and with a special credit to Alex Davis. Professional thanks to Professor Bambo Soyinka, Camilla Erksine, Professor Rebecca Boden, Pam Voisey, Professor Jon Nixon and the Series Editors, to Bloomsbury Academic’s team: Alison Baker, Maria Giovanna Brauzzi, Amy Jordan and Sweda as well as to ‘Working Lives’ colleagues, wider team and network. And for a number of significant spaces and organizations/institutions – thank you: Bath Spa University, Newport City Campus, especially the Café and staff at University of South Wales Newport campus, University of South Wales Business School, Cardiff University School of Music, Café Jazz, Cardiff.

Consensual Leadership and Higher Education Work: Introduction to the Book, Its Contexts and Concerns Lucy Sweetman, Lynne Gornall and Brychan Thomas

Introduction The aim of this book is to make an additional and substantial contribution to the series Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education. This is in an area that we as editors believe to be critical to the productive future development of our sector. Thus a series of case studies, research, discussion and argument presents leadership as something that must be more consensually based, shared and owned. This should also recognize the collaborative nature of much higher education work, in all its forms, past and present. The collection here therefore draws on diverse and many international contributions, to tell the story of ‘co-operation, collaboration and partnership’ in leadership and co-working, in the context of consensus and its many challenges. We begin here by looking at some of the critical writing about the current problems and status of higher education cross-nationally. The background to such debates often relates to values and practices about management, policy, structures and governance. This is where we situate our exploration of ‘leadership’ and of ‘consent’ in the book and try to show why this perspective is so challenging. It leads us into an explanation about the genesis of the book, the concerns of the editors, the role of the group and networks that have come together to produce it.

Setting the context: problems in the micro-managed academy Much work on higher education institutions as organizations today is framed through issues of management and managerialism, sectoral tensions, student

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issues, market dysfunctions and conflict. As Nixon comments, the privatization and marketization of higher education, and the culture of institutional competitiveness thereby engendered, have displaced pedagogy from a central place within the life of the university. The practice of teaching and learning is thus diminished, and thereby so are ‘the democratic possibilities and potential inherent in that practice’ (Nixon 2012: 16). We concur. An authoritative body of writing and critique about what might be termed the ‘neoliberal consensus’ that appears to inform higher education planning and operational life almost worldwide today, is now in circulation: The state … demands that the university ‘live in the real world’ – but what this means … is that universities, like the state itself, become beholden to a financially driven logic in which the demands of the market are paramount. Within this ideological universe, the acquisition of knowledge is presented primarily as commercial transaction, driven only by the benefit to an individual in terms of their position in the labour market. (Cowden and Singh 2013: 2)

This critique also highlights the pervasiveness of the part that individualism (theorized by Macpherson 1962) plays in social and organizational-political life. We have to accept that these concerns are not new however, and perhaps we have arrived at the moment in higher education foreshadowed by historian E. P. Thompson in the 1970s, when he asked, Is it inevitable that the university will be reduced to the function of providing, with increasingly authoritarian efficiency, pre-packed intellectual commodities which meet the requirements of management? (Thompson 1970: 166)

In the most up-to-date reporting, we have the work of colleagues, authors Hall and Winn (2017) and their contributors, co-published with this volume in the series on leadership: The ideal of the university as a self-critical community of academic and student scholars with high levels of autonomy (Neary and Saunders 2011) is being disciplined by a dominant corporate agenda that incentivizes specific, impactful behaviours. (Alvesson and Spicer 2012, in Hall and Winn (eds) 2017: 5)

These we agree are endemic in the systems found throughout higher education’s international settings. We take this as our baseline and checked-in reality. Managerialism too easily becomes authoritarian and rigid against the conditions required for collaborative work to emerge (Cowden and Singh 2013). It demands rather than seeks consent, inviting ‘collaboration’ of a kind while resisting its processes. Thus does Raman write of an academy, ‘downsized and offshored’,

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its character in a ‘grim mood’ (2000: 109). And for many managers and leaders too, managerialism prevents the exercise of their autonomy and good judgment. Sánchez-Moreno and Toussaint comment that: Despite the fact of having an organizational structure that tries to favour participative processes, it is precisely the effort to implement collegiality that provokes conflictive situations (Chapter 3, this volume).

So dangers lurk all around, and in some cases, the very language of consensuality and co-operation – ‘trust’, ‘empowerment’, ‘reflexivity’ – may be deliberately co-opted for something entirely opposite (Hall and Winn 2017: 11). We have seen this in our own research for the book: groups of senior academic and professorial staff in one major research-led UK university, raging against the ‘enforced collaboration’ they were subjected to, coerced or persuaded by managers to take on – and with no scholarly dividend for them, only more labour and responsibilities.

Thinking about ‘leadership’ Notwithstanding the wide range of analyses about higher education as a dangerous, even ‘toxic’ working environment (McGettigan 2011) and marketized, managerialist culture (Naidoo 2008), several academics and writers have focused on more positive areas of leadership and democratic participation or its potential (Avolio 1999; Gosling 2004; Bolden, Petrov and Gosling 2008; Jameson 2008, 2012; Youngs 2009; Cook 2013; also Bowen and Shapiro 1998; Gunter 2012; Woodin 2015). Others have pioneered a discourse about ‘leadership’ that draws on different evidence (and not only in higher education). They offer case studies and theories, as well as supporting another way of looking at conventional leadership paradigms (Neilsen 2004; Rayner et al. 2010; Evans 2013; Davis 2014; Raelin 2016). Deem, Hillyard and Reed (2007), for example, have argued for ‘reflective leadership practices’ that are appropriate to both the management of knowledge workers, and the public purpose(s) of the university. The idea of ‘citizenship’ (Bolden, Gosling and O’Brien 2014: 756) enables leadership to be analysed as a social process, ‘in which it is considered to be relationally constructed and embedded within communities’. Choi and Schnurr (2014) have looked at the discursive features of negotiation and influence in groups, while Kahai, Sosik and Avolio (2004) examine leadership markers in electronic groups. Leadership may be seen as an activity rather than

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a form of status, and as a deliberative social service (Macfarlane 2007; 2011: 12–13) grounded in self-governance, self-regulation and self-direction. While much related discussion explores ‘styles’, ‘types’ and ‘forms’ of leadership and terms that imply something architecturally visible, these notions themselves suggest to us that the debate has not moved much beyond one about ‘structures’, especially vertical ones and particular ‘relational’ forms. And no other complete work focuses solely on the area of leadership and consensus, while only a small number of papers have been published that even consider ‘consensuality’ as an emerging factor in leadership studies and practice.

Our contribution to the debate The present collection seeks to situate ‘leadership’ and its discourse directly in the difficulties of the managerialist academy, but also alongside more positive notions of collegiality, creativity and consent. With the competitive working environments, rankings and metrics that now appear as a globalized ‘given’ in higher education, these are our new natural settings. At the same time, however, the purpose in this book is to uncover the textures and layers of lateral connectivity of working in higher education, the flexible and fluid sharing of roles and authorities, the exercise of vision and exchanging and initiating action that is also all around. We want to look differently at processes of ‘agreementmaking’ (Ranson and Martin 1997) and the everyday creative responses and adaptations by staff who suggest ways of moving forward in educational endeavours. In this alternative project, we can also identify ‘leadership’ that may typically appear as ‘emergent’ and not ‘given’, ascribed or assumed, and which is more genuinely shared, even exchanged, a property of groups and situations rather than of individuals. Our own interest in mutuality and new forms of collegiality and leadership in the workplace arises from some of the previous writing of two of the current editors. In Academic Working Lives (Gornall et al. 2014), we explored the hinterland of academic life and some of its relationships, including new notions of collegiality. This included, in particular, voluntary associative networks connecting academics across organizational borders, and which we called ‘intercollegial’ relationships (Cook and Gornall 2014). Aspects of new leadership forms in some of the contributory chapters of that volume were also signalled, especially in a section concerning leadership, management and human resources.

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Here, tensions between the role of manager and active scholar were analysed. How managers combined and resolved some of the dilemmas or ambiguities of the role was described as being ‘caught in the middle’. In other sections, major projects initiated by staff at the ‘edge’ of the university status system were profiled. Thus, ‘new professionals’ in learning support roles, as people on uncertain contracts and unclear in the structures, were also significantly involved in innovation and in leading developments. They were often working collegially but ‘outwith’ the structural, hierarchical and organizational management lines of the institution (Hudson 2014; Gornall 2014). Higher education managerial roles were also highlighted, where these staff sometimes struggled as ‘translators’ and mediators of high-level policy and having to discharge the often unwelcome funding and performance measures to a resistant and overwhelmed workforce. They also had to negotiate and navigate difficult manager–faculty (academic) and policy–institutional relationships (Sato 2014). Some staff told us for this research that ‘collegiality’ in higher education was today something of the past.

Consensuality and consent For us in this collection, ‘consensuality’ as an idea situates leadership models and structures as needing to be based firmly on consent. That is, they must take account of the other, are situated and interactional, and invite involvement and reciprocity. Accepting these as sometimes implied or tacit in practice, this notion of consent confers, we argue, legitimacy. It can be loose but it is an important and distinct marker, and creates a relationship between initiators and sustainers, partners and collaborators, ‘leaders and led’, one that is mutual, not simply ‘top down’ or one way. Despite some overlaps, managers also have to be leaders in certain contexts, and leaders have to manage and govern too. We distinguish leadership from the adjacent roles of ‘management’, the oversight of and accountability for internal processes and resources, and ‘governance’, which provides institutional direction and responds to external forces and concerns. What we do resist (with others) is the notion of ‘leadership’ as essentially a property of individual persons. The notion of ‘consent’ also contests varieties of ‘command’ or even ‘visionary’ models of leadership function, which are metaphorically vertical, and highlights what is going on in the environment or context. So ‘reciprocity’ here is important too. Consensual leadership can be a site of equal and mutual involvement, not simply instruction -> action, as is an analysis of lateral and

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network or matrix relationships (Pearce 2017). Many of the chapters in this book examine consensual leadership in terms of relationships that become ways of working together in what we call laterality or the texture of organizations and groups (Gornall et al. 2014), rather than through structures that are created or imposed. But navigation and negotiation, and adaptation, are ever-present variables in higher education work, which we find in all contexts. In our strongly international collection, a number of contributors highlight this from within diverse higher education environments, including Spain (López-Yáñez and Altopiedi, Chapter 7; Sánchez-Moreno and Toussaint, Chapter 3); Finland (Ylijoki and Henriksson, Chapter 2); China (Denman et al., Chapter 11); UK (Woodin, Chapter 4; Cannon, Chapter 8); Nigeria (Gilbert, Chapter 1); Canada (Acker, Wagner and McGinn, Chapter 6) and Chile (Guzmán-Valenzuela and Muñoz-García, Chapter 9). What we see from these studies is that ‘leadership’ can arise at all and any levels of an organization. This also reflects ideas of leadership in other settings – music, private sector services, including in changing, innovative and emerging industries (Thomas, Chapter 10; Gornall and Bickerton, Chapter 13). Even conventional notions of leadership in business can have or imply ‘consent’ at their core. Jaakko Eskola, an entrepreneur interviewed in a newspaper report (2016), was asked, ‘What does leadership mean to you?’ His response was clear: ‘Have a vision and engage other people around me to work on it.’ His key concept is that even if the leader is the generator of an idea, he or she needs the assent of those who can work together on it to make a project of any kind successful in operational practice. In some of our examples however, leadership meant actually going along with others’ ideas and decisions, rather than imposing own insights; it could be a risky project, though perhaps one with longer-term advantages and benefits. Since ‘leadership’, in our view, is not the domain of ‘heroic’ individuals, crisis scenarios and hierarchical models – whether benevolent or not – for our insights, we look elsewhere. We provide examples and discussions around different sorts of explorations on the role of ‘leader’ and group/teamwork relationships: we ‘estrange’ it, in order to look again (Douglas 1973; Strathern 2000). Of course, some people are more open to collaboration and engagement than others. Some seek it out, others eschew the commitments it can entail; these are often intensive and demanding associations which do not always arise at opportune or apposite times for the actors and participants concerned.

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Our own approach is to identify, celebrate and make visible the spaces and practices for collaborative, consensual modes of working, as well as to understand the struggles that must be undertaken to establish and maintain these. Sustaining consent is a major affective work. We focus our attention on the conditions that give rise to new forms of consensual leadership, collaborative work, partnership and co-operation, and seek to understand why they are significant, and who benefits. Our colleagues in this series Hall and Winn, include voices that rally to ‘tear down the university’ (2017: 130). They see it as unreformable. Despite the bleak outlook implied in our opening lines in this volume, we are less pessimistic, looking at the ways in which staff act innovatively and independently, to mitigate the impact of these constraining forces by and through their team working and by many groups in their discursive interaction. Through our contributors, we focus on modes of leadership that avoid overt or rigid hierarchy and indeed where leadership is an outcome of relational processes. We look at the debates and the building that go on around attempts to break out of hierarchy and its false promises of ‘clean’ or effective solutions to working and productivity. And we find surprises: for some of our authors, it is the very pressure of competition created by marketization that drives collaboration. Floyd and Fung (Chapter 5, this volume) quote a researcher: ‘To be competitive … we need to start working together.’ These are academics driven into teamwork by the ‘market’ ideology around them. For others, collaboration centres on relationships between colleagues and around educational, and scholarly, shared values. For Acker, Wagner and McGinn (Chapter 6), these are relationships that privilege the ‘social, emotional and political’ aspects of the production of knowledge; for GuzmánValenzuela and Muñoz-García (Chapter 9), it is finding new ‘grammars’ or ways of working across continents and global asymmetries.

Producing the book The story of the book and how the authors were brought together is also one of collaborations, of associative networks and links. The authors emerge from the networks around higher education and specific interests in research on working life. Originally, we contacted groups of people with whom we had presented, on forums, panels, seminars and conferences, researchers with conjoint interests and whose work signified related ethnographic approaches and critical enquiries. The volume and its contributions are a product of this

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mutuality, but their inclusion also implies a sharing of interests not only in issues of ‘leadership’ and consent, but also in the formations and values underlying collaborative work. The contributors share with us not only aspirations that there can be something better than micromanagement and ‘human resources’ perspectives on academic working relationships, but also that they have some positive material or practices to contribute. This is affirmed by our own work, with new businesses, with musicians and with young people. The role of consensual leadership as part of a ‘working together’ is also illustrated in our reflections as an editorial team – in finding our way across the material from colleagues around the world – and seeking to give it shape through the sections and groupings we have created.

Rationale for the sections We provide three sections to present the work of the collection and the contributors. These are under the titles of Co-operation, Collaboration, Partnership, and each section has a summary text providing the rationale for the theme and series of chapters to follow. Underlying these is an attempt to distinguish settings and scenarios where respectively, relationships were more voluntaristic and flexible – co-operative, self-chosen; ascribed by role, context or structure – collaborative; or partnership-based – where institutions, funders or particular projects have underwritten the associations into more formal compacts and agreements. For all our efforts to inscribe some sort of order into our section choices, one author suggested reversing the classification – but perhaps unsurprisingly, we easily reached agreement on where that contribution would be placed in our structure! So each chapter and discussion aims to be embedded in questions of how leadership arises, is shared, absent, tacit or unseen, imposed, in the situations described, and of the mutual relationships of ‘ownership’ and inclusion, that are reciprocally inscribed (or not) within them. We look to notions of improvisation and ‘liquidity’, and practices from other spheres (Chapters 12 and 13, this volume). These concepts of ownership, inclusion and reciprocity are at the heart of our choice to describe the contributions as a whole as addressing consensual leadership. However, many chapters do expose some of the problems, challenges and frustrations of working consensually, and indeed, we open our first section and chapter with a discussion and exploration of an absence of co-operation.

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In/outside the academy and missing voices In this final series of comments, we discuss some of the areas that we think are missing from many of the debates about higher education and consent, leadership and co-working: How do we establish consensual collaboration with our students, for example? How do we enable them to lead in the classroom? In third sector projects and non-education organizations, collaborations between young people and adults with ‘shared decision-making’ are commonplace. However, in education, at secondary level, this kind of work is limited to what is often framed as ‘student voice’, which has a tendency to involve a rather more passive role for the young people taking part. What is it about formal education, rooted in discourse and relational thinking, that makes our students still not fully people we learn from or exchange leadership with? We take up some of these points in our commentary below. Between us, the editors have worked in collaborative national and international interdisciplinary projects in and outside of higher education, and partnered with governmental departments, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and grassroots charities. Our experiences have made us keen observers of the working and ‘leaderships’ described in this volume. They have also made us happy collaborators in our work together. However, we do not often see these approaches to co-working and leadership reflected in the way we work with students in higher education. Indeed, we still call them our students. To what extent do younger people or others consent to the leadership they experience from their lecturers and tutors? In a transactional model, they are the consumers of what E. P. Thompson (1970) called our ‘pre-packed intellectual commodities’ and yet in classrooms, they must also be partners as co-creators of knowledge (Wenger 2009; hooks 1994). ‘Participation’, ‘co-production’ and ‘collaboration’ are all terms we might use to describe these relationships of knowledge with our students but they are most often used to describe the innovative partnering work that goes on with young people outside the academy. Student unions provide a voice for the student in organizational management but do we shrink from explicitly encouraging students to imagine themselves as our partners in the classroom, despite the body/corpus of educational theory that supports it? As Ecclesfield and Garnett (2014) remark, current UK policy in higher education actively promotes the view of students as consumers and judges of a service provided to them by their universities but with limitations.

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education In the UK, funding is linked to efficiency measures whilst learners’ views are only given weight as consumers of services (e.g. in the National Student Survey) rather than as active participants in learning. (Ecclesfield and Garnett 2014: 238, quoting Radin 2006)

The Teaching Excellence Framework ranks higher education institutions according to the marks given to them by students completing the National Student Survey. But surely a consumer poll is not an appropriate measure of universities as sites for the exploration and extending of knowledge and the democratization of thoughts and ideas? Our chapters tell us something about resistance to division, commodification and transactionalism. They illustrate a desire to connect laterally with each other, leading and being led, and to make ‘leadership’ less of a big deal. This volume challenges us to think again about how we engage others in our academic and institutional endeavours, and asks us to revisit the university as a public good, a site of more open, equitable engagement in which many voices are heard, including those of our students – as partners.

Looking forward The kind of leadership and professional development needed for the inclusive practitioner in higher education today should not be a lonely quest to create ‘open opportunities’ and facilitate consensus-making. Self-efficacy and civic engagement are tools and approaches for life, as is empowered team working. It is here that the experiences of our colleagues and their engagement in ‘life-affirming’ projects, initiatives and self-managed collaborations provide inspirations and directions about agency, self-organization and management, team leadership and creativity, innovation, in the face of obstacles and constraints (Working Lives, ongoing research). But it is also impossible to reflect on the shared work of academics across the globe without considering the implications for continued transnational co-operation across Europe. The planned exit from the European Union (EU) for the UK has already had an impact on areas such as the interest of European students to study in UK universities (The Guardian, January 2017). British universities are being overlooked in cross-national research projects to avoid the complication of securing funding, in a response to the outcome of the EU referendum of 2016 (The Guardian, July 2016). These new challenges will affect many in career development, collaborative arrangements, even travelling

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and presenting at conferences, as well as in the formation of wider friendships, alliances and partnerships. See Thomas, Gornall and Murphy (Chapter 12, this volume) for the best of days in such work. All this unsettling change may stimulate writers in the global South to seek new partnerships and networks other than in Europe or North America and for Europeans to look to different Americas, and for Asia, alliances with the emerging East. We therefore need to consider future possibilities – while reminding ourselves of the values that lead academics to seek out co-operation, partnership and collaboration in the first place. These include, we argue, a wellestablished view that working together will always lead to something more – and more interesting – and that cross-national collaboration between institutions, teams and individual researchers enriches us all. As editors, our discussion has examined the many forms of work we have participated in and also considered connections between, in and outside the academy. Throughout the book’s project, we have worked in partnerships with colleagues in different disciplines and up and down the hierarchies of our various institutions. We pay tribute to the contributions of this volume’s authors, in sharing in this work despite already too-busy and demanding schedules and workloads. These collaborations have been formative for us all, in our understanding and appreciation of consensual practice. Our discourse throughout the process of editing this volume has highlighted each of our individual enthusiasms for collaborative work. We have enjoyed the time we’ve spent together thinking, writing and working as a team to bring this book to publication. And we recognized each other quickly. We hope that this volume will contain something that will inspire and support readers, in their struggles against directive management and for creative practice, a more democratized and consultative workplace. The search for alternatives and lateral inclusion, the valuing of co-operative work and shared leadership is an important and ongoing project.

References Avolio, B. J., Bass M. B. and Jung D. I. (1999) Re-examining the components of transactional and transformational leadership using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72, pp. 441–62. Birmingham Autonomous University (2017) Towards an autonomous university. In R. Hall and J. Winn (eds) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury.

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Gunter, H. (2012) Leadership and the Reform of Education. Bristol, England: The Policy Press. Hall, R. and Winn, J. (eds) (2017) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury. HESA (2017) Higher Education Staff Data https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/ staff, Last accessed 2 October 2017. hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. London: Routledge. Jameson, J. (2008), Leadership: Professional Communities of Leadership Practice in Post-compulsory Education. Bristol: Higher Education Academy, Education Subject Centre (ESCalate), Discussions in Education Series, October 2008. Jameson, J. (October 2012) Leadership values, trust and negative capability: Managing the uncertainties of future English higher education. Higher Education Quarterly, 66 (4), pp. 391–414. Kahai, S., Sosik, J. and Avolio, B. (2004) Effects of participative and directive leadership in electronic groups. Group and Organization Management, 29, pp. 67–105. Macfarlane, B. (2007) The Academic Citizen: The Virtue of Service in University Life. Abingdon: Routledge. Macfarlane, B. (2011) Professors as intellectual leaders: Formation, identity and role. Studies in Higher Education, 36 (1), pp. 57–73. Macpherson, C. B. (1962) The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McGettigan, A. (2011) New providers: The creation of a market in higher education. Radical Philosophy, 167, pp. 2–8. Naidoo, R. (2008) Higher education: A powerhouse for development in a neo-liberal age? In D. Epstein, R. Boden, R. Deem, F. Rizvi and S. Wright (eds) Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Framing the Future of Higher Education, pp. 248–65. New York: Routledge. Neary, M. and Saunders, G. (2011) ‘Leadership and learning landscapes in higher education: The struggle for the idea of the university’. Higher Education Quarterly, 65 (4), pp. 333–52 Nielsen, J. (2004) The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organisations. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black. Nixon, J. (2012) Interpretive Pedagogies for Higher Education: Arendt, Berger, Said, Nussbaum and their Legacies. London: Continuum. Nixon, J. and Ranson, S. (1997) Theorising ‘agreement’: The bases of a new professional ethic, discourse. Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 18 (2), pp. 197–214. Pearce, J. (2017) Bradford’s community university: From ‘constellations of knowledge’ to liberating the general intellect? In R. Hall and J. Winn (eds), Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, pp. 97–113. London: Bloomsbury.

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Raelin, J. (ed.) (2016) Leadership-as-Practice: Theory and Application. New York, NY: Routledge. Raman, S. (2000) From industrial feudalism to industrial capitalism: Putting Labour back into knowledge politics. In M. Jacob and T. Hellström (eds), The Future of Knowledge, pp. 109–24. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Ranson, S. and Martin , J. (1997) A Learning Democracy for Co-operative Action in Oxford Review of Education. 23 (1), pp. 15, 117. Rayner, S., Fuller, M., McEwen L. and Roberts H. (2010) Managing leadership in the UK university: A case for researching the missing professoriate? Studies in Higher Education and the Social Sciences, 35 (6), pp. 617–31. Sato, M. (2014) Younger Faculty, Identity and Careers in Japan. In L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton, J. Salisbury, B. Thomas (eds), Academic Working Lives. London: Bloomsbury. Strathern, M. (2000) Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics and the Academy. New York: Routledge. Thompson, E. P. (ed.) (1970) Warwick University Ltd: Industry, Management and the Universities. Harmondsworth: Penguin. The Times (2016) Interview with Jaakko Eskola, Business Section p. 57, published on 19 November 2016 (not available online). Wenger, E. (2009) A social theory of learning. In K. Illeris (ed.) Contemporary Theories of Learning: Learning Theorists in Their Own Words. New York: Routledge. Woodin, T. (2015) Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values: Contemporary Issues in Education. Abingdon: Routledge. Youngs, H. (2009) (Un)Critical times? Situating distributed leadership in the field. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 41 (4), pp. 377–89. doi: 10.1080/00220620903211588

Part One

Co-operation

Introduction Brychan Thomas

In this first section, on co-operative approaches to consensuality, we explore how leadership is flexible, tacit, sometimes shared or contested, and involvement tends to be elective and contingent. Values are important and underpin how roles are fulfilled in practice. Structures and principles are involved too, implicitly or explicitly, and we can go some way to identifying how these may be scoped and understood. Laguo Livingstone Gilbert considers the key role of trust in inter-organizational relationships. He looks at university management and the activities of professional bodies in Nigeria, based on experience and research on the ‘atmosphere’ of the organization and modes of participatory leadership within it. However, this chapter begins our book with a contra case, one of a lack of co-operation. Enhancing co-operation between universities and industry bodies in Nigeria, Gilbert argues, will raise the level of departmental ownership of professional standards and certification and increase universities’ engagement in socio-economic trends and legitimize the external workplace. To achieve this, a number of facilitating leadership styles are explored. The theoretical framework of democratic and transformational leadership research shows that the proactive adoption of these more ‘participatory’ styles, and crucially, the development of trust, can help to create a co-operative ethos and reduce problems and uncertainties. Trust is thereby seen to be at the basis of consent. What we find, however, is a lack of consensus between professional bodies and university institutions, one that harms opportunities in Nigeria for many stakeholders. This is not least for students, researchers, the sectors and organizations themselves. Yet, as the future talent of the nation, these should be the key beneficiaries of education–business co-operation. Working together needs trust but can also help to establish this, and the author calls for timely initiatives in order for all sectors to move forward. Oili-Helena Ylijoki and Lea Henriksson explore co-operative work experiences of early career academics in Finland from a narrative analytic approach. The authors identify cognitive, social and moral dimensions of

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co-operation and examine these in collegial, project-based, institutional and entrepreneurial settings, each embedded in different modes of leadership. The focus of this chapter is on how ‘meaningfulness’ can be realized in academic work under the current uncertain and highly polarized work environment of academic capitalism. However, the authors find that despite the competitive and individualistic spirit of the current managerialistic university, the ‘junior’ academics in their study were able to create and enact opportunities for working together in empathetic ways, providing support and enabling the sharing of mutual experiences. Leadership plays a role in this, in allowing time and space for co-operation and participation, and there is room for consensual styles, as well as more ‘authoritarian’ ones, and staff typically exercise selfleadership too. Despite having to struggle with short-term and insecure employment conditions, their experiences of meaningfulness, belonging and caring, each with different strategies and interactive relations, were clear from the interviews. Moreover, the research participants aimed to continue in an academic career; thus the authors suggest that academics are not solely subordinated to dominant organizational cultures, but may work to reshape and transform them in positive and unique ways. Marita Sánchez-Moreno and Manon Toussaint analyse some of the most recurrent management ‘dilemmas’ experienced in Spanish universities, through in-depth interviews conducted across several Andalusian institutions. Many of the challenging situations recorded include the management of conflictive relationships, scarce resources, damaged workplace climates and lobbying. The authors also explore ways in which academics as managers have tried to confront these. This chapter addresses two cases focusing on the leadership and communication strategies put in place by managers, which required a high degree of creativity and stakeholder involvement. The academic managers did strive to show leadership and to maintain governance relationships based on consent, and also used collaborative strategies like engagement, participation and powersharing to provide some kind of protection to themselves in the face of challenge. In the Spanish higher education context, many scholars occupy management positions that are impermanent. Thus consensual leadership and a co-operative ethos can appear as more of an exigency to the managers than a voluntary election. Paradoxically, and despite the fact of having an organizational structure that tries to favour participative processes, the authors suggest that it was precisely in the efforts to implement collegiality that many of the main conflictive situations were provoked, hence the dilemmas of the chapter title.

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Tom Woodin, in his review of the prospects and possibilities for introducing co-operative ideas and models into UK higher education, shows us that co-operation is a model with ‘consent’ at its core. This chapter reviews a wide range of work on co-operative higher education, including wider discussion of initiatives in the Basque Country, Kenya and elsewhere. He explores informal initiatives as well as the nature of co-operative structures themselves. In the compulsory sector, co-operative schools in the UK have significantly expanded since 2008, when the first co-operative trust school was opened. The idea of the university of the twenty-first century is also being re-examined, and the author looks at the wider question of a growing student access to higher education alongside sharpening economic and educational inequalities. He discusses some of the tensions and contradictions that face higher education today in its scholarship and learning: yet it is also a time for leadership, Woodin argues: one based on new principles. In this new situation, the special and pressing relevance of co-operation, co-operative values, principles and structures are considered. A changing higher education sector is therefore also an opportunity for a new vision that has global reference as well as communitarian involvement.

1

Co-operation and Participatory Leadership: Building Trust to Connect Professional Bodies and Universities in Nigeria Laguo Livingstone Gilbert

Introduction This chapter considers how perspectives on leadership and the development of organizational trust could help to increase co-operation between higher education and professional bodies in Nigeria. At present, the established practice in this area does not value collaborative approaches, and in the sections below, some of the issues as well as potential solutions are considered. If stakeholders including administrators and institutional managers, as well as companies and professional bodies, cannot consider the adoption of some strategies for implementation of collaborative approaches, then progress in Nigeria will be very hard to achieve. This in turn damages the opportunities for students and communities within university environments. In order to be more democratic and achieve effective co-operation and participation between professional bodies and universities in Nigeria, leaders in these various areas must understand and practise some of the norms and elements of a collaborative working environment.

Higher education and professional bodies in Nigeria The ‘Top Universities in Nigeria: 2017 Ranking’ lists 115 universities. In recent years, licences have been granted to corporate bodies, religious bodies and individuals to set up private universities in Nigeria. Professional bodies that regulate the different professions in Nigeria range from engineering to

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accounting. These bodies administer certification examinations to members according to their charters. The bodies set professional conduct and ethical standards involving best practices and benchmarks for members. They can administer disciplinary actions for misconduct by members and are quasiregulatory bodies. The main professional bodies in Nigeria include the African Institute of Applied Economics, African Finance and Economics Association, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria, Business Education Exams Council, Centre for Law and Development, Certified Pension Institute of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Certified Secretaries and Reporters, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Administration. As in many countries, in Nigeria, there is a need for a stronger connection between higher education and mainstream professional bodies or organizations. Stronger co-operation between these groups will contribute to increasing research and knowledge development and enhance both sectors (Gustavs and Clegg 2005). A recent study (Knobel, Simões and de Brito Cruz 2013) confirms it will also increase best practice. However, such an accepted relationship is relatively rare in Nigeria with a greater need for understanding and sharing of experience and learning to work together. A major obstacle in this respect is that occupational bodies and their representatives have found more success in links with the private sector, and the incentives to co-operate with higher education have not been clearly articulated or argued for. The main regulatory and accreditation body for universities in Nigeria is the National Universities Commission (NUC) which sets the admissions capacity of every university and enforces uniform standards across the country (MoE 2010). Unlike some other countries, Nigeria does not have foreign university campuses, as the laws governing its higher education prevent this. Laws do allow private companies to establish universities, but their programmes need to conform to national needs. In addition, Nigeria has formed a National Open University as a distance education provider. New providers of higher education in Nigeria are registered by three regulatory bodies: the National Commission for Colleges of Education, the National Board for Technical Education and the NUC. There is an emphasis on these organizations to respond to the needs of learners and satisfy market demand. New providers of higher education in Nigeria are regulated by the NUC or directly by the government. In a similar way, the curricula of

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professional courses are regulated by the associated professional bodies. As well as registering new providers, the NUC operates as a quality assurance agency. Degree programmes of universities, irrespective of who the owner is, are accredited according to acceptable national minimum academic standards. Other nations do not just rely on one level of governance or method for accrediting programmes within higher education, but have administrative policies that help link professional bodies to universities, and equally, accredit professional or nonprofessional programmes. For example, universities in countries such as the UK, United States, France and Russia have strong partnership and collaborative strategies with their host professional bodies. These associations have helped to raise awareness of, and gain access to, quality development and assurance processes, as well as measuring learning outcomes and enhancing accreditation requirements (Eddy 2010). These are areas that the participants in Nigeria are missing out on. Nigeria has good infrastructure for setting up universities as well as for monitoring their activities, but its universities are working in isolation in relation to those of the professional bodies. A strong connection between Nigerian universities and relevant professional bodies in the form of co-operation and collaboration is therefore a serious absence, and linking them together would not only help to develop a closer relationship but also help to enhance accreditation and the conduct of research or consultancy services. In particular, these could provide specialized technology, management and business processes for developing as well as existing industries. Collaboration that included the regulating agencies could also promote opportunities for growth in both the education and business sectors and enable channels for discussing mutual interests. This could include sharing professional practice among stakeholders in a way that enterprises, the public sector, students and academics would all benefit. To engage in co-operative efforts – although we cannot see these being closer tied at this stage – Stone, Russell and Patterson (2004) recommend the role of ‘participatory’ leadership involvement in building trustworthy relationships. This could also help to show the kind of ethos that would be consistent with education policies (Faghihi and Allameh 2012) in engaging with co-operative efforts outside of the university. This was reinforced recently in a discussion that focused on people’s views of partnership in higher education (Australia Conference 2017). It developed the discussion on the scope of the university perspective and accreditation strategies focusing on Europe, the Middle East and

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Africa. The contributions generated a consensus around the ‘effective means’ for improving relationships between professional bodies and higher education in line with policy planning – and consideration too of, ‘but how to do something about this to achieve it?’

Leadership and its impact on consensus relationships Certain types of leadership, as indicated above, seem to be better employed in encouraging constructive linking between groups or organizations (Groves 2005). There are also strategies that can lead to successful co-operation (Burke 2002; Herold et al. 2008; Xirasagar 2008; Edwards and Gill 2012), which include setting up guidelines and methods for engagement. Participatory leadership can also facilitate for leaders in both professional bodies and universities to cope with the challenges of developing capacities for dealing with ever more complex situations, such as accreditation and quality assurance tasks. Co-operation can help to create a relationship between the members of an organization too, because of the need for involvement in negotiation and shared decision-making. Moreover, dealing with challenges, that arise from co-operation and partnership, and exchanging relevant information, increases the capacity for everyone to participate. The role of leadership helps provide direction and procedures that ensure the successful accomplishment of desired goals, by motivating participants (Yukongdi 2004; Agle et al. 2006; Winstone and Patterson 2006). The Australian Partnership Report (2015) specifies a wide range of benefits emerging through co-operation for universities and schools, including a stronger capacity to engage in better co-ordination in leading university programmes. This indicates that leadership often brings organizational variables together, which then acts as an improved basis for solving problems or achieving results. According to a study by Bentley and Cazaly (2015), people working together accomplish tasks better through leadership styles that are flexible and which provide both leaders and followers with the requisite resources to accomplish their objectives. Therefore, result-oriented co-operation in higher education requires a relatively ‘soft’ leadership strategy such as one involving ‘transformational’ or ‘democratic’ styles (Avery 2004; Oshagbemi and Ocholi 2006). Transformational and democratic styles include a concern for employees, with intellectual stimulation and group vision, and seeking input from all members of the group to make decisions through a majority view. They also

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typically provide opportunities for social interaction where collaborators share knowledge, increase understanding and solve problems through consultation and discussion. These are ‘friendly’ leadership styles for achieving organizational objectives when compared with others (Yukl 2013). Stone, Russell and Patterson (2004) record that Burns (1978) was one of the first to initiate transformational leadership as a process to improve the relationship between leaders and followers. Transformational leadership has since been adopted in many situations and viewed as a leadership style that encourages collaboration. It also improves work-based exchange relationships that promote teamwork. Where transformational and democratic leadership are practised, delegation of authority is encouraged and an agreed level of participation is considered as a good strategy for achieving goals. This position is in accordance with the findings of Sapru’s (2013) study that democratic behaviour encourages feedback and gives the opportunity for people to engage in an encouraging relationship. Similarly, Spence’s (2009) study found that a democratic leadership style could enable organizational leaders to actively engage colleagues by encouraging them to increase their inputs and participation, as well as by providing support and facilitating interaction. This suggests that both leadership styles together could also motivate those involved in business partnerships; Eddy (2010) believes that there is a need to increase the level of motivation for industry–higher education collaboration, and to strengthen those in a co-operating business would help to achieve this purpose. While co-operation creates values of partnership across the parties, it is important that transformational and democratic leadership roles are considered in order to reduce levels of failure at the structural levels. Consequently, those engaged in co-operation must remain consistent with adopted leadership values with a view to participating in a consensus relationship. Pastor and Mayo (2008) suggested that those who adopt elements of transformational leadership focus more on creating values of self-perception within, which then help them achieve collaborative aims. Avery (2004) adds that such leaders have the capacity to increase their vision through co-operation as well as to recognize differences between success and failure; result-oriented co-operation will require flexible and adaptive leadership. It equally equips participants with knowledge of strategic thinking and assets towards establishing a structure of administration that will help enhance better collaboration. Those then in collaboration will effectively engage themselves as genuine stakeholders, to implement expectations of the co-operating partners and gaining such experience, increase their readiness

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to contribute to the success of the whole. Thus, when consensus relationships do occur, the parties are aware of the scenarios and are committed to ensuring that they are disclosed. Indeed, the more the parties are aware of institutional responsibilities and the duty to avoid apparent or actual conflicts of interest (including favouritism or bias) – important where co-operation with companies is involved – the more they ensure that safeguards are in place to protect their relationships. Participatory leadership helps participants who are engaged in a consensus relationship to disclose the association, in order that they participate proactively and co-operatively. Proactive participation helps to eliminate likely conflict of interest that could arise in a consensual relationship. For example, Lemon and Garvis (2014) observe that co-operation between higher education schools and professional organizations plays a significant role in increasing students’ engagement with academic activities, and such co-operation often ignites the learners’ interest to improve their level of research and development (Nichols 2014). However, this may not be achieved if those involved do not associate themselves with a friendly working environment, where trust, openness and support for this are available. This is in accordance with Raoprasert and Islam’s (2010) position on the importance of harmonious working behaviour to enhance a conflict-free and non-assertive work environment, with humility and politeness among people in the workplace. Such behaviour enables a good working environment that helps people to be positive and stay motivated. It is also said to encourage long-term and trusted relationships where there is a high level of inspiration, stimulation, encouragement and active involvement in the policies of the consensus relationship (Raoprasert and Islam 2010).

Trust and its impact on consensus relationships Organizational trust is said to be defined by two dimensions: interpersonal and institutional. Interpersonal trust is said to strengthen the relationship between leaders’ or managers’ and colleagues’ competences, encouraging benevolence and a reliable working environment (Shamir, House and Arthur 1993; Groves 2005; Mayer and Davis 1999). Institutional trust meanwhile is characterized by the fairness of entire organizational systems, such as business units, organizational structures and human resource policy frameworks. Interpersonal trust has been identified with the following elements: ability, capability, integrity, truthfulness

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and goodwill. Where these characteristics are present, there is often increased openness to co-operation and partnership (Caldwell et al. 2009; Ellonen, Blomqvist and Puumalainen 2008). And Cochran, Bromley and Swando (2002) posit that employee readiness to collaborate is significant when associated with openness and truthfulness. A high level of enthusiasm for collaboration is predicted by the employees’ level of receptivity to working in a trusted workplace, in an environment that values trust (Herold et al. 2008; Faghihi and Allameh 2012). Trust enhances the readiness of organizations to work together too, especially in the context of consensus relationships. According to Armenakis, Harris and Mossholder (1993), a readiness to participate reveals a willingness for co-operation. Organizational trust can be viewed as a lever with which to increase the level of participation between those in the business of co-operation (Erturk 2008). Trust appears to prepare collaborators to be both mentally and physically ready to support each other in order to achieve aims. Organizational trust has thus been viewed as a critical component of collaborative effectiveness (McKnight, Cummings and Chervany 1998; Ben-Gal and Tzafrir 2011; Smollan 2013). Faghihi and Allameh’s (2012) study reveals that organizational trust enhances people’s beliefs, thoughts and behaviours to accept values and professional relationships between partners and this seems to be an important precondition for university–professional body co-working. Therefore, organizational trust increases the interest of potential partners and collaborators as well as their expectations (Clegg et al. 2002) – although expectations do need to be managed, and matched by senior levels of staff. A high level of trust in a partnership is likely to increase the level of trust among and between partners (Tan and Tan 2000). It can also increase the competence and knowledge-sharing that might enhance collaborators’ faith in a consensus relationship, and which can successfully achieve their objectives. This is why trust is frequently acknowledged as a central construct and dynamic of managerial relationships (Davis et al. 2000). Atkinson (2004) notes that it is difficult to determine precisely how much of an impact trust plays in managerial relationships, but a consistent adherence to the elements of trust such as ability (the competence the trustee possesses in a specific domain), benevolence (the willingness to do good) and integrity (displaying values to good behaviour) is important. Growing trust will, on the other hand, produce a good understanding of the value of trusting relationships. Barber (1983) comments that trusting people, or interacting with a trusted

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person, forms the basis of a trusted relationship. The essence of trust in interpersonal agreements is to understand the extent to which each party in the relationship will benefit from it, and a breakdown of trust is where relationships become difficult. In the above discussion, trust is considered to be a core belief and a feeling that can develop between leaders in a relationship. Trust is a relational concept that occurs between people, and to grow in a relationship, those involved must play an important role in creating and sustaining trusting relationships. Bass’s (1985) model of transformational leadership shows that participatory leadership is successful in part through its facilitation of trust. The discussion suggests that the relationship between transformational leadership and building trust is dependent on those in the relationship. Leaders must involve themselves in a collaborative relationship that is more productive, and offer to provide more help beyond the requirements of their joint business; such leaders might stay in collaboration or partnership for a longer period of time.

Inter-organizational co-operation A lack of trust can cause a deficiency of transactions and situations in a mutual or co-operative relationship. It can result in an absence of higher levels of effort to achieve more efficient inter-organizational co-operation and inefficient use of resources. In fact, a breach of trust can lead to fraudulent acts, lies, incompetence, indifference, defaulting rules of engagement, lack of caring for the collaborator and insincerity, as well as a breakdown of contractual agreements (Tidd, McIntyre and Friedman 2004). Williamson’s (1985) study found that many people act on the basis of a trusted relationship, while others find it difficult to identify those whom they can trust and those whom they cannot trust. This is why Kelly (2007) argued that the costs associated with transactions could be reduced if partners trusted each other more. Trust is achieved through consistent interaction in a partnership venture. A reputation system is built on trust relationships over time and is also a prerequisite for the development of behavioural patterns (Bowles and Gintis 2002). From this viewpoint, trust facilitates efficient collaboration and serves to mediate and complement business partnerships. It is argued that strengthening organizational culture, as a mechanism for sharing information and reducing behavioural risk through mutual trust, is an important objective of investments in trust (Dirks, Lewicki and Zaheer 2009), and is a significant

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education

Participatory Leadership · Transformational · Democratic

Organizational Trust · Institutional · Interpersonal

Consensus, Co-operation, Collaboration, Partnership

Figure 1.1 Consensus Relationship Framework

aspect of developing inter-organizational co-operation. Levels of trust between partners can be seen as indicators of the management efficiency of a relational agreement (Dirks, Lewicki and Zaheer 2009). Figure 1.1 presents the consensus relationship framework where participatory leadership and organizational trust can facilitate a stronger relationship among one or two organizations that are in a consensus relationship. This framework suggests that participatory leadership and organizational trust can be linked with co-operation. As described in Figure 1.1, applying a participatory leadership strategy with professional bodies and universities will give leaders in both parties a strong and supported vision, an empowered position from which to work and help to sustain established relationships (Pastor and Mayo 2008).

Issues in connecting universities and professional bodies Trust increases engagement and competence among employees, leading to more effective networks for knowledge distribution (Erturk 2008). On this basis, professional bodies and higher education might see that there are approaches they can take in relation to co-operation and collaboration that are rooted in positive, trusting relationships based on mutual interest. Applying participatory leadership strategies and seeking to develop trust could impact on developing these relationships between professional bodies and higher education in Nigeria. The framework suggests that participatory leadership and high levels of trust will increase success: this means that personnel in higher education who want to co-operate with other bodies would need to consider particular aspects of leadership as some of the core factors necessary for achieving results in collaborations. Contemporary scholars agree that participatory leadership as an

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organizational strategy can bring about behaviours that lead to positive results and high levels of success (Yukl 2013). This approach emphasizes the need to closely match trust with leadership: combining these can lead to an increase in workplace tasks achieved, better quality interaction and increased performance (Martins and Terblanche 2003; Northouse 2010; Vanhala and Ahteela 2011; Carmichael 2011; Yukl 2013). The framework (Figure 1.1) shows that developing institutional trust will improve employee relationships and focus on an organization’s fair work practices that benefit staff. This, in turn, will support better quality human resources management practices. Engaging and supporting staff in this way is likely to increase their efficiency and effectiveness when engaged with the co-operative venture. In other words, organizations that increase the level of institutional trust will benefit from organizational members’ willingness to complete tasks that directly improve performance and results. Organizational members will be able to trust the organizational policy they are engaged with, including for new co-operative and external associations, and their level of interaction and contribution towards their goals may increase. Employee reliability and preparedness to participate in joint business ventures is influenced by interpersonal trust. This means co-operation that practices interpersonal trust may increase people’s belief in the ability of all sides to trust each other and work together. Prusak (2001) suggests that workplace trust is critical for group innovation, creativity and organizational success. Other scholars (Tidd, McIntyre and Friedman 2004; Ellonen, Blomqvist and Puumalainen 2008) also support the need to increase the level of interpersonal trust in organizations in order to increase the level of interaction that could lead to accomplishing results. This shows that organizational trust enhances behaviour and overall invention, which encourages team building, leading to more effective collaboration – a positive cycle. This view is consistent with the works of Atkinson and Butcher (2003) and Vanhala and Ahteela (2011), and it means that an emphasis on organizational trust will increase organizational effectiveness and readiness for effective co-operation. Further, Martins and Terblanche’s (2003) work suggests that organizational trust improves the behavioural dimension that supports innovativeness – that is handling challenges, taking risks and encouraging change personnel in innovation and creativity. This indicates that organizations that support the development of organizational trust tend to increase the capabilities and possibilities of engaging in successful co-operation. We have thus moved from trust and participatory

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education

leadership as bases for co-operation and sustaining operational partnerships, to the foundations for innovation. There are not sufficiently robust links between professional bodies and universities in Nigeria. Nigeria has over 100 universities owned by federal and state government, and a number of universities that are privately owned. However, evidence indicates that professional bodies have little or no business with most Nigerian universities. Countries such as the UK have used participatory leadership and the development of inter-organizational trust as a means of creating and enhancing relationships between professional bodies and universities. For example, the Higher Education Better Regulation Group (HEBRG) was established in December 2009 to raise the profile of higher education in the UK. The HEBRG, which is supported by universities in the UK to guide higher education, is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Scottish Funding Council, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Department for Employment and Learning (Northern Ireland). With this level of collaboration, considerable progress in higher education is being made to enhance relationships between professional bodies and universities. The framework in Figure 1.1 indicates that better relationships between professional bodies and universities can be developed in Nigeria, with a view to creating a more productive environment for democratic engagements and discussions. With the growth of these relationships, a clear definition for co-operation could be established, with channels of communication adopted and responsibilities that could be shared in productive partnerships for both sets of organizations. Since there is a current lack of joining up between universities and professional bodies in Nigeria, relevant agencies in Nigerian higher education need to provide leadership to government, with a view to identifying obstacles and promoting consensual decisions that will move the sector forward. For example, the Association of University and College Counselling is engaged with issues concerning professional activities for counsellors in higher and further education. This has helped to identify areas for improvement. Therefore, work should be initiated between relevant agencies of government, university leadership and professional bodies to create a standard for consensual collaboration with higher education. This will benefit the sector in several areas such as providing a professional base for collaborative research and development between the sectors, as well as providing the necessary training for sustaining the work.

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Industry and accreditation The Nigerian industrial economy is oil rich with a fast growing rate of GDP. In fact, GDP was $492,986 billion in 2015 (IMF 2015) with a GDP growth of 6.3  per cent in 2014 (NNBS 2014). As a major oil exporter, Nigeria produces about 2.7  per cent of the world’s oil supply, and revenue from petroleum is around $52.2 billion, which accounts for about 11 per cent of GDP (IMF 2015). Through accreditation, professional bodies are already making money based on industry, universities and education. The situation is not just about trust, since if professional bodies are not properly related to universities and industry, there are some important impacts. Thus, a lack of co-operation between professional bodies and universities is holding the country back and not allowing the education system to fulfil some of its potential. There is a lack of leadership, and the impact of this is significant for graduates in terms of inadequate links for staff, enterprises and students. For the purposes of improvement, professional bodies could define areas of activities which universities could become involved with, and not be limited to accreditation but approval and validation of programmes, controlling licences and conferring titles. In the area of accreditation and approval of university programmes, professional bodies could jointly monitor and review academic provision through accreditation and approval or recognition of courses. Similar to other countries, the accreditation process could allow graduates to practice as professionals in their field and provide entry to membership of a professional association. Accreditation allows universities to benchmark their programmes against their peers and standards agreed by the professions, and would ensure that programme content had a link with the requirements of possible employment. Again, just as the NUC conducts programme accreditation in universities, professional bodies can equally be involved in a series of formal on-site visits to departments, faculties and university campuses on a self-evaluation basis and reviewing events/activities for accreditation. With regulation, professional bodies can work closely with higher education to increase the impact of measuring engagement and regulating universities. The Better Regulation Review Group viewed that regulation should be transparent, accountable, proportionate, consistent and targeted. This strategy has helped the UK to champion better regulation across many business sectors. Hence, the standard of regulation in Nigerian universities can follow this order with the help of professional bodies coordinating such activities. This will help foster good leadership to administer advancement in the higher education sector.

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Conclusion This chapter establishes that collaboration in higher education is significantly associated with participatory leadership and trust. In other words, participatory leadership and trust will increase the level of readiness for consensus-based co-operation. Therefore, these can help support closer collaboration and create channels for communication with professional and industry bodies in Nigeria. This chapter brings leadership and organizational trust into a single framework to increase understanding of co-operation as a strategy in higher education. The discussion from the implications contained in the conceptual framework depicted (Figure 1.1) suggests a possible co-operation strategy for leaders in both professional and higher education bodies. It is also proposed that professional bodies could work with universities and their regulating bodies to establish areas for discussion of mutual interest and in sharing good practice. Universities’ expertise should be recognized and their work should be more widely spread to ensure that graduates have requisite skills for entry into industries after completing their studies. Also, this chapter emphasizes that professional bodies can collaborate with funding agencies to increase resources that advance higher education. Finally, the chapter stresses that apart from engaging in accreditation and improving research and development in higher education, professional bodies could work with universities in the area of initiating and driving the principles of regulating standards in Nigeria. To date, the professional bodies have benefitted from commercial links with industries in an oil-rich Nigerian state economy. But university knowledge and human capital, and technologies, could be part of strong new relationships based on trust and co-operation, leading to greater partnership. This would be undoubtedly for the mutual benefit of companies, professions and institutions, as well as for students, teachers and researchers, in meeting organizational – and national – goals.

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Ellonen, R., Blomqvist, K. and Puumalainen, K. (2008) The role of Trust in organisational innovativeness. European Journal of Innovation Management, 11 (2), pp. 160–81. Erturk, A. (2008) A trust-based approach to promote employees’ openness to organisational change in Turkey. International Journal of Manpower, 29 (5), pp. 462–83. Faghihi, A. and Allameh, S. M. (2012) Investigating the influence of employee attitude toward change and leadership style on change readiness by SEM (case study: Isfahan Municipality). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2 (11), pp. 215–27. Groves, K. S. (2005) Linking leader skills, follower attitudes and contextual variables via an integration of charismatic leadership. Journal of Management, 31, pp. 255–77. Gustavs, J. and Clegg, S. (2005) Working the knowledge game? Universities and Corporate Organizations in Partnership Management Learning, 36(1), pp. 9–30. Herold, D. M., Fedor, D. B., Caldwell, S. D. and Liu, Y. (2008) The effects of transformational leadership and change leadership on employees’ commitment to a change: A multi-level study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 (2), pp. 346–57. IMF (2015) GDP Statistics. International Monetary Fund, Retrieved from http://www. imf.org/external/pubs. Kelly, C. (2007) Managing the relationship between knowledge and power in organisations. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 59 (3), pp. 125–38. Knobel, M., Simões, T. P. and de Brito Cruz, C. H. (2013) International collaborations between research universities: Experiences and best practices. Studies in Higher Education, 38 (3), pp. 405–24. Lemon, N. and Garvis, S. (2014) Innovative Partnerships: Opportunities to Create, Make, Explore and Respond in the Arts. London: Deepening the Conversations. Martins, E. C. and Terblanche, T. (2003) Building organisational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management, 6 (1), pp. 64–74. Mayer, R. C. and Davis, J. H. (1999) The effect of the performance appraisal system on trust for management: A field quasi-experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84 (1), pp. 123–36. McKnight, D. H., Cummings, L. I. and Chervany, N. I. (1998) Initial trust formation in new organisational relationships. Academy of Management Review, 23 (3), pp. 473–90. Ministry of Education (MoE) (2010) Departments – Tertiary. Nigeria: Ministry of Education. Nichols, S. (2014) Museums, universities and pre-service teachers. Journal of Museum Education, 39 (1), pp. 3–9. NNBS (2014) News 2014. Abuja: Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics. Northouse, P. G. (2010) Leadership: Theory and Practice, 5th edn. London: Sage. Oshagbemi, T. and Ocholi, S. A. (2006) Leadership styles and behaviour profiles of managers. Journal of Management Development, 25 (8), pp. 748–62.

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Pastor, J. C. and Mayo, M. (2008) Transformational leadership among Spanish upper echelons: The role of managerial values and goal orientation. Leadership and Organisation Development Journal, 29 (4), pp. 340–58. Prusak, L. (2001) Where did knowledge management come from? IBM Systems Journal, 40 (4), pp. 1002–6. Raoprasert, T. and Islam, S. M. N. (2010) Designing an efficient management system: Structural equation modelling of convergence factors. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Sapru, R. K. (2013) Administrative Theories and Management Thought, 3rd edn. PHI Learning Delhi: PHI Learning Rvt. Shamir, B., House, R. J. and Arthur, M. B. (1993) The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organisation Science, 4, pp. 577–94. Smollan, R. K. (2013) Trust in change managers: The role of affect. Journal of Organisational Change Management, 26 (4), pp. 725–47. Spence, L. A. (2009) Preferences for Leader Traits and Leadership Communication Styles Among Members of Different Generational Cohorts. Thesis: Gonzaga University. Stone, A. G., Russell, R. S. and Patterson, K. (2004) Transformational versus servant leadership: A difference in leader focus. The Leadership and Organisation Development Journal, 25 (4), pp. 349–61. Tan, H. H. and Tan, C. S. F. (2000) Toward a differentiation of trust in supervisor and trust in organisation. Genetic, Social and General Psychology Monographs, 126 (2), pp. 241–60. Tidd, S. T., McIntyre, H. H. and Friedman, R. A. (2004) The importance of role ambiguity and trust in conflict perception: unpacking the task conflict to relationship conflict linkage. The International Journal of Conflict Management, 15 (4), pp. 364–80. Vanhala, M. and Ahteela, R. (2011) The effect of HRM practices on impersonal organisational trust. Management Research Review, 34 (8), pp. 869–88. Williamson, O. E. (1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press. Winston, B. and Patterson, K. (2006) An integrative definition of leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1 (2), pp. 6–66. Xirasagar, S. (2008) Transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership among physician executives. Journal of Health Organisation and Management, 22 (6), pp. 599–613. Yukl, G. (2013) Leadership in Organisations, 8th edn. Englewood: Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Yukongdi, V. (2004) An exploratory study of Thai Employees’ preferred style of managers. Paper presented at The Scandinavian Academy of Management (SAM) and the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM), VIIth World Congress in Goteborg, 5–7 July.

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Insights from Early Career Academics: Making Time for Working Together in Finland Oili-Helena Ylijoki and Lea Henriksson

Introduction In this chapter, we explore some examples of the more positive collaborative work experiences of early career academics in Finland. Our interest lies in tracing what makes working together personally meaningful, and what kind of sharing and sense of belonging emerge from this collaboration. The aim is to go behind a current ‘managerial discourse’ that subjugates collaborative relationships into a kind of instrumental and coercive format. We argue that this managerial discourse underpins calculative and strategic partnerships with a diversity of partners and stakeholders within and outside academia at all levels. What remains undervalued, and even unrecognized, is the inherent collegiality, consensuality and sharing which are part of the morality and core values of academic working (e.g. Barnett 2000; Fanghanel 2012; Nixon 2008; Ylijoki 2015). The early career academics in Finland enter a university system which is dominated by a performative ethos that cherishes competition, productivity, measurements and individual success (see, for example, Archer 2008; Henkel 2010; Musselin 2005). Increasing pressures of the current ‘supercomplex university’ (Barnett 2000) create ambivalences concerning what good work and success in academia mean (Acker, Webber and Smyth 2012; Hakala 2009; Sutherland 2017; Ylijoki and Henriksson 2017). In addition, junior academics may be seen to be the most vulnerable group of academic staff, with insecure employment and uncertain career prospects (e.g. Laudel and Gläser 2008; Strike and Taylor 2009). Against this background, it is important to see whether there

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can still be time and space for meaningful, empowering and joyful experiences of sharing, among the early career academics. Empirically, we rely on three focus group discussions involving twelve Finnish junior academics (nine female and three male) who recently received a PhD in social sciences. They worked at two multifaculty, research-intensive universities, mostly as postdoctoral researchers or some as acting lecturers. They all worked on temporary contracts, ranging from a couple of months to four years. This kind of work situation is typical of junior academics in all fields in Finland. All our interviewees aimed to continue in an academic career but were struggling with short-term and insecure employment conditions. The discussions covered a wide range of themes, including their daily experiences and views of the purpose and relevance of their work. The discussions were in Finnish and have been translated by members of the research group. In the following, we analyse in more detail the cultural meanings of co-operation that are embedded in our interview data. We ask how the early career academics make sense of their experiences of sharing, and what forms ‘sharing’ takes in their work. In addition, we pay attention to the leadership context and roles of junior academics in different modes of co-operation. In the analysis, we offer illustrations from these data in order to highlight the tone and nuances of the interviews. The speakers are identified by focus group number (FI-III) and personal number (e.g. FI, 4).

Good co-operation versus bad Experiences of co-operation and sharing are common among the early career academics; they create meaningfulness and a vital sense of community in academic work. Although the basic plot of the interviews recorded repeats a sort of misery story emphasizing constraints, strains and pressures in work, it is remarkable how much common joy, shared enthusiasm and mutual support the junior academics still find in their daily work: My ideal day depends on atmosphere. For example, in teaching or supervision occasions, you may get a feeling that we are really working together and something good comes out of this. You learn yourself and so do the students. These are good moments in teaching. In the same way in research, there are insightful situations where you find the clue. If you are stuck with your writing and then things click into place, it brings such a joy. It’s ideal and often this takes

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education place in interaction with your colleagues or research group. These relations are really empowering and give energy. Even if I’m tired, an intensive discussion or processing work together keeps me enthusiastic. These are the situations that make working ideal. (FI, 4)

The interviewees characterize their experiences of co-operation by a rich vocabulary. Fundamentally, they make a distinction between good and bad co-operation. The first is said to be ‘true’ and ‘real’, whereas the latter refers to co-operation ‘without a meaning’, such as ‘pointless meetings’ whose objective nobody understands. The interviewees give plenty of accounts of both kinds of working together. Thus, co-operation in itself is no guarantee of positive work experiences but it all depends on the specific leadership context in which co-operation takes place. In this analysis, we focus only on what the interviewees view as good, real and true co-operation. This kind of co-operation involves ‘thinking together’ and it generates ‘something new’, ‘a shared understanding’ and ‘insightful ideas’. In addition, it ‘energizes’ and it is ‘empowering’, ‘fun’, ‘enjoyable’ and ‘super’. What is also important to notice is that real co-operation may occur in all basic duties of academic work: in research, teaching, administration and the so-called third function. The accounts include meaningful moments of sharing while, among others, working together on a specific research topic and co-writing an article or a book, while teaching and supervising students, while participating in relevant meetings and promoting a good cause, and while communicating and interacting with people outside academia. For instance, even if administrative duties are not particularly desired among the interviewees, in some cases also they may enable experiences of meaningful co-operation. The interviewees make a distinction between ‘stupid’, ‘totally senseless’ meetings and ‘meaningful’, ‘interesting’ meetings, which in our data are mainly related to curriculum planning and higher education pedagogy. These are experienced as relevant and integral for one’s work, contributing to the development of activities in the departmental and disciplinary contexts: I’m not now talking about clumsy meetings but those interesting ones. In this job I must participate in all kinds of committees. Part of these committees are something I don’t understand a bit and which only disturb my working. Luckily now I participate in one working group which takes a lot of my time but which I experience as meaningful. It is related to teaching and university pedagogy. That’s fortunate. (FII, 2)

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Irrespective of which academic duty is in question, a crucial condition for positive sharing is the opportunity to concentrate properly on the specific task at hand. Real co-operation needs to evolve in ‘process time’ (Ylijoki 2015) so that working is not subjugated too strictly to externally imposed and fragmented schedules but may take the time it requires. Although daily working tends to be hectic with overlapping deadlines and time pressure, the interviewees try to borrow or steal time for restful working in order to immerse themselves in a joined endeavour. This is seen as a prerequisite for good work, which requires good leadership as well. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the emphasis on sharing does not mean that co-operation overrules individual working practices. Instead, working alone and together, in ‘the solo and collegial modes’ (Cook and Gornall 2014: 274), is inherently intermingled so that both are needed in order to make work meaningful. The following quote illustrates how important and rewarding both individual working with flow experiences and co-operation with a certain kind of group flow are in academic work: I always dream of flow days of writing, they are the best there is. Then I don’t eat, I don’t drink and I don’t speak to anybody. … On the other hand I also enjoy very much when we prepare data coding. We have often even three hour sessions in which all group members participate. We talk about the method and the basics of coding, but at the same time this is also theoretical discussion. These sessions are meaningful because you get the feeling that the work is really progressing, that we are creating a common understanding which leads to really good results. (FIII, 1)

Dimensions of sharing Our study clearly shows that real and true co-operation is highly valued among the early career academics who participated in the focus group discussions. This raises the following question: What makes sharing so meaningful and important for these junior academics. Based on our data, we discern three core dimensions of sharing: cognitive, social and moral dimension. These data-driven categories crystallize the analytically distinguishable forms of sharing, which entail different rationales and motives for co-operation. However, in daily work, these three dimensions are inherently interrelated and blended together. In the following, we will scrutinize each of them in turn. Grounded in this analysis, we will then in the next section, discuss the various forms of co-operation and investigate the nature of leadership embedded in them.

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Cognitive dimension of co-operation The cognitive dimension is rooted in the subject matter of co-operation while academics work together on some significant issue. This creates ‘a shared space for new thinking’ and ‘a process of advancing thoughts’. An ordinary case is to have discussion on mutually meaningful topics. Regardless of how productive in metric terms this kind of sharing is, it is experienced as intellectually inspiring and rewarding: What I like in this work is to be in contact with different thoughts and thinking, be it in research or communicating with students. In teaching, I really like processing thoughts together with students. (FI, 1) A work day may often be good although it does not produce a lot of anything concrete. For instance, a research seminar may offer fruitful discussions and you get new stimulation which I find rewarding. (FII, 3)

The cognitive dimension is the most apparent in research work, involving several kinds of activities such as co-writing, planning and making research proposals together; joint theoretical reflection; analysing data together; and commenting on each other’s papers. Cognitively rewarding research collaboration enables access into a dialogic encounter which leads to insightful ideas and creative solutions. Thus, collaboration is beneficial since it promotes progress in research work and produces better quality outcomes that none of the participants could reach alone: I knew that this is really good. The article has been circulated for comments around the world with different colleagues and we really have worked on it. And I realized that I never could have been able to make this myself and neither the others. (FII, 1) We have been writing a new book in an intense group. Without this group I couldn’t have been able to make my part. It’s so important to have all these discussions even if you are working on your own. (FI, 1)

In order to reach cognitive benefits, sharing does not necessarily require personal interaction. In this case, junior academics may be in dialogue with the authors of texts and share their way of thinking. Texts in themselves can thus create experiences of closeness and joint thinking. Even if someone is working alone, in fact, she or he may be embedded in profound discussion and exchanging ideas with the textual collaborator: Research may involve concrete interaction, but interaction may take place also in imagination and in the process of thinking where you are discussing with different authors. You share thoughts in different contexts, in different situations. I find it really enjoyable. (FI, 3)

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The cognitive dimension is related also to teaching and student supervision. The interviewees speak about situations of face-to-face interaction with their students, which generates new ideas and insights for both parties. For the interviewees, teaching is particularly rewarding when it is closely related to their research. Students may ‘challenge your thinking’ in quite a similar way as in research encounters and thereby reshape, clarify and enrich the intellectual endeavour: It’s all about sharing. Teaching is successful when you really share something with students. This creates a shared space which generates something new, a new thought or idea arises. (FI, 3)

Social dimension of co-operation The social dimension of co-operation is inherently intermingled with the cognitive dimension. The previous quotes contain a strongly emotional tone that arises in social interaction. Working together and sharing are in themselves rewarding, fun, nice and enjoyable. The social aspect is highly valued, bringing expected variation to working alone: In teaching and research, working together keeps your spirit high. That is what I like in this work. (FI, 1) This is such fun. We toy with new things and sketch out shared understanding in our group. (FIII, 2)

The high value of working together is often mirrored against the lonely struggling while writing a doctoral dissertation. Several interviewees recall the time of their PhD work as a lonely and isolated effort, and pointed out that at their current postdoctoral career phase they seek for, and enjoy, opportunities to have close relationships with colleagues: Writing a PhD thesis was such a lonely grind that I decided not to continue working that way afterwards. Now I have written a lot of articles with my colleagues with whom collaboration goes well and we are able to think together. That is totally superb. (FII, 1)

In addition, the social aspect of co-operation is also valued because it offers emotional support. Academic work is said to entail intellectual ups and downs, both moments of insecurity and even despair and moments of self-confidence and joy of success. To overcome the low moments of work, sharing brings energy, release and empowerment as well as increases motivation:

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education Sharing tough moments is vital. When you feel that what the hell, I won’t go on any more, then the colleague has a lot of energy left and this takes work forward. Although I feel numb, the other one does not. At its best, the social side, working together or discussing, is really, really important to me. (FII, 1) I don’t need to work on my own but I can freely go into collaboration. When we share together all the deadlines, all the temporal crisis and all other problems in work, it is so terribly relieving and somehow really important. (FIII, 3)

Moral dimension of co-operation The moral dimension of co-operation concerns the nature of the relationship between collaborative partners. In positive sharing, social relations are based on consensuality, trust and responsibility. It means that all members are committed to joint work and carry their responsibility to others. The atmosphere is open and permissive so that participants are able to share their problems and anxieties, even to an extent that sharing may turn into a caring relation. The interviewees emphasize also the importance of mutual respect. This is especially crucial in interdisciplinary research collaboration which requires that different perspectives and working methods are valued. Apart from the internal functioning of co-operation, the moral dimension includes also the outcome of co-operation. The core value is the common good, encompassing all duties (see Barnett 2000; Nixon 2008). For instance, in teaching, it is possible to share one’s research enthusiasm and way of thinking with students, thereby promoting the common good of one’s disciplinary field and area of interest. In addition, interaction with students generates ‘good moments’ which facilitate and assist students to achieve their goals. Being able to help and support others is morally good and therefore also personally satisfying: My best memories relate mostly to teaching. Especially face-to-face supervision in which you have managed to tease out insights in the student’s thinking. In this sense, you have to succeed in helping the student to get forward. This creates good work spirit. (FI, 2)

In research work, the moral dimension refers to the production of scientifically and socially relevant knowledge which promotes the common good both within one’s field and in society at large. The interviewees emphasize that academic success is not enough but morally sound academia needs to learn how to ‘communicate with the world’. Furthermore, due to the specific nature of social sciences, the junior academics, who all work in these fields, co-operate with the

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objective of their research. This requires an ability to ‘come out from the insider position as a social scientist’: I think it’s important with whom we communicate. As social scientists we discuss also with the people we are studying. Often some of them can participate or at least become interested in the research process and the results. Our audience is terribly diverse and at several levels. (FI, 5)

Forms of co-operation and leadership The experiences of sharing by the early career academics of our study show that meaningful co-operation can take a vast diversity of forms. The work situations and leadership contexts of the interviewees vary, involving and allowing different types of co-operation in their daily work. In the following, we explore in more detail what forms of sharing and working together can be discerned in the data. Based on close reading of the interviews, we inductively distinguish four core forms of co-operation: collegial, project-based, institutional and entrepreneurial co-operation. In all of these forms, the interviewees are able to find meaningful ways to relate with others and create space for positive sharing. However, the nature of social relations and sharing is specific in each of them, comprising a particular mixture of cognitive, social and moral aspects of working together. In addition, each form of co-operation is situated in a particular leadership landscape, ranging from vertical to consensual modes of leadership and thus allowing different roles for the early career academics.

Collegial co-operation It’s not only about thinking but also about discussing together. You have an interesting topic and then you can carry on discussing. You could go on doing this forever. That’s the way to get new ideas. (FI, 1)

Collegial co-operation takes place between workmates in various ways. It may be incidental, occasional and casual when, for instance, colleagues happen to meet at a coffee table, over lunch break or at the university corridors. These spontaneous and consensual encounters are relaxing and empowering, evoking laughing and joking together. This brings variation, energy and recreation to daily routines. What is more, the informal moments can lead to lively discussions, stimulating intellectual reflections and passionate ponderings. Collegial co-operation can

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also involve a mutual commitment such as regular commenting on each other’s papers and tentative research plans. Sometimes the common intellectual interests may also turn into goal-oriented and long-term pursuits, such as writing a book together. In this way, a group of individuals may become a proper team with group ethics and its own culture (Cook and Gornall 2014). In all cases, the participants enjoy working and thinking together and thereby creating new and inspiring ideas. Besides, they are able to share the hard moments of intellectual work and university life and ventilate their feelings. At its best, collegial co-operation offers a caring relationship and mutual help: ‘At least I have somebody to whom I can say that “can you do this, I am not able to do it myself ”’. Collegial sharing is highly valued among the early career academics in our study, even if it is sometimes only a dream: ‘I’m dreaming of all kinds of book clubs but at the moment I have no time for these.’ Although working days are like ‘a patchwork quilt’ with ‘a surge’ of ‘odds and ends’, the interviewees struggle to protect this voluntary collaboration and strive to find space and time for it. Participating in the shared intellectual and social pursuits strengthens a sense of togetherness among workmates and an identity as a member of the scientific community. Since this form of co-operation is voluntary and informal, it is based on participants’ own choices: ‘you may yourself decide what to do, how to do and with whom to do’. Accordingly, the leadership is consensual, shared and distributed, emerging laterally and intercollegially (see Cook and Gornall 2014). It is renegotiated continuously and it changes depending on the situation and agenda. The continuity and maintenance of collegial co-operation is not a leadership matter but it is based on a shared sense of purpose, mutual commitment and an experience of belonging (see Walsh and Kahn 2010). Collegial co-operation involves specific cognitive, social and moral dimensions. Cognitively, it promotes joint intellectual passion and deepens understanding. Socially, collegial co-operation provides both enjoyment and support at work. In moral terms, it values taking care of an open, trustful and stimulating working climate, thereby ultimately promoting the vitality of the university and the good of the scientific community.

Project-based co-operation In the current project, we have real co-operation and working together, which is extremely lovely … We have joint sessions for problem solving. If you have any

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sorts of questions, you don’t need to ponder it by yourself very long but we can decide together how to solve it. Surely currently the best working days are those when we find solutions and get something done. (FIII, 2)

Project-based co-operation refers to working together in the same research group or consortium. Sharing and collaboration is thus in-built in project-based work. A paradigmatic example is an EU-funded research project with clearly defined procedures. Co-operation may include daily face-to-face interactions while, for instance, gathering and analysing data together, having Skype meetings with members from other countries, and co-writing articles with other project members. This co-operation is task-oriented as the aim is always to ‘reach together some concrete outcome’. Working together is effective and facilitates individual working in a sense that the group is always there to help in solving the problems one may encounter in research work. Since project-based co-operation is ‘fruitful’ and ‘productive’, the early career academics experience it as ‘rewarding’. Although working together especially in big international projects requires ‘an awfully lot of time’ and ‘going over and over’ small talk, the interviewees still emphasize that co-operation may generate consensuality and ‘shared understanding’. This is valued as ‘good work’. In addition, close collaboration provides a protected space, group support and guidance as ‘one is able to share time pressures and deadlines’. Accordingly, it creates a specific group spirit and modes of belonging, which nurtures joint intellectual efforts: ‘things click and ideas fly’. This co-operation entails also group loyalty and solidarity. For instance, when the funding for one member of the project group is about to expire, all members become ‘harnessed to write together new funding applications’. In this sense, co-operation is mutually binding and exceeds individuals’ personal plans and aims, meaning that ‘my work is our work’. This is highly valued as reaching ‘a shared understanding’, but there is a challenge to recognize ‘what is my writing’, reminding of the dilemma between collaborative work and individualistic academic culture (see, for example, Lucas 2009). The leadership context in project co-operation has a formal organizational structure. It is embedded in the project format (Ylijoki 2015) with the hierarchical roles of a principal investigator at the top, project managers in the middle and project workers at the grass-root level, the early career academics of our study representing this last group. The leader is in charge of both achieving the targets and managing HR. The leadership challenge is therefore to streamline and set the appropriate rhythms for activities. This may create conflicts and tensions within

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the group, but in a positive case, this generates a sense of confidence, safety and alleviation for junior academics. For instance, a regular ‘Friday measurement’, a weekly meeting where the project targets are assessed, may be experienced as a ‘releasing’ practice as one can become assured that ‘I have achieved this, yes!’ In addition, for the early career academics, good leadership in project co-operation involves also care and support, in which they may informally and openly exchange ideas and experiences and to some extent reformulate jointly the research agenda: ‘I have a flexible immediate superior with whom to re-fix the aims and timetables’. All in all, in cognitive terms, project-based co-operation generates shared understanding and collective practices to solve problems within the group. In some cases, it may lead to long-term co-operation in advancing a specific research area or opening up new horizons for research. Socially, this co-operation offers support, safety and a sense of belonging. In addition, sharing within the project is often relaxing, stimulating and inspiring. Morally, the core values are projectcentred: the good of the project and a mutual sense of duty among the members, which then contributes to solving some real-world problems.

Institutional co-operation At the moment we have quite a lot of co-planning so that we plan together different courses. Most of my courses I teach have been planned together … We have had this reform and these mergers among disciplines and we have got new disciplines. This has expanded the scope of collaboration into new areas. I think we plan a lot together. I really like teaching and all my duties. (FI, 3)

Institutional co-operation stems from the demands of the university as an institution. The early career academics in our study work principally as shortterm researchers but they all have some departmental duties in teaching and administration. For instance, they participate in planning groups and organizing committees, in which they co-operate with members from other fields, administrative staff and stakeholders from other societal sectors. Institutional collaboration is considered as a justified demand, even as a moral duty towards the university institution. The junior academics feel that the university and the department have a right to expect them to make their part of the collective affairs which are necessary for the functioning of the organization. Institutional co-operation may sometimes be considered as ‘forced’, ‘pointless’ and ‘waste of time’, but it can be also interesting and meaningful: ‘Although I’m

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not a meeting lover, meetings can be good, functioning and necessary.’ This is especially the case in teaching-related tasks and curriculum development. This kind of co-operation not only serves institutional ends but is also personally satisfying. It entails ‘extremely nice meetings with students’ and ‘diverse and versatile’ contacts with people across the university. Although institutional collaboration may entail excessive demands, but at its best, it provides rewarding experiences of working together on a purposeful aim. The leadership in institutional co-operation is formally defined and vertical. The leader is responsible for achieving the required outcomes in the timetable. Institutional co-operation is formally structured: it takes place at a given place and time with a given purpose. From the point of view of the early career academics, the key leadership challenge is to keep the scope of these duties reasonable so that they do not ‘roll in’ and conquer too much time from their core engagements. If this is not the case, leadership is contested as ‘unethical’ as it is seen to set an institutional trap, which prevents junior academics from concentrating on their research and gaining research merits, thus creating a severe career risk (e.g. Ylijoki and Henriksson 2017). Institutional co-operation among a diversity of actors allows crossfertilization of viewpoints and thus expands one’s knowledge base and cognitive competences. Socially, it broadens one’s relations and contacts from close colleagues and project members to a wider range of academic and non-academic staff. This is stimulating and rewarding, promoting a deeper understanding of the institutional functioning of the university. In moral terms, institutional co-operation means being a ‘good departmental citizen’ (Acker, Webber and Smyth 2012: 748) and contributing to the good for the university.

Entrepreneurial co-operation I’m such a generalist and I’m interested in so many things. I have an international research network which started from my own research interests and lovely discussions with various people. By nature I am social and enthusiastic, so I always gather around me things and people which interest me. I have wide networks in society with different professional groups and media. (FIII, 1)

Entrepreneurial co-operation takes place in a diversity of networks that are continuously in a state of flux. It involves collaborative partners within and outside academia, across different disciplines and sectors, both nationally and internationally. This co-operation takes place in face-to-face encounters and

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emails, Skype and other technologically mediated forms of interaction (Ylijoki et al. 2014). It entails a mixture of shared endeavours and ‘millions of irons in the fire’ related to joint research pursuits, conferences, workshops, book projects, consulting, training, popular writing and so on. Due to the network-centred nature of entrepreneurial co-operation, it has loose organizational ties, meaning that the university is only one platform among others for self-realization. For the junior academics in our study, the critical issue in entrepreneurial co-operation is to have success in building purposeful networks. This requires branding oneself and marketing one’s interests. Based on one’s ‘passionate interests’, one needs to be competent to offer bids and proposals for co-operation to a diversity of potential partners. This kind of selling oneself and establishing and maintaining one’s role in networks demands ‘self-confidence’ in running and looking for collaborative relations: ‘I can, I’m so good.’ In this way, entrepreneurial co-operation is a tactic so that one needs to be continuously alert for useful opportunities and searching for profitable partners. For instance, attending a drinks party ‘is about establishing contacts’ and therefore for me it is ‘work’. Due to loose institutional attachment, entrepreneurial co-operation provides individual autonomy and freedom on the one hand, but it is vulnerable and risky on the other hand. Faced with institutional requirements of the university to participate in teaching and administrative duties, junior academics in an entrepreneurial role may just say ‘doesn’t concern me’ and prioritize them at the end of the task list and ‘then they luckily disappear altogether’. In this sense, entrepreneurial co-operation allows a lot of space for individual pursuits and interests. Conversely, this means that entrepreneurial co-operation does not offer any institutional back-up, support and safety. Individuals are on their own in market competition trying to create and sustain collaborative networks. Leadership in entrepreneurial co-operation is fragile and constantly renegotiated. The role of the network node includes certain leadership elements while it strings activities together and runs the business. However, since this co-operation is based on voluntary participation and consensual relationships, the leadership lacks the means and resources which more formal organizational structures offer. Because entrepreneurial co-operation lasts only as long as participants see their investments as profitable enough, the key leadership challenge is to keep the joint passion alive. Network-based working together is therefore unpredictable, complex and fluid, requiring ‘patience’, ‘persistence’, ‘self-control’ and ‘self-steering’ from the node. In this sense, entrepreneurial leadership also means self-leadership.

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Cognitively, entrepreneurial co-operation fosters linkages between different intellectual, professional and sectoral areas, creating new cross-border visions and exciting intellectual stimulation. Socially, it offers inspiring experiences of sharing one’s passion and boosts means and capacities for adding one’s market value. In moral terms, entrepreneurial co-operation fosters both a common cause and shared passion, and promotes individual good.

Discussion and conclusion Based on our study on early career academics in Finland, it can be argued that co-operation in academic work is not only about strategic partnerships with instrumental value but also inherently rewarding and motivating. It provides cognitive, social and moral goods which may be realized in different forms of working together. Collegial, project-based, institutional and entrepreneurial co-operation all entail a potential for sharing, yet in different ways. Furthermore, the leadership context affects and moulds to what extent this potential can actually be realized in daily work. From the perspective of leadership, the crucial concern is how to support and develop working practices in different forms of co-operation. These contexts differ radically in terms of what kind of leadership is expected and appreciated by junior academics. On the one hand, collegial and entrepreneurial co-operation resemble each other in the respect that leadership in both is implicit, undefined and consensual. On the other hand, they clearly differ since collegial leadership is shared involving mutual commitment and caring, while entrepreneurial leadership is based on self-serving interests and networking relations. Both in project-based and institutional co-operation, the leadership is formal and explicit. However, they differ in their ultimate rationale as the former follows the logic of project markets and the latter the logic of administrative bureaucracy. For early career academics, sharing is an integral part of good work in all forms of co-operation. Irrespective of what kind of precarious work situation they are working in, junior academics strive for and protect meaningful relationships, purposeful connections and joint pursuits. The crucial condition for this is that one is able to overcome temporal constraints and create time for restful encounters, dialogues and reflection (Guzmán-Valenzuela and Di Napoli 2015; Vostal 2016; Ylijoki and Mäntylä 2003). Positive experiences of sharing in all its

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various forms offer intellectual insights, encouragement, well-being and a sense of contributing to the common good. In this way, sharing is the core of academic work, nurturing also the work process as well as the innovative outcomes. In the case of early career academics, these experiences of working together are crucial also in terms of building an academic identity and finding one’s own ways of being and working in academia (e.g. Archer 2008; Sutherland 2017). Empowering experiences of working together challenge and reshape the currently dominant performative and competitive work practices and academic identities, pointing to the need to take sharing and caring seriously. Even if co-operation is celebrated and enforced in higher education policy and university steering, it remains unarticulated and poorly understood what working together with all its variations and complexities means and how sharing can be supported at the grass-root level of daily practices (see Acker 2012; Cook and Gornall 2014; Davies and Horst 2015; Salisbury 2014; Sutherland 2017). In the current managerial culture, the academic profession needs to enter into collective endeavour for reframing its self-understanding and for cultivating reflective time and dialogical space for sharing and caring (see Barnett 2000; Nixon 2008; Ylijoki 2015). This requires the promotion of sociality, and the strengthening of optimistic stories giving hope (Barnett 2014). Ultimately, this is a question of the crystallization and recovering of the moral foundation of academia. Viewed from this optimistic stance, the ethics of sharing and caring may break out from the internal life of academia into society at large.

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Dilemmas for Managers in Departmental Relationships: Some Research Observations from Spain Marita Sánchez-Moreno and Manon Toussaint

Introduction Universities are complex organizations and their management thus implies some unpredictability about their outcomes (Wallace 2003). If ambiguity and uncertainty are typical features of every organization, then changes suffered by universities will increase not only at an institutional level but also in terms of knowledge and the teachers’ role (Zabalza Beraza 2011). These changes generate new challenges and dilemmas for management too, as change challenges everyone’s habitual practices and values (Alfaro-Varela 2007; Benítez-Amado 2013; Castro and Ion 2011). In this chapter, some of the dilemmas faced by academic university managers will be presented and analysed on the basis of dilemmatic situations experienced by Spanish academic managers in particular. These situations have been studied in the framework of a broader study1 which considered seventy-one academic managers from three different Spanish universities (Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Universidad de Lleida and Universidad de Sevilla) who were interviewed to explore their experiences. These situations that could be described as ‘dilemmatic’ were selected, omitting all those that – even if they were difficult – did not represent a dilemma. The sample consisted of fortytwo persons: twenty-five men and seventeen women, who described forty-four dilemmatic situations. We do not identify individuals in the examples given, and names are anonymous.

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Next, the use of co-operative strategies for the resolution and management of dilemmatic situations, their utility and sense will be explained. As De Cremer and Van Kippenberg (2002: 864) propose, some dilemmas ‘may be a major impediment to the co-operation required to achieve collective goals and interests’ and here we observe and learn how academic managers use co-operation and consensual leadership to try to manage this kind of situation.

Dilemmas in educational management The management of dilemmatic situations is a particularly complex aspect of management in a university. It represents an aspect of what we see is the endemic ambiguity of educational organizations. The term ‘dilemma’ here refers to a complex problem expressed at an intrapersonal level in which it is necessary to choose between two equally defendable options. Many writers and studies (such as Cranston, Ehrich and Kimber 2004, 2006; Denig and Quinn 2001; Dimmock 1999; Edmunds et al. 2008; Gurr and Drysdale 2012; Wildy and Louden 2000) make a body of knowledge available about dilemmas faced by school principals and enlighten this complex facet of management in this educational sphere. Academic literature distinguishes two kinds of dilemmas in educational organizations’ management: leadership dilemmas (Cardno 2007; Cranston, Ehrich and Kimber 2006; Walker and Dimmock 2000) and organizational dilemmas (Castro and Ion 2011; Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker 2009; Ogawa, Crowson and Goldring 1999). The most important difference between them is located in their perspective: while the concept of a leadership dilemma supposes that the unit of analysis is the individual, specifically, the leader, the concept of organizational dilemma focuses on the collective level since the unit of analysis is the organization as a whole. Cardno (2007) explains that the first of these implies leaders as individuals in the context of their practices. Meanwhile, the second kind of dilemma implies leaders only indirectly: ‘they may involve the leader only indirectly, and often by exerting a mediating influence on structures and systems through distribution of leadership to others who are part of the action-mix surrounding a longterm solution’ (Cardno 2007: 34). Therefore, the gap between these concepts of leadership is vague because leadership dilemmas tend to be conditioned by structural factors such as the governance structure or the degree of autonomy of the university (Cardno 2007).

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Leadership dilemmas: The individual as the unit of analysis Many of the leadership dilemmas we find focus on people and imply conflicts about values (Duignan and Collins 2003). In the framework of tertiary education, Catacutan and Guzman (2015) describe three typical dilemmas faced by deans in Filipino colleges: (a) behavioural dilemmas, which ‘relate to the behaviour of people directly under their care as students and staff ’ (Catacutan and Guzman 2015: 498); (b) structural dilemmas, that is, ‘issues related to governance structure and decision-making processes, school policies and management of school resources’ (Catacutan and Guzman 2015: 499); and (c) political dilemmas: ‘those that relate to the use of power by individuals and groups operating in the organization’ (Catacutan and de Guzman 2015: 499).

Governance dilemmas: The organization as the unit of analysis Governance dilemmas are linked to questions deeply rooted in organizational culture and context. Therefore, they transcend the individual decisions of their members. They are supra-individual dilemmas intrinsic to a kind of organization, and called structural incompatibilities by Corwin and Borman (1988). In schools, Ogawa, Crowson and Goldring (1999) recognize seven dilemmas, making a difference between dilemmas of internal relations (related to organizational goals, task structures, professionalism and hierarchy) and dilemmas of external relations (related to persistence, boundaries and compliance). In the context of higher education, Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker (2009) have classified the four most recurrent governing dilemmas, taking into account that they can be used as a tool to explain complexities intrinsic to university governance reforms: ●

The dilemma between representative democracy and organizational effectiveness: This dilemma is materialized in the existence of democratic structures that must respond to demands for efficacy. The authors stress that democratic representation can be seen by management as a brake to organizational achievement: ‘in the current reform logic emphasising effectiveness, elections and representation of staff and students is regarded as hampering institutional performance although the relationship between democracy and organisational effectiveness is not well researched.’ (Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker 2009: 6)

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The dilemma between integrated management structures and dual management structures: This dilemma makes reference to the making of administrative and academic decisions. Alongside the conflicts inside each grouping, the division between academic and administrative agencies tends to increase the potential of conflict. For example, the Spanish university structure is characterized by cohabitation between an academic and a managerial line. The relationship between them produces conflicts. This is because the academic line thinks that difficulties arise when the managerial line does not work effectively. The managerial line takes the view that there are too many academic positions of responsibility carried out by teachers, without specific experience or training, who often make decisions the negative consequences of which they do not have to address because they will only be in their position for a short time (Sánchez-Moreno and LópezYáñez 2013: 140). The dilemma between external and internal influence in institutional decisionmaking: This dilemma is related to the balance and the kind of competences conceded to the internal and external members of the organization: ‘should external representatives be recruited from business and industry, or should they be academics from a different institutional context?’ and ‘should students be included in all governance arrangements and, if so, should they be regarded as external or internal representatives?’ (Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker 2009: 7). The dilemma between centralization and decentralization in more autonomous universities: This dilemma underlines the tendency to an increase in autonomy of the universities, and the tensions derived from the power distribution between public administration and each university, as well as power distribution inside the universities. The Spanish universities have a lot of autonomy, but it is more a formal than a real autonomy, because their high dependence on the state forces them to comply with many bureaucratic requirements and strict systems of administrative control (Castro and Ion 2011: 168).

Spanish universities’ management model In spite of the existence of typologies, the importance of putting dilemmas in the context of their analysis must not be forgotten. The Spanish model of university management has a fundamental influence over the dilemmas faced

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by their managers. Therefore, before exposing those dilemmas and explaining the co-operation functions as a strategy to face them, it is necessary to know the most important features of the national government model that frames them: Representative democracy characterises the governing system of Spanish Universities, which in practice means the participation of the university community in both the decision-making process at different levels and the election of a number of the management positions. Although a governing body composed by the chancellor and vice-chancellors makes the executive decisions, an important role [in Spanish Universities] is assigned to the University Claustro in both the strategic decisions and the control of the executive positions and bodies. (Sánchez-Moreno, López-Yáñez and Altopiedi 2015: 255–6) The Claustro is a university Council composed of representatives elect of the three sectors: students, teaching staff and administrative staff. It has the power, for example, to elect and to remove the chancellor and to develop some university regulations. ‘In this system, some of the governing positions (such as chancellors, deans, or heads of department) are elected (directly or by means of representatives) by the academic community, while others (such as vice chancellors, vice deans, or secretaries of departments) are directly appointed by the chancellors, deans, or heads of department. This means that while some of the management responsibilities involve being in charge of professional managers who have no teaching or research role, others, usually the most senior in the hierarchy, are in charge of academics, although they have not usually received any specific preparation for such a role. They usually hold their management positions for renewable terms of four years. In sum, it is a non-professional model of governance with some traits of both the collegial and democratic model where the academic community takes over most of the decision-making responsibilities’. (Sánchez-Moreno, López-Yáñez and Altopiedi 2015: 255–6)

Dilemmas faced by Spanish academic university managers Situations analysed in the frame of our research2 show two main sources of dilemmas: one of them inherent to individuals, and the other focused on the organization. However, sometimes the border between them tends to be vague.

Values as a source of dilemmas Many dilemmatic situations implicate the manager as an actor directly. Consequently, the dilemma takes place on an intrapersonal level where personal

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and professional values are involved. Among these dilemmas, four main kinds can be identified: ●

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Climate versus professional responsibility: Very frequently, these dilemmas emerge when someone who has a management responsibility is faced with the disjunction of defending the organizational climate or assuming her or his responsibility as a manager: as it is said, you must work with those people so you prefer not to create tensions (O1). We have frequently found this dilemma in the context of universities’ departments. It is generated by the fear by managers of damaging the relationships with colleagues and the consequences for the work in the future. Individual interests versus community interests: This dilemma refers to situations when the achievement of a benefit for the community can damage personal interests, including perhaps their own or those of close associates. For example, Obviously an important restructuring of the Doctorate programme was needed to achieve the recognition of quality accreditation … it brought a very important break and to make very painful decisions because there were people who did not understand that their curriculum was not valuable enough. (A1)

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This kind of dilemma can be distinguished from the previous one because the worry is not related to the possible emergence of a conflict but to the fear of damaging a colleague’s interests as a consequence of benefiting of the group as a whole. Community interests and needs versus managerial accountability and following the rules: This third kind of dilemma appears when the manager has the responsibility for applying a rule or making a change that is in opposition to community needs (frequently, it has to do with the budget). The dilemma is between the respect for collective needs and attending to the obligations derived from the role; another case is represented by the opposition between compliance with a task and the attention to the quality of its results; following is an example: It was necessary to balance academic decisions with a reasonable use of economic resources. Consequently, we had to turn down doing some courses because they were not convenient or economically sustainable. (F1)

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Professional values versus organizational policies: This dilemma occurs when the manager must respond to directions that are in opposition to her or his own professional values:

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Once norms are sanctioned, what is written is written … that is in conflict with my own ideas: I believe that if something is not reasonable or we have made a mistake, we must change it. (A2) A clear example of this dilemma is represented by the experience of one of our informants, faced with a lecturer’s misconduct, she is pressed by a vice chancellor to show a moderate attitude: The punishment from the university was not exemplar at all: just to be suspended for 6 days when he had not come for all of a year. (L1) This dilemma forces the head of department into defending her own values against the vice chancellor’s claim or, instead, to silence such values. These four dilemmas represent situations set up when a person works with or through others to achieve organizational objectives. How we get from these dilemmas to consensual leadership will be explained in the section below.

Organizational structures and institutional practices as a source of dilemmas A second source of dilemmas is situated in the organizational structures level and is related to institutional practices. These dilemmas are originated at a supra-individual level and affect managers indirectly. We discuss five kinds of these below. Centralization versus decentralization: This dilemma illustrates the tensions around power distribution and decision-making. Even if Spanish universities have some amount of autonomy, as Castro and Ion state, ‘traditionally this is more formal than real, given that the dependence from the state obliged them to accomplish many bureaucratic requisites and to respond to strict systems of administrative control’ (2011: 168). Many of the interviewees show discomfort in situations in which there are no institutional ways to accomplish their responsibilities: A dean doesn’t have enough authority and that is very harmful for the discharge of their role and responsibility. When there is an evident contravention of regulations, some lecturers are conscious of their immunity. That creates pressure, a feeling of failure and impotency [by the manager or leader]. (J1)

Internal influence versus external influence: Deeply linked to the previous one, this dilemma appears in the difficult search for balance between different kinds of influences when making a decision. We find this sort of dilemma in particular

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when the protagonists regret the influence of public administration in decisions about budget that affect important aspects of organizational functioning. Academic management versus professional management: The temporal nature of political policies and the management carried out by academics are features of our management model that allow the emergence of organizational as well as individual dilemmas. This dilemma refers to the debate between a professional and individual model of management and a collegial one. It is a dilemma that has to do with those that Benítez-Amado (2013) called organizational and management dilemmas, related to ‘aspects referred to the model of management and government (academic versus professionalized)’ (Benítez-Amado 2013: 1–2). Organizational culture versus personal opinion: This is a dilemma linked to the role and the mission of the university itself. Organizational culture is also an important factor underpinning situations where the interviewee’s own vision differs from the hegemonic culture: There was a time when two different ways of seeing relationships were in opposition. One of them defended a hierarchical position: the manager said that people cannot assume autonomy and that someone had to be in command. My position was that women have always acted as a collective. (M1)

Matrix structure: policy versus administration: The matrix structure of the Spanish university can be a source of dilemmas because of the complexity of its organization and the vagueness of its leadership practice or structures and authority levels. Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker (2009) warned about the risk of conflict derived from the gap between academic and administrative authorities. That is, the model of the Spanish university as an organization, as defined by the ‘cohabitation of an academic line and a managerial line’ (Larsen, Maasen and Stensaker, 2009). Overlying that matrix, there also appears a functional or departmental superstructure with global functions and competences over the whole organization (Castro and Ion 2011: 166). Alongside this, we find that academic units count with a weak articulation while technical services are more strongly led and structured. Actually, Sánchez-Moreno and López-Yáñez (2013: 140) have found that in the Spanish university the relationship between both lines is an archetypical problem and a source of conflicts because the ‘academic side thinks that difficulties emerge when management side do not respond with the desired vehemence, [and] technical managers think that there are too many academic [roles] occupied by academics with no specific training, and who stay in the charge for a too short period of time, frequently making decisions that have negative consequences that they have to correct’. Consequently, that

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structure demands a big effort for co-ordination between academic staff and administrative and technical staff. For instance, it is assumed that academics’ lack of knowing about norms and specific procedures is compensated by the knowledge held by administrative staff. In fact, when someone does not know who to ask about a particular situation, is it said ‘you must ask Administrative and Services staff ’ (S1). Therefore, when communication between those two lines is difficult, a dilemma can emerge: The greatest difficulty in management responsibility [that I have carried out] was the lack of a sincere collaboration between administrative and political lines. There is a permanent fight. … When I was a Vice-chancellor, a service boss told me …: you are going to be here for four years, I will stay for all life-long. That shows her attitude. (M2) When you occupy management positions, you must work with administrative and services staff. Knowing how the area is organized, what the competences of each person are and who can help you when facing different situations, is very important. If you do not, you can make big mistakes that could generate problems between administrative staff [and] which have consequences for your relationship with them. (E1)

Reasons for using co-operation Taking into account that the testimonies show a wide variety of dilemmas related to human relations, it is not surprising that dialogue and appeal to ‘shared work’ were the most habitual strategies used in the face of dilemmas. Co-operation, as a ‘contribution of individual effort, time, and resources to collective projects’ (De Cremer and Van Kippenberg 2002: 858), is a strategy put in action frequently, even if the way to use it and the reasons to do it vary. Next, we explain the motives that underlie the use of ‘co-operation’ more frequently in managers’ responses to these dilemmatic situations that we are exploring.

Co-operating to share responsibility, search for support, to respond to collective demands Co-operation based on debate and shared negotiation in the construction of a consensual response to the dilemmatic situation is a strategy that allows for sharing responsibility. Actually, collegiality in making decisions permits one to

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solve the situation in a consensual and collective way, giving some security and freedom from the responsibility for the consequences of the actions developed: In this faculty, we have worked as a team; every decision and every action made has been consensual and not unilaterally adopted by the dean. Therefore, I have always felt supported, because I have communicated. … Actually we have meetings every month to make decisions about important issues because it is the best way to count on the support of everyone who is working with you. (D1)

To co-operate in making a decision guarantees the support of the community: To come to a decision without imposing it, look for support of the rest of the Doctors’ Association to go to the department meeting with a clear and firm decision made. … When the situation affects someone, we seek the opinion of the majority and accept the most shared opinion. … That is part of department culture, even if they are not written norms. (A1)

Co-operation in making a decision that affects a group is a strategy to respond to the group’s demands and promote its wishes: You cannot progress if staff do not feel involved in an action that is [supposed to be] an improvement for them. I believe that the best way to improve is to generate involvement of everyone, based on the recognition of the importance of what is being made for everyone. (D1)

Co-operating to protect relationships and work climate, to avoid conflict; but also to co-operate because we are colleagues We have already mentioned that the effort to protect relationships and work climate is the basis of many dilemmatic situations. In fact, sometimes co-operation emerges as a way to avoid tensions, giving voice to every involved part: You have to search for the balance to make everyone feel like a protagonist [participant], that everyone has her/his role. If you can maintain the balance, the group functions better than if there are tensions. (O1)

It is assumed that damage to relationships will affect work in future. From this point of view, co-operation is valued by our informants, even if it can slow down processes: We have a system to make decisions. … It consists of meeting with colleagues of the same level: we have a meeting with professors, a meeting with lecturers …

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to solve the problems … . Once, a new doctorate programme was about to start … . The definition of its characteristics provoked tensions, particularly among two or three lecturers with different visions. I realize that the department should not split just to achieve a short-term goal; instead we should convince trying to not exclude anyone. So, we drew out the process. (J2) The temporal, changing condition of university management also has an influence on management styles and the use of co-operative strategies. Actually, some of the participants we interviewed develop a kind of collegiality in decisionmaking as a consequence of seeing themselves as lecturers and researchers. That is, they feel that management links them to their colleagues as they band together. Consequently, damage to the co-operative relationships affects their future professional development as lecturers and researchers. For that reason, one of the interviewees asked for the guarantee of confidentiality saying: ‘I am a researcher too’. (M3) You understand that you are not a professional manager; that you will go back to your place when your term in charge is over and try to convince the staff … besides, you are conscious of your limits to impose agendas. Therefore, you try to conciliate. I think that no one can say I have been dictatorial. I have always accepted the opinion of the majority even if I do not agree. (J3)

Co-operating to counteract the lack of authority: To implicate, to negotiate, and to convince instead of impose This interest in the quality of relationships and the search for agreement is linked to the lack of formal authority shown by academic managers. Their influence depends on their capacity as leaders, and consequently collegiality and co-operation are specially valued: Credibility must be gained. You do not have the power; you do not even have any authority … . Regarding the willingness to reach agreements, I think [it] is very important we push all together. (J4)

Many of our informants see co-operation as a necessity for the task of directing a group where they have no formal influence over it. At the same time, some of them perceive some of the organizational features like collegiality as a limit to their authority too. Likewise, Wildy (1999) warns that some dilemmas emerge in the context of school reform, when principals face the very difficulties derived from the conflict between asking for participation and imposing policies established by central administration in the first place:

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Exploring Consensual Leadership in Higher Education It is difficult to manage people, especially when you do not have real power. But you learn to be flexible, to try to convince, to establish alliances and make people understand. It is very important that chancellors have clear ideas and mark a policy that you can follow as manager. (J3)

Two cases about co-operating as strategy The cases of Javier and Antonio3 illustrate the way in which dilemmas can be managed using vertical as well as horizontal co-operation. In the first case, the very nature of the task makes co-operation necessary. In the second one, co-operation allows collective participation in decision-making.

Javier’s case Javier is an associate professor who has significant experience as a university manager, at different hierarchical levels. Since the 1990s, he has occupied different roles, from secretary and director of his department to vice chancellor or director of an international centre. He described to us a significant experience he had as director of Master’s degree programmes, designated by the chancellor. This is his account: In 2007, a process of reorganization of the university sector took place in Spain. However, some of the doctoral and Master’s degree programmes had been designed before the definition of the new structure of university grades. Javier faced the strange situation of ‘building the house by starting with the roof ’. He was asked by the administration to implement a new Master’s degree course only months before the beginning of the academic year. Consequently, potential students had no clear requirements specified for admission into the programme. This situation gives a good illustration of the difficulties of maintaining a balance between the different influences that are at play in decision-making processes. Javier showed his disagreement with the decisions imposed from above, because he considered that the deadlines and the access conditions were not appropriate. However, he assumed his role and obeyed the administration’s orders: As always happened: when something has failed at the beginning it is very difficult to fix them later. It is better to plan everything well to make things function.

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Javier was between two poles. He was an agent of the administration and responsible for applying its decisions, as well as a lecturer who understood the negative reaction of his colleagues and the rest of the faculty to those decisions. In the words of Wallace (2003), ‘Managers are now caught as “piggies in the middle” between government politicians, whose education reforms they are now responsible for implementing, and other members of their organizations and communities’ (Wallace 2003: 9). Javier continued: The plan was decided because norms were imposed by the State. The Andalusian [i.e. Regional] Government then just reproduced it. That seems to be coherent. I insist: you can say what you want, but to put it into practice is very different … . We started in April … and 850 students took part in the new [Master’s] degree. We had no classrooms … also, practicals were an important part of the masters and some agreements had to be reached … and they were not yet established [by the start date].

Javier was in charge of accomplishing the administration’s orders and attending to its own criteria. In doing so, he used a wide net of co-operation between multiple agents, external (other Andalusian Universities, Education Council) as well as internal, such as academic and administrative managers, the vice chancellor in charge of academic organization, the head of the former masters and directors of administrative services, and so on: [So while] I had the responsibility, I also had the support of the community, as well. I was lucky I could count on a services boss who works 24 hours a day, … We were lucky because we could count on the ability of the head of CAP (the antecedent of that master’s degree) and he was designated as secretary of the master’s degree. His experience with practices and with the whole development of the CAP was very useful for us. If the climate of the work place is good, everything can go fine. [-] Sometimes, norms can be interpreted. They must be respected but there are many ways to do it ... you must find the best one for the community.

Antonio’s case Antonio was the head of his department in the 1990s. Later, he was director of the courses dedicated to foreigners in the Faculty of Philology, for eight years. He has long experience in the Spanish university system as well as in an American university. The situation described took place when he was the head

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of his department, elected by its members. At that point, every department had defined criteria for staff selection: We had very different disciplines: phonetics, language history, syntaxes, instrumental linguistic … near 20 disciplines coexisted in our department. Defining a professional profile [for job applicants or promotions] is very important, because if you do not, almost half of the Spanish population applies. If you ask for a tight profile, you must demonstrate a deep knowledge in that field. We had almost 12 PhDs in the department waiting for academic promotion at that time. They were good times and new posts were offered frequently. Actually, while I was head of the department, six professor posts were offered.

The group – not only the head but also the staff – had to choose between two options: establishing a wide profile for posts, avoiding conflicts or defining specific profiles in accordance to individual interests. It was a dilemma which all faced: A debate took place. We had meetings every day for two months to decide how to assign profiles [-] In another Department, a quicker path was taken: limited profiles were not allowed: every [job] profile was just defined as ‘literature’ [generic] and everyone could take part and the selection board made a decision.

As the department structure is a democratic one, the group can govern itself. However, this does not guarantee a truly co-operative functioning – not even co-operation works for all collective interests. Antonio describes a completely horizontal, co-operative process of making decisions. However, he points out that such co-operation is only fuelled by individual interests, not really by those of the department. Hence, some of the difficulties found and the time consumed in this process are underlined in the following comment: The Department is the worst supported in the institution. The head expends lots of time caring for the staff, however he/she will be pointed out as responsible [by the same people] if they do not achieve promotion. They refuse any responsibility. Being a head of department is a heroic act … we are useful for everything. … You are a lecturer [but] if you are elected as head you become a manager, but you have to keep giving classes as well. And you are also a colleague and you have coffee with the rest … . But you are the head, although you do not make individual decisions … decisions are made by the Department Council. You are just the person who calls the Department Council meetings.

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Antonio considers that his departmental structure obliges one to co-operate. The democratic organization of departments, added with the temporal and not professional condition of a head’s position, impedes them in making their own decisions, he feels.

Conclusions University management is a very complex task. The organizational structure and its model of management and the multiple changes suffered recently, as well as the current economic circumstances, create uncertainties and ambiguity that is suffered by university management. As in other educational sectors, Spanish university managers face multiple contradictions: ‘manager/leader, administration agent/colleague, guarantor of norms’ accomplish/‘primum inter pares’ (Viñao 2004). These features as well as others (the often provisional condition of the role, a lack of autonomy in decision-making processes, or capacity to control teachers’ work, etc.) (Bolívar and Ritacco 2016: 7) shape the model of management they have to adopt and develop. This chapter has presented some of the circumstances in which that model and its ambiguities create dilemmas for university academic managers. Specifically, we have shown how and why co-operative strategies may be adopted in these situations. Our findings show two main sources of dilemmas. On the one hand, professional and personal values are important factors. On the other, the influence of organizational structures and institutional practices cannot be ignored. In the chapter, we have seen that the Spanish model of management shapes not only the identified dilemmas but also the adoption of strategies to face them. Co-operation – inside and outside the organization, chosen or imposed – is used in overcoming these dilemmas. Co-operation also allows participation. And it represents a way to protect personal relationships and to lead the group, even when its leader lacks authority. This is a necessary strategy derived from the nature of the task, as well as from the features of the structure of governance. Therefore, even while a democratic and participative model of management in higher education seems to be the best one to improve working together and co-operation in solving dilemmas, we have to recognize the inexistence of a voluntary and sincere philosophy of co-operation at present in these institutions in Spain.

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Notes 1 Sánchez-Moreno, M. (Dir) (2011–14) Formación de gestores y construcción de una red de buenas prácticas para el gobierno y gestión de la universidad. Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (EDU2011-26437). 2 The interviews were conducted in the Spanish language and only the fragments used in this chapter have been translated into English. 3 Names are fictional – we have used pseudonyms as well as initials for interviewees that do not reflect their actual names.

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Cranston, N., Ehrich, L. and Kimber, M. (2006) Ethical dilemmas: The bread and butter of educational leaders’ lives. Journal of Educational Administration, 44 (2), pp. 106–21. De Cremer, D. and Van Kippenberg, D. (2002) How do leaders promote cooperation? The effects of charisma and procedural fairness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 858–66. Denig, S. J. and Quinn, T. (2001) Ethical dilemmas for school administrators. The High School Journal, 84 (4), pp. 43–9. http://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2001.0009. Dimmock, C. (1999) Principals and school restructuring: Conceptualising challenges as dilemmas. Journal of Educational Administration, 37 (5), pp. 457–77. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/09578239910288414 Duignan, P. and Collins, V. (2003) Leadership challenges and ethical dilemmas in frontline organisations. In N. Bennett, M. Crawford and M. Cartwright (eds), Effective Educational Leadership, pp. 281–94. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Edmunds, B., Mulford, B., Kendall, D. and Kendall, L. (2008) Leadership tensions and dilemmas. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 12 (17). Retrieved from http://iejll.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/iejll/index.php/ijll/article/ view/561 Gurr, D. and Drysdale, L. (2012) Tensions and dilemmas in leading Australia’s schools. School Leadership and Management, 32 (5), pp. 403–20. http://doi.org/10.1080/1363 2434.2012.723619 Larsen, I., Maasen, P. and Stensaker, B. (2009) Four basic dilemmas in university governance reform. Higher Education Management and Policy, 21 (3), pp. 41–58. Ogawa, R. T., Crowson, R. L. and Goldring, E. B. (1999) Enduring dilemmas of school organization. In J. Murphy and K. Seashore (eds), Handbook of Research on Educational Administration, pp. 277–95, chapter 12. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Sánchez-Moreno, M. and López-Yáñez, J. (2013) Buenas prácticas de gobierno y gestión en la universidad. Teoría de La Educación, 25 (1), pp. 125–48. Sánchez-Moreno, M., López-Yáñez, J. and Altopiedi, M. (2015) Leadership characteristics and training needs of women and men in charge of Spanish universities. Gender and Education, 27 (3), pp. 255–72. Viñao, A. (2004) La dirección escolar: Un análisis genealógico-cultural. Educaçao, 27 (53), pp. 367–415. Retrieved from http://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/ faced/article/view/387/284. Walker, A. and Dimmock, C. (2000) Leadership dilemmas of Hong Kong principals: Sources, perceptions and outcomes. Australian Journal of Education, 44 (1), pp. 5–25. http://doi.org/10.1177/000494410004400103. Wallace, M. (2003) Managing the unmanageable?: Coping with complex educational change. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 31 (1), pp. 9–29. http://doi.org/10.1177/0263211X030311002. Wildy, H. (1999) School principals and the dilemmas of restructuring: The problem of participation. In Australian Association for Research in Education Annual

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Conference, Melbourne, November. Retrieved from https://www.aare.edu.au/data/ publications/1999/wil99810.pdf Wildy, H. and Louden, W. (2000) School restructuring and the dilemmas of principals work. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 28 (2), pp. 173–84. http://doi.org/10.1177/0263211X000282006 Zabalza Beraza, M. Á. (2011) Evaluación de los planes de formación docente de las universidades. Educar, 47 (1), pp. 181–97.

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Co-operative Approaches to Leading and Learning: Ideas for Democratic Innovation from the UK and Beyond Tom Woodin

Context and framework The idea of a co-operative university is stimulating new thinking about higher education (Swain 2017). The concept has been proposed for small-scale ventures within and outside existing institutions, to whole universities as well as to systems of higher education. From the everyday building of structures to the utopian transformation of higher learning, co-operativism helps to highlight the potential for alternatives to the current system, particularly following the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act (Ross et al. 2017). The nature of the university is changing and higher education is currently in a state of flux that shows no signs of abating (McGettigan 2013). Crucial issues are up for debate: the relationship to the economy, the idea of a ‘public university’, the relevance of disciplines of knowledge, the means of funding, the relationship between research and teaching, and the role of various stakeholders including staff, students, senior managers, policy makers, communities and businesses, all offer considerable grounds for dissent. The rapidity of change has been matched by the intensity of feelings over conflicting desires to defend public education, make institutions more accountable and improve quality and access (McGettigan 2013; Eagleton 2015; Barnett 2016; Collini 2017). Metaphors of change circulate with the ‘solidity and tradition’ of universities starting to ‘crack under pressure’ from globalization and marketization. ‘An avalanche is coming’, warn the prophets of educational reform who posit the ‘unbundling’ of the university as it fails to compete with a multiplicity of specialist agencies (Barber, Donnelly

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and Rizvi 2013). Digital technologies have been an actual and symbolic part of the new landscape of disruption too. For example, it has been suggested that massive open online courses signal the end of the traditional university course, now that information is, in theory, more freely available (Barber, Donnelly and Rizvi 2013; McFarlane 2011). Contradictory tendencies of differentiation and isomorphism, by which organizations converge in structure and purpose under pressure from internal and external forces, are becoming more apparent. Various institutions, now incorporated into the university, were once autonomous and still are in some countries – examples include polytechnics, higher education colleges, further education colleges, community colleges and teacher education colleges, a list which indicates the potential range of tertiary education. In Britain and elsewhere, much of this diversity has been reduced as institutions have been incorporated into a single model of a university. Indeed, over recent decades, the enlargement of certain visions has complemented the closure of others. Innovatory forms of widening participation in higher education, including access courses, foundation degrees or independent studies, have all been squeezed or replaced with more traditional and/or new entrepreneurial initiatives (Walton 2012; Yeo 2015). Rather than universities representing an elite education, we now find a hierarchy among similar-looking institutions; inequalities once marked out by a university education have been incorporated into the higher education system itself. As part of the trend towards marketization, policy makers, senior leaders and administrators advocate change which passes as a neutral response to supposedly ‘inevitable’ economic and political forces, but which it is possible to view as ideologically framed (McGettigan 2013). Institutions compete within a so-called market place. In the UK, the Russell Group of universities has in-built advantages in terms of their established research capacity, which attracts further income and embeds inequality. Both research and teaching are the subject of external audits and rankings, notably via the Research Excellence Framework and the nascent Teaching Excellence Framework. A growing section of this education market is international. Higher education today is seen in global terms, as reflected in league tables of world university rankings, for example, via the Quality Standards system. Foreign students are attracted to those at the top of the tables and bring in high income. Marketization in the UK was advanced substantially in 2012 with the introduction and increase in student tuition fees, currently just over £9,000 per year in England. The high costs of running institutions and the apparently relentless desires to expand create demands for greater margins which, in turn,

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intensify the work process, resulting in a degradation of academic labour and a mounting imbalance in pay, with a vice chancellor’s income rising much faster than that of other employees (Khomami 2017).

Ownership and higher education Complex ideas of ownership have confused the already ambiguous distinctions between public and private spheres (Tight 2006). The ‘privatization’ of the university has been much commented upon (Bailey and Freedman 2012), not only with private universities, such as Buckingham, a trend expected to increase following the Higher Education Act of 2017, but also in research funding as well as in book publishing and journal production. The latter system provides funding for scholarly networks but also excludes outsiders by charging high prices for access to articles and books, many of which can only be afforded by higher education institutions themselves (Ciancanelli 2007). Alongside ‘capitalist enterprise’, other meanings of ownership are both visible and contested, and this lends significance to co-operative and mutual practices. Universities occupy a position at the locus of social contradictions, not least in terms of the hyper-complex problem of who owns them. A review of community and mutual ownership in 2010 identified five historical models, aspects of which can all be discerned in higher education (Woodin, Crook and Carpentier 2010). First, customary rights deriving from the access and use enjoyed by students, as well as by staff, both past and present, generate feelings that they constitute the academy devoted to research and learning. Indeed, the intensity of current debates partly derives from the great sense of ownership by academic staff who consider themselves disinherited of these customary rights – a shift from self-managed communities to managers as the ‘entrepreneurial de facto owners’ (Boden et al. 2012). Second, a related idea of the ‘educational commons’, draws sustenance from a long history of dispossession from the land. Common ownership over knowledge and disciplinary traditions are frequently viewed as collective legacies (Ciancanelli 2007). Third, a charitable model of ownership is reflected in the sense of universities as educational charities, evidenced in the trend towards supporting the public good through scholarships as well as fundraising for research and collaborative activities (Salmon 2011). Fourth, ‘common ownership’ was a term used to describe municipal and state ownership for much of the twentieth century. Many redbrick universities such as

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Manchester and Sheffield had roots in their local communities and represented a form of civic development. In the UK at least, the central state also retains a strong element of ownership over, and is a funder of, the ‘public university’. Fifth, ‘the co-operative university’ is generally conceived as one in which ownership is vested in common and collective bodies and should be devoted to the well-being of all. In adapting the model of co-operative and mutual enterprise, it is seen as addressing the ambiguity of ownership, lack of democracy and accountability, harmful divisions of labour and cultures of competitiveness (Boden et al. 2012; Yeo 2015). Higher education tends to be viewed as an area that needs to be returned to common ownership as part of an attempt to construct a knowledge commons (Neary and Winn 2012). There are also historical precedents. Mutual and co-operative forms of ownership can be identified in Oxbridge colleges, which are to some extent member-based organizations. For much of the Middle Ages, the university might have been considered a ‘scholastic guild or corporation’ dedicated to higher learning, an idea that persisted in the nineteenth century when Mark Pattison wrote of the ‘university of the chancellor, masters, and scholars’ as ‘one corporation, and each of the colleges distinct and independent societies’ (OED 2017a). Contemporary co-operative and mutual models are helping to connect up these five historical trends, which remain resources for rethinking higher education in the future. They have caught the imagination of those struggling with the multiple roles of different stakeholders involved with the university today. The debate on ownership has also been amplified by the expansion of access to universities. Although we are now familiar with the notion of ‘mass participation’ in higher education (Trow 2007; Tight 2009), most people remain outsiders to a university education. However, the claims to access have been continually desired and demanded as a right – often on behalf of others – from Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure to claims for comprehensive reforms and universal rights in more recent times (Robinson 1971; McCowan 2016). In practice, of course, this assertion is limited by the caveat that it should only be open to those who are ‘adequately equipped’ to undertake, or ‘benefit from’, a ‘university education’, issues that are far from settled. In fact, the very definition of a university is closely linked to notions of universality and universalism; the fourteenth-century Bible reflected a universalist meaning in referring to ‘Thou, Lord of vnyuersitee, or of alle creatures’ (OED 2017b). Any fully co-operative vision of higher education will ultimately need to account for the educational needs of all, in or out of a university. This idea comes not only from co-operative sources. Indeed, the recent historical

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acceptance that everyone is potentially educable, makes it difficult to justify the exclusion of people from centres of higher learning. Similar arguments, albeit with different emphases, are asserted by those who favour opening education up to the market as well as by critics eager to extend popular democracy. As a result, the very expertise of universities and their ability to legitimize and certify certain types of learning are coming under closer public scrutiny.

Co-operation Visions for a co-operative university can be seen as utopian yet also practically grounded. They draw strength from historical and contemporary developments in education. Higher learning was sought out well before the emergence of a dominant European tradition associated with universities at Bologna, Paris, Oxford and elsewhere (Collini 2017). Roy Lowe and Yoshihito Yasuhara (2017: 6) have emphasized a ‘co-operative’ or ‘mutually supportive’ approach to knowledge production that created a crucial interconnectedness in the early development of universities. Learning itself has been characterized as a mutual process of human interaction as, in theory, it is not a finite resource and one person or group gaining knowledge does not necessarily mean that anyone else must have less (Fletcher 2000). From the origins of the co-operative movement, education had a central place. The first successful consumer co-operative, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, founded in 1844, helped to initiate an innovative tradition of developing new educational forms including libraries, reading rooms, classes and, in the twentieth century, film and cultural groups (Woodin 2011). The confidence in co-operative visions was bolstered by the multiplying size and strength of the movement, which was a major influence upon the well-being of working class people – a quiet but nevertheless revolutionary force. In 1919, the Co-operative College was established as a higher form of education for the movement and some even hoped it would lead to the formation of a ‘co-operative university’ (Woodin 2017). There were of course limits and obstacles to this progress, and Britain witnessed a prolonged decline in consumer co-operation especially visible from the 1960s. Co-operatives themselves were often wary of academic theory and favoured grounded knowledge that could be put to good use. In addition, the study of co-operation in higher education has typically been divided across various disciplines and marginalized, even in areas where it

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could have a major presence, such as business and management (MacPherson and McClaughlin-Jenkins 2008). Educational textbooks have typically neglected co-operatives (Hill 2000; Kalmi 2007). However, the lack of attention accorded to co-operatives has started to shift in recent decades, as co-operative models have helped to meet changing needs of business, education and public services. A central part of this process was the codification of the co-operative values and principles in 1995 by the International Co-operative Alliance. The definition of a co-operative is ‘an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise’. The co-operative values comprise self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity as well as the ethical values of openness, transparency, social responsibility and caring for others. The principles provide more direct guidance on how co-operatives are organized and include voluntary membership, democratic control and economic participation by members; autonomy and independence, education and training, co-operation among co-operatives as well as contributing to the wider community (ICA 2017). Policy makers have supported co-operative developments by encouraging multi-stakeholder models. Co-operative ideas have helped local authorities, some of which are ‘co-operative councils’, to think about creative and democratic ways of partially outsourcing what were previously state responsibilities, for example in housing and leisure. Education itself has also seen the dramatic rise of co-operative schools since 2008, which rapidly grew to over 850 schools, but subsequently fell back to around 600 (Woodin 2015). The legal models for such schools foreground their purpose of defending co-operative values and principles and make provision for stakeholder groups, including staff, pupils, parents, communities, and potentially alumni, to play a role in a forum and thus influence the governance of their schools (Woodin 2012, 2015). Co-operative values and principles have been recognized as adding a significant ingredient to contemporary debates on education. They have nevertheless had to be adapted to the constraints of current legal and regulatory frameworks. It is difficult to imagine how schools or universities could be fully owned and controlled by members unless they were completely private organizations. Rather than fully fledged co-operatives, they represent hybrids that may develop further in a co-operative direction. For example, trust schools depend upon adapting a charitable trust to enable co-operation between schools.

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Yet, there are a number of reasons why co-operative ideas are pertinent to the current time, particularly following the 2007–08 international financial crisis, and the subsequent imposition of ‘austerity measures’ by an incoming UK government from 2010. They engage directly with the confusion over public and private and are able to harness the assumptions of both of these clusters of ideas, activities and structures. Co-operatives are private bodies but often act in democratic and ethical ways in meeting common needs. They speak a language of business and also one of public purpose. Opportunities for social action are constructed upon voluntary participation while lines of democratic accountability do not stifle the potential for entrepreneurial activity. Co-operativism also builds bridges between informal participation, collaboration and formal institutional structures which help to sustain co-operative values. Furthermore, across the world today, the co-operative movement remains a sizeable force. The largest 300 co-operatives have a combined turnover in excess of $2.533 trillion. With a billion members in 100 countries, co-operatives have been estimated by the United Nations to have economically supported over half of the world’s population (Eurisce and ICA 2016). The scale of these co-operatives helps us to think about the potential transformation of large-scale institutions and the whole system of higher education.

A co-operative university for the UK? Beyond the general attractiveness of co-operativism, the idea of a ‘co-operative university’ is being applied to different aspects of higher education today but has not yet taken on a tangible shape. Analysis is carried out at different levels. Dan Cook has argued that co-operative universities are both ‘realistic and desirable’ (Cook 2013: 58) in emphasizing that ‘co-operative principles are academic principles’ (Cook 2013: 20). This reflects a parallel with co-operative schools and reveals how the general nature of co-operative values can be applied to various settings (Woodin 2015). For instance, suggestions have been made to convert existing provision; develop smaller co-operative units within universities; and to build new institutions (Juby 2011; Winn 2015). The work of Mike Neary and Joss Winn has been essential in leading work in the area, through research as well as the Social Science Centre in Lincoln (Social Science Centre 2017). They accentuate the potential for a co-operative university to help overcome divisions of labour by the creation of ‘member scholars’ and

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view the student as a producer, drawing upon Walter Benjamin’s classic essay, ‘The Author as Producer’ (Benjamin 1973). Stephen Yeo has pointed to the relevance of co-operative membership, autonomy and ownership to the higher education system as a whole that could be remoulded to encourage collaborative and co-operative action. Under this umbrella, students would be able to access various options across a network of institutions. A federated system of higher education is indeed one option being pursued by a working group at the Co-operative College, alongside the possibility of the College collaborating with existing universities and gaining degree awarding powers (Boehm 2017). One specific proposition from Rebecca Boden, Penelope Ciancanelli and Susan Wright has been to create a ‘trust university’ in which ownership resides in a non-revocable trust to help ensure that institutions are focused upon their key purpose of teaching and research. It aims to provide a measure of protection against the managerial incursions of senior leaders. Employees and students would be classified as trust beneficiaries, able to make use of university resources and ensure accountability to society in terms of its core purpose (Boden, Ciancanelli and Wright 2012). This model, inspired by the John Lewis Partnership, bears some relation to the trust model for co-operative schools and also to the charitable model of ownership alluded to above (see also Cook 2013; Glatter 2015). The range of perspectives mirrors a dilemma inherent in co-operatives, between far-sighted, visionary and utopian aspirations on the one hand and prosaic, structural and realistic tendencies on the other. At one end of the scale, technical models may be easily understood and adapted to different settings but may only offer limited change in appealing to a wide audience. By contrast, radical alternatives speculate about wholesale transformation encompassing pedagogy, structures, ownership and divisions of labour. They set the bar very high and embed the co-operative university within broader social movements. However, if co-operative models are successfully applied to higher education, it does not follow that they will automatically become active co-operative social movements. While multi-stakeholder models are necessary, the sense of ownership and control can also become blurred. The example of ‘new mutualism’ from the 1990s suggests that considerable support, training and work are needed to disseminate co-operative ideas. There are no guarantees that come with co-operative designations, and long-term change on the ground is not always easy to bring about, especially where co-operatives find themselves in a hostile environment. It is a paradox that the process of transition towards self-managing co-operative structures, infused by a co-operative dynamic, may need to be carefully managed.

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Co-operative alternatives beyond the UK These proposals and analyses of co-operative education borrow from a number of innovative models from around the world. The most noted of these is Mondragon University in the Basque region of Spain which grew out of the highly successful Mondragon complex of co-operatives that includes high-tech engineering industries as well as the Eroski chain of supermarkets. Its origins lay in the 1940s when the Catholic priest, José María Arizmendiarrieta, established a technical college which supported the development of co-operative business in the town of Mondragón that was still suffering from the Spanish Civil War. Education was to be central to the development of worker co-operatives and their development into a leading group of businesses. The university itself was founded in 1997 when three existing educational co-operatives came together to form faculties of the university – a secondary co-operative. Faculties specialize in engineering which dates back to the early days of the movement; business and management established in 1970 but emerging out of the technical training of bookkeepers and secretaries; and humanities and education, formed in the mid-1970s when there was a demand for teachers in the final days of the Franco regime. They have been complemented with a faculty of culinary arts and sciences in the last few years (Freundlich 2017; Neary and Winn 2017). The University has adopted a co-operative structure centred upon a model of representative democracy. Each of the co-operative faculties are independent and their governing bodies comprise one third workers, one third students and one third collaborating institutions such as co-operatives, local government and foundations. The general assembly is divided into three in order that each constituency elects three to four members to the board which in turn appoints the dean who then names his or her associate deans and directors who must also be approved by the board. This structure has been hailed as providing a useful model for universities elsewhere. In particular, the multi-stakeholder representation provides a level of formal accountability for key decisions. It locates the shared ownership of a university in the various stakeholder groups (see Wright, Greenwood and Boden 2011; Matthews 2013). It is also a private university in which staff must buy a share in the business, approximately €15,000, which can be paid in stages. Consequently owners exert a great influence over their university. But the power to control the institution also depends upon the wider political, social, economic, cultural and educational context. Indicative of a general situation facing co-operatives, Mondragon has to manage a series of dilemmas which result from attempting to

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develop co-operative action in a capitalist marketplace and public sector which may not always be attuned to its needs. For example, as a small university, with approximately 4,000 students, and more part-time ones, it does not have the scale to embark on large initiatives. Public policy is mainly concerned with public universities rather than private initiatives and Mondragon finds itself cutoff from public money for research funding (Freundlich 2017). While the democratic structure looks impressive in theory, the reality can fall short of aspirations if the dynamic of stakeholder groups does not invigorate democratic governance. An ethos of stakeholder participation needs to be actively nurtured in successful co-operatives. For example, student participation has changed over recent decades and, according to Fred Freundlich, an academic in the business school, many students have adopted a ‘consumer model of education’. While some students are interested in the University because it is a co-operative, many more are attracted by the fact that it is affiliated with a successful and prestigious group of enterprises which they hope will provide good jobs, a key purpose of worker co-operatives. Yet managing these conflicting concerns has been difficult in times of austerity: When the university and the faculties pay attention and give dedicated time and resources to encouraging student participation, then it tends to work better. But since the great recession, it has been hard to find enough resources to do that. The general culture doesn’t support student participation in co-operative governance, and Western consumer culture doesn’t tend to promote this kind of aid … they are not the most dominant values in the culture. (Freundlich 2017)

Thus, co-operative values may be recognized but can be drowned out by other values, dominant formations and discourses. Welcoming and sympathetic environments are crucial if co-operatives are to thrive (ILO 2002). The cultural specificity which lies at the heart of Basque co-ops and gives them strength is the very factor which can potentially isolate the University from the mainstream. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong commitment to promote the use of the Basque language (Euskera) which is an integral part of Basque identity and politics. The University also plays an important role in regional governance and economic development. But bilingual education creates resource and timetabling difficulties, especially for those who would like to pursue advanced degrees in English and other languages. This makes it hard to attract students from Spain, let alone from further afield, who might provide greater income and diversity. Obviously moving too far from the origins of the University would lead to a loss of purpose and integration into the mainstream but it can make it difficult

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to establish partnerships and collaborate with other institutions. Retaining a distinctive and co-operative identity within this powerful set of contrary forces poses a real challenge for Mondragon. That it has so far withstood these pressures has been a major achievement and helps to explain its importance for both educators and co-operators. Africa has also witnessed the expansion of co-operation into higher education in recent years where some similarities have emerged despite the very different context. Co-operative development in many sub-Saharan African countries has been closely tied into economic development and a history of colonialism and independence. Indeed, the UK Co-operative College was a recognized provider of services for the Colonial Office during the post-war period. In many African countries, following independence, the development of co-operative businesses was also tied into state formation and government policy. Linda Shaw (2011) investigated six co-operative colleges encompassing a total of 8,000 students in East and Southern Africa including Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia and Ethiopia. She highlighted that many of the colleges were struggling to develop with few skilled teachers and were suffering in the face of competition from other providers. One option was to expand via a university route, which carried risks as well as opportunities. There was a danger of providing generic degrees that met wider objectives while weakening links to the co-operative movement. Thus the challenge for colleges was ‘to meet popular demand for non-co-operative-based courses and survive financially, whilst not distancing themselves further from the needs of the co-operative movement’ (Shaw 2011: 73). Two colleges have since made the leap to university status, Moshi Co-operative University in Tanzania which organizes a number of regional outreach centres, as well as the Co-operative University of Kenya (CUK). Universities often need to attract school leavers who may not have experience of the movement or ultimately work in co-operative destinations. For example, Moshi, as a university college, jumped from 150 students to over 2,000 in a short space of time (ICA 2014). In the long run, there is a concern about losing touch with the co-operative movement, although this may be offset if universities can stimulate growth in co-operatives, as well as greater sympathy and awareness, which inevitably may be a generational development. For instance, Moshi’s mission statement emphasizes the need ‘to provide quality education, training, research and advisory services to enhance co-operative development’ (Moshi 2017). In Kenya, where co-operatives contribute 43 per cent of GDP, CUK works to convince government, non-governmental agencies as well as the wider

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population about the importance of a co-operative university (CUK 2017a and 2017b). The other option may be that such alternatives merely get incorporated into a mainstream dominant model of the university. In the promotional material for CUK, there is an emphasis upon the importance of generic co-operation between government, university and the wider co-operative movement which, while essential, will need to complement rather than replace the importance of close connections with actual co-operative networks (CUK 2017a). There was always a tension at the heart of the project, in the words of Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Hon. Professor Margaret Kamar, to become ‘an important global university in cooperative studies … My ministry expects … the Institution to become a world-class University for cooperative education and training’ (JKUAT 2012). Negotiating these opportunities and constraints while promoting and celebrating the democratic nature of co-operatives will prove testing in the coming period. Moreover, the changing and disputed meanings of a co-operative university, such as those considered above, correlate with a much wider range of radical experiments. From the European popular universities to the social experimentation taking place in Latin America in contemporary times, there is a long tradition of alternative radical universities. Frequently, they adopt the name ‘university’ in order to question conventional conceptualizations of higher education (McCowan 2016). For example, UNITIERRA (University of the Land) in Southern Mexico is an institution with no entry requirements and no formal qualifications on exit, which functions through a combination of seminars and workshops and pairing of ‘students’ with professional mentors in the workplace. It emerged out of the work of a number of social movements and is articulated in terms of a prefigurative transformation of social life: We believe that no real solution can come from above, from where the powerful merely distribute contempt, dispossession, exploitation and repression. For solutions we instead seek the reconstruction of society from below in the constant effort to recuperate ‘verbs’ such as to learn, to eat, to heal, to live: That is, to recuperate our autonomous capacities to live in dignity constructing a convivial mode of life. (UNITIERRA 2017)

Finding ways for communities to ‘recuperate’ and activate learning is reminiscent of the Rochdale Pioneers’ concern to ‘arrange the powers of production, distribution, education and government’ for a co-operative purpose. Similar examples can be located in Brazil where a decentralized education system combined with a tradition of innovation among social movements within a

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strong civil society. Tristan McCowan (2016) has outlined higher educational experiments which address co-operation on a regional and international basis; foster local development; focus upon racial and ethnic identity; and promote social and political change as well as spiritual development. An assortment of alternative universities around the world could be added, all of them with links to co-operation, not only the Social Science Centre, Edinburgh’s Ragged University (2017), Ragged University (2017) and Free University Brighton (2017) but also Denmark’s folk high schools (Højskolerne 2017), Swaraj University in India (2017) and Gaia University (2017) (see also Yeo 2015; McCowan 2016). There are historical parallels in operation here too. These initiatives have partly responded to structural changes that have isolated some populations from learning. They address the needs of adult education which, for long periods of history, has been closely associated with university provision. In Britain, the history of ‘University Extension’ in the nineteenth century and, in the twentieth, the emergence of tutorial classes in association with the Worker’s Educational Association, and the rise of extra-mural departments of adult education, all met these needs. Adult educational innovations represented a compromise between conflicting interests and traditions, bringing together the worker’s movement focused upon social change, as well as those concerned with liberal education and university standards. Universities were able to benefit from the experience of this engagement by developing new curricula and courses such as politics, philosophy and economics at Oxbridge. However, the workers were kept ‘beyond the walls’ with the result that the movement had a fascinating history but only a limited impact upon national university traditions. By contrast, the experience in the United States was different with some changes in the mainstream with, for example, a network of community colleges and part-time degrees, emerging at an earlier time (Goldman 1995). Adult education is an area where it may be realistic to envisage some kind of co-operative university emerging in the short to medium term. The New Labour governments of 1997–2010, and particularly secretary of state for education, David Blunkett, understood the varied traditions of adult education but subsequently undermined them through measures that included cutting funding for ‘leisure’ courses and insisting that students progressed to higher qualifications. Since 2010, drastic reductions in funding adult education have further debilitated a once strong provision of learning. As a result, in the UK, new initiatives are beginning to explore alternative co-operative possibilities (Winn 2017).

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Summary of themes The meaning of co-operativism in higher education cannot be tied down precisely at this historical moment. It is being used as a heuristic device to explore multiple possibilities across research, learning and structures at all educational stages. In part, this is very much in tune with co-operative ideals that are focused upon mutually beneficial action among co-operative groups. Moreover, many of the specific examples of co-operative universities have grown out of the demands of the co-operative movement itself, as with Mondragon or Moshi. They tend to be small-scale universities in touch with their communities although, in the African examples, there were pressures to spread beyond their originating constituency. For other universities, responsibility to a specific constituency is less applicable because, although it is possible to fit co-operative principles into academic purposes, universities serve mixed constituencies that cannot easily be contained by an existing social movement. In some models, it is suggested that co-operative structures could help transform whole universities, a reversal of the bottom-up principle, which implies a long-term vision of cultural change once structures are in place. In addition, while the co-operative university presents an opportunity to reconnect institutions with communities via structures of ownership and membership, it would be a mistake to view this as a simple return to small-scale and local/regional institutions even though these are sometimes both desirable and feasible. If it is to gain traction, co-operative ideals must take account of multiple, conflicted and international communities which may or may not play a role in university governance. This parallels the problems faced by large co-operatives and employee-owned business, such as Scott Bader, an international chemical business, which struggled to extend membership to all their workers in different plants around the world. Thus, complex co-operative models will have to recognize identifiably groups while also forming collaborations nationally and internationally to share ideas and provide mutual validation. As the specific and generic meanings of co-operation inevitably blur into one another, hybrid co-operative organizations can struggle to develop a distinctive vision. But small steps are necessary as a precursor to extensive transformation – prefigurative politics highlight the significance of political minutiae in terms of broader social visions (Rowbotham, Segal and Wainwright 1979). Again this is a protracted process and radical initiatives face the challenge of isomorphism in a highly regulated system where rewards are distributed according to a restrictive

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set of league tables. However, although dominant ideas are difficult to resist, change is taking place in diverse directions. Contributing to discussions of alternative co-operative models will nurture and improve the capacity to develop more practical proposals in the future, making them available as opportunities are created. Inevitably, these will continue to arise from the desire for education and learning across the whole population. Building bodies of knowledge around co-operative movements and possibilities is becoming an urgent task.

References Bailey, M. and Freedman, D. (2012) The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance. London: Pluto Press. Barber, M., Donnelly, K. and Rizvi, S. (2013) An Avalanche is Coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead. Essay. Institute for Public Policy Research. Harvard: Harvard University. Barnett, R. (2016) Work for the visionaries. In R. Barnett (ed.), Understanding the University: Institution, Idea, Possibilities, pp. 170–83, chapter 12. London: Routledge. Benjamin, W. (1973) The author as producer. In W. Benjamin (ed.), Understanding Brecht, pp. 85–103. London: Verso. Boden, R., Ciancanelli, P. and Wright S. (2012) Trust Universities? Governance for postcapitalist futures. Journal of Co-operative Studies, 45 (2) Autumn, pp. 16–24(9). Boehm, C. (2017) Email, 31 July 2017. Ciancanelli, P. (2007) (Re) producing universities: Knowledge dissemination, market power and the global knowledge commons. In D. Epstein, R. Boden, R. Deem, F. Rizvi and S. Wright (eds), Geographies of Knowledge, Geometries of Power: Framing the Future of Higher Education. New York, NY: Routledge. Collini, S. (2017) Speaking of Universities. London: Verso. Cook, D. (2013) Realising the Co-operative University: A Consultancy Report for the Co-operative College. Manchester, MA: Co-operative College. CUK (2017a) The Co-operative University of Kenya. Inauguration video 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=15xJ77U-XO4 (accessed 1 August 2017). CUK (2017b) Website. http://cuk.ac.ke/about/governance/ (accessed 1 August 2017). Eagleton, T. (2015) The slow death of the university. Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 April 2015, http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Slow-Death-of-the/228991 (accessed 20 June 2017). Edinburgh’s Ragged University (2017) https://www.meetup.com/raggeduniversity/ (accessed 11 January 2018). Eurisce and ICA (2016) World Co-operative Monitor: Exploring the Co-operative Economy, http://monitor.coop/ (accessed 2 August 2017).

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Fletcher, M. (2000) Learning and skills as a mutual enterprise. In C. Mager and P. Robinson (eds), The New Learning Market, pp. 27–36. London: FEDA/IPPR. Free University Brighton (2017) http://freeuniversitybrighton.org/ (accessed 10 September 2017). Freundlich, F. (2017) Interviewed by Tom Woodin, 5 April. Gaia University (2017) http://gaiauniversity.org/ (accessed 20 June 2017). Glatter, R. (2015) Are schools and colleges institutions? Management in Education, 29 (3), pp. 100–4. Hill, R. (2000) The case of the missing organizations: Co-operatives and the textbooks. The Journal of Economic Education, 31, pp. 281–95. Højskolerne (2017) Folk High Schools, http://danishfolkhighschools.com (accessed 20 June 2017). ICA (2014) African Co-operatives Welcome more Graduates from Co-operative Universities, https://ica.coop/en/media/news/african-co-operatives-welcome-moregraduates-co-operative-universities, 21 January 2014 (accessed 1 August 2017). ICA (2017) Co-operative Identity, Values and Principles, https://ica.coop/en/whatsco-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles (accessed 10 August 2017). ILO (International Labour Organization) (2002) R193 – Promotion of Cooperatives Recommendation (No. 193), http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXP UB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:R193 (accessed 20 January 2017). JKUAT (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology) (2012) First Co-operative University College in Africa under JKUAT, http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/firstco-operative-university-college-in-africa-under-jkuat/ (accessed 1 August 2017). Juby, P. (2011) A co-operative university? Presentation to the UK Society for Co-operative Studies, 3–4 September, Cardiff. Kalmi, P. (2007) The disappearance of co-operatives from economics textbooks. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31, pp. 625–47. Khomami, N. (2017) University vice-chancellors’ average pay now exceeds £275,000. Guardian, 23 February, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ university-vice-chancellors-average-pay-now-exceeds-275000 (accessed 12 March 2017). Lowe, R. and Yasuhara, Y. (2017) The Origins of Higher Learning: Knowledge Networks and the Early Development of Universities. Abingdon: Routledge. MacPherson, I. and McClaughlin-Jenkins, E. (2008) Integrating Diversities with a Complex Heritage. Victoria: New Rochdale Press/BCICS. Matthews, D. (2013) Inside a co-operative university. Times Higher Education, 29 August. McCowan, T. (2016) Forging radical alternatives in higher education: The case of Brazil. Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives, 5 (2), pp. 196–220. McFarlane, D. A. (2011) Are there differences in the organizational structure and pedagogical approach of virtual and brick-and-mortar schools? The Journal of Educators Online, 8(1), pp. 1–43.

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McGettigan, A. (2013) The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education. London: Pluto. Moshi University of Tanzania (2017) Mission Statement. https://www.mocu.ac.tz/ mission_vision.php? 08201720v=Vision+Mission+and+Core+Values (accessed 1 August 2017). Neary, M. and Winn, J. (2012) Open education: Common(s), communism and the new common wealth. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 12 (4), pp. 406–22. Neary, M. and Winn, J. (2017) Beyond public and private: A framework for co-operative higher education. Open Library of Humanities, 3 (2), pp. 1–36. OED (2017a) Oxford English Dictionary. Mark Pattison, Suggestions Academy Organisation, 46, http://www.oed.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/view/Entry/214804?rskey= ElyMIh&result=1#eid) (accessed 12 July 2017). OED (2017b) c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V. ) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) 2 Macc. xiv. 35.). Ragged University (2017) https://www.raggeduniversity.co.uk/about/presentations/ (accessed 10 September 2017). Robinson, E. E. (1971) A comprehensive reform of higher education. Higher Education Review, 3 (3), pp. 3–22. Ross, C., Winn, J., Neary, M. and Parkinson, S. (2017) Co-operative universities: A chance to reimagine higher education? Co-operative Party blog, https://party. coop/2016/09/01/co-operative-universities-time-for-a-radical-re-think-of-highereducation/ (accessed 20 June 2017). Rowbotham, S., Segal, L. and Wainwright, H. (1979) Beyond the Fragments. London: Merlin. Salmon, A. (2011) Do you think of universities as charitable institutions? Guardian, 24 March, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/highereducation-network-blog/2011/mar/24/universities-charitable-institutions (accessed 20 June 2017). Shaw, L. (2011) International perspectives on co-operative education. In B. Webster, W. Stewart and L. Shaw (eds), The Hidden Alternative: Co-operative Values Past, Present and Future. Manchester, MA: Manchester University Press. Social Science Centre (2017) http://socialsciencecentre.org.uk/ (accessed 30 July 2017). Swain, H. (2017) Coming soon, a university where students could set their own tuition fees. Guardian, 12 September, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/12/ university-students-set-own-fees-cooperative-college, (accessed 20 September 2017). Swaraj University (2017) http://www.swarajuniversity.org/ (accessed 20 June 2017). Tight, M. (2006) Changing understandings of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in higher education: The United Kingdom case. Higher Education Quarterly, 60 (3), pp. 242–56. Tight, M. (2009) The Development of Higher Education in the United Kingdom. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Trow, M. (2007) Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access: Forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since WWII. In J. J. F.

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Forest and P. G. Altbach (eds), International Handbook of Higher Education, pp. 243–80. Netherlands: Springer. UNITIERRA (2017) website http://unitierraoax.org/english-site/our-conceptions/ (accessed 20 June 2017). Walton, J. K. (2012) The idea of the university. In M. Bailey and D. Freedman (eds), The Assault on Universities: A Manifesto for Resistance, pp. 15–26. London: Pluto Press. Winn, J. (2015) The co-operative university: Labour, property and pedagogy. Power and Education, 7 (1), pp. 39–55. Winn, J. (2017) Working towards a co-operative university for the UK, Times Higher Education Supplement, 18 November, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/ working-towards-cooperative-university-uk (accessed 20 November 2017). Woodin, T. (2011) Co-operative education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Context, identity and learning. In A. Webster A. Brown, D. Stewart, J. K. Walton and L. Shaw (eds), The Hidden Alternative: Co-operative Values, Past, Present and Future, pp. 78–95. Manchester, MA: Manchester University Press and United Nations University Press. Woodin, T. (2012) Co-operative Schools: Building communities in the 21st century. FORUM: For Promoting 3-19 Comprehensive Education, 54 (2), pp. 327–39. Woodin, T. (ed.) (2015) Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values. London: Routledge. Woodin, T. (2017) Co-operation, leadership and learning: Fred hall and the Co-operative College before 1939. In R. Hall, J. Winn (eds), Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, pp. 27–40. London: Bloomsbury. Woodin, T., Crook, D. and Carpentier, V. (2010) Community and Mutual Ownership: A Historical Review. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Wright, S., Greenwood, D. and Boden, R. (2011) Report on a field visit to Mondragon University: A co-operative experience/experiment. Learning and Teaching, 4 (3), pp. 38–56. Yeo, S. (2015) The co-operative university? Transforming higher education. In T. Woodin (ed.), Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values. London: Routledge.

Summary

In this first part of the book, co-operation is seen as an informal, flexible linkage – sometimes necessarily so – and leadership as open, agile, lateral. Examples from practice in national contexts as diverse as in Spain, Nigeria, Finland, Latin America and UK discuss how things really happen – or do not – and what we may say and learn about these ‘co-operative’ ways of leading and working. The first chapter by Laguo Livingstone Gilbert establishes that collaboration in higher education is associated with participative leadership and trust. In other words, participative leadership and trust will increase the level of readiness for consensus and collaboration in higher education. The chapter brings leadership and organizational trust into a single framework to increase understanding of their inter-relationship. The discussion from the implications of this suggests a possible co-operation strategy, and an ‘emergent theme’ for leaders in both professional bodies and higher education, of a pathway to an effective implementation strategy. The second chapter, from Oili-Helena Ylijoki and Lea Henriksson in Finland, is based on a study of early career academics. It argues that co-operation in academic work is not only about strategic partnerships with instrumental value but is also inherently rewarding and motivating. This provides cognitive, social and moral goods, ones realized in different forms of working together. The emerging ‘positive’ themes of collegial, project-based, institutional and entrepreneurial co-operation all entail a potential for sharing, yet in different ways. Furthermore, the leadership context affects and moulds the extent to which this potential can actually be realized in daily work in higher education. The third chapter, by Marita Sánchez-Moreno and Manon Toussaint, observes that the Spanish model of management positioning not only produces dilemmas but also identifies the adoption of strategies to face them as emerging themes. Co-operation – inside and outside the organization, chosen or imposed – is used in facing those dilemmas. And co-operation allows participation. It represents a way to protect personal relationships as well as to lead the group. And this

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seems to be a necessity derived from the nature of the task, as well as from the structures and features of governance that surround these actors. According to the chapter by Tom Woodin, the meaning of co-operative education relates to research, learning and structures at all educational stages. A wide applicability of ideas and formations suggests that it is not appropriate to seek a single encompassing vision across these diverse areas. In part, this is very much in tune with co-operative ideals, which are largely based upon mutually beneficial action among co-operative groups in local contexts. In other words, agency comes from below in order to meet common needs. Woodin concludes as an emerging theme that many of the specific examples of co-operative universities have grown out of the demands of the co-operative movement itself. Their ‘leadership’ as well as structures of governance and operation are based on wholly different models from those we see elsewhere, and there is thus a timely interest in these forms, given the many critiques and challenges worldwide faced by higher education today.

Part Two

Collaboration

Introduction Lucy Sweetman

In Part Two of this collection, the focus is on practices and formations of ‘collaboration’. We hear from academics in Canada, the UK and Spain, as they unpick the nature of collaboration in the material and social sciences as well as between teachers and students, in organizational hierarchies, and as they emerge from networks of ‘people and things’. Alan Floyd and Dilly Fung consider the kinds of flexible leadership that emerge as institutions attempt to respond to an external environment that is ever more competitive. In particular, they focus on one university’s new distributed leadership model and its academics’ experiences of leading and being led. In this chapter, we hear from staff in new leadership roles and the academics assigned to them. Leadership here is found as a process, one to be shared throughout the organization. Leaders discuss values, coaching, mentoring, human skills and, as they say, ‘bringing people with you’. Colleagues ask their leaders for understanding and support, empathy and dialogue; as such, there is a consensus about this and therefore some support for leadership. These leaders are recognized as having to take difficult decisions, and doing things on behalf of the team that others would not want to do. It is thus a form of service. Floyd and Fung find that there should be a balance between individual and institutional need, especially as the responsibility for professional development has shifted ‘from the institution to the individual’. They argue that academic work, including research and teaching, should be seen as a ‘scholarly whole’ and that university leadership should function as a ‘special form of academic endeavour’ to unite the two. Sandra Acker, Anne Wagner and Michelle McGinn are concerned with the production of knowledge in the social sciences. They examine the working relationships between faculty (academic staff ) as principal investigators and their research assistants (postgraduate students working in part-time roles). The authors pay particular attention to the question of whether the social justice commitments of academics influence the way they approach working

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with student research assistants; in this context, they explore how notions of a ‘consensuality’ in leadership style may be applied to this relationship. In Canada, the research funding body encourages the hiring of postgraduate students on faculty research projects, where they become simultaneously students to be trained and workers to be managed. Through the words of the research leaders, questions of hierarchy, professional development, autonomy, dependency, time and funding are raised. By addressing the social, emotional and political aspects of the production of knowledge, the authors recognize academic labour as a whole to be closely connected to the inter-dependencies between faculty researchers and student colleagues. Leadership then is rooted in consent, evidenced by the need for and willingness to do the caring work of mentoring and supporting newer researchers. Julián López-Yáñez and Mariana Altopiedi introduce us to two Spanish scientific research groups, called ‘Pleiades’ and ‘Gaia’, in order to explore their ‘paradoxical blend’ of scientific authority and distributed leadership. Both these research groups are led by authoritative academics who are much-respected, loved, as well as perhaps held a little in awe by their teams. This chapter examines the social dynamics of these two research groups and how their success is supported by the social structure each of the groups and its leaders have created for themselves. From the outside, they may look authoritarian, but from within, the relationships are supportive and social. This is arguably the basis of their leadership as one based on consent and mutual respect, in which group members experience both autonomy and collaboration in the service of the group as a whole. So what seems a too hierarchical leadership model is, in fact, a way of setting the tone and spreading the values and professional outlook of the group beyond its immediate borders. López-Yáñez and Altopiedi also remind us that – like any family, pack or pride – the young are taught the ways of the group through their exposure to these in everyday and familiar situations. Roger Cannon asks us to consider a more theorized approach to the notion of ‘leadership and collaboration’, one that is emergent from a process of understanding how best to exploit networks of people and things. This is examined through a case study of a long-standing higher education institution moving towards electronic delivery of distance learning. Cannon argues that it is the nature and strength of engagement and enrolment ‘in networks of collaboration and programmes of action’ that shape how leadership emerges. Within this, ‘consensus’ is problematic however. These networks are not ‘designed’ as such, but they are material. Actor Network Theory enables us

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to see all actors as networks and all networks as social products that can be utilized to support models of collaboration. This chapter uses interviews and documentation at various levels, sourced from the UK’s largest distance learning provider. Collaborative leadership is demonstrated as emergent, and shared across boundaries, as multiple actors begin to understand their networks and how best to operationalize them in the service of a goal.

5

Stories of Leading and Being Led: Developing Collaborative Relationships in an English Research-Intensive University Alan Floyd and Dilly Fung

Introduction As the higher education landscape continues to rapidly evolve, senior university leaders are reflecting on whether their organizational structures and leadership models are fit for purpose (Flumerfelt and Banachowski 2011; Holt et al. 2014). Several external pressures, such as globalization, international league tables, changes to institutional funding and an increasingly competitive research and knowledge transfer environment, have impacted on how higher education institutions are organized and managed. These pressures have led to a call for more flexible leadership models based on notions of collaboration and shared value systems to be explored (Floyd and Fung 2015). By drawing on qualitative data from a recent Leadership Foundation funded project exploring the newly formed role of ‘Academic Lead’ (AL) at a research-led institution in the UK (see Floyd and Fung 2013), this chapter will explore how one university has implemented a new distributed leadership model. We look in particular at academics’ expressed notions of ‘good’ leadership in times of change and challenge. Unlike most previously published work exploring higher education leadership, the research presented here will crucially examine the impact of the model on both those who are leaders and those being led and will show how both parties have attempted to develop positive and collaborative relationships to achieve their professional goals. This chapter is organized over seven sections. Following this introduction, we outline the paper’s theoretical framework. Next, we give contextual background to the leadership model being examined and

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the case study university. Then, we describe the study’s methods, present the participants’ stories of leading and being led and, in the concluding sections, discuss the implications of our work for professional practice.

Theoretical underpinnings Underlying this inquiry is the concept of distributed leadership which has arisen as a response to the traditional ‘heroic’ or ‘great man’ theory of leadership (Northouse 2013; Gronn 2008). Rather than viewing leadership as falling under the remit of just one person, distributed leadership envisages leadership as a process which can, and should, be shared throughout the organization (Bush 2011). Thus, when applied to higher education, academic leadership is seen as more of a collective responsibility (Bolden, Petrov and Gosling 2009). In this way, the notion of viewing leadership as a vertical process between leaders and followers is challenged (van Ameijde et al. 2009). This perceived shift in traditional leadership power, moving from people in formal positions to the whole academic body, is important for universities, not least because it has been shown that the leadership activity of academics outside formal leadership roles can be very influential in effecting organizational change (Kezar, Bertram Gallant and Lester 2011). Such a power shift may also allow academics to discuss and decide on leadership issues in a more collegial manner, a practice more in line with the shared value systems of the academy (Floyd and Fung 2015). In addition, there is evidence to suggest that if academic leaders do not take the views of other academics into account in their decision-making, they can expect to encounter a lot of resistance, which can prove extremely damaging (Bryman 2007). Also underpinning this inquiry are questions about the nature of the modern university in general, and the characteristics, missions, values and practices of research-intensive universities in particular. Recent studies have shown that changes are beginning to take place in UK research-intensives (Fung and Gordon 2016, Fung 2016) and also more widely across European research-led institutions (Fung, Besters-Dilger and van der Vaart 2017). These studies highlight the creative possibilities associated with breaking down the separation between ‘research’ and ‘student education’ as areas of activity: Can these established divisions, which lead to differences in esteem and opportunity for those who take leadership roles in each area (Fung and Gordon 2016), be constructively challenged? We argue that research-intensive universities need to

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recast themselves so that ‘students, academics and others who work in universities progressively work towards the development of inclusive scholarly knowledgebuilding communities of practice’ (Brew 2006: 180). University leadership roles, at all levels of the organization, therefore need to promote an inclusive, holistic ecosystem of scholarly activity (Fung 2016) – research, teaching and learning, and leadership itself – which enables universities to make the fullest possible contribution to the global common good (Fung 2016; UNESCO 2015). Using these ideas, the stories presented here explore how academics in different roles (both leaders and ‘the led’) attempt to develop a mutually respectful relationship by undertaking productive dialogue and working collaboratively to achieve shared professional goals.

Context The case study university where the research took place (hereafter called Sunnyside) is a research-led university in the UK. As part of institutional restructuring, a new Academic Lead (AL) role was introduced to help build leadership capacity. The idea was that ALs would work closely with Directors of Education (DoE) and Directors of Research (DoR) to provide leadership, guidance, support and advice to a group of individual academic colleagues in their discipline or subject grouping (normally a group of about eight staff who we term here ‘Assigned Academics’ (AAs) – that is, academics who had been assigned to ALs). ALs would also be members of the senior management group of the faculty so that they were kept well informed about priorities and strategies and able to engage with faculty wide decision making. Alongside the introduction of the AL role, a new Performance and Development Review (PDR) system was launched to facilitate the translation of institutional and discipline strategies into individual objectives, while at the same time accommodating personal goals and ambitions. One of the key ideas underpinning distributed leadership and the PDR process at Sunnyside was that ALs, DoR and DoE would coordinate their actions so that personal goals agreed through the PDR process were holistic and proportionate, and that individual academics were well supported. Since the launch of the scheme, more than 130 academic staff have been appointed to the AL role. When the initial structures were implemented, a Head of Discipline (HoD) role was also created. This role was mainly envisaged as providing a point of reference for external interactions; indeed, the HoD did not have a formal budget

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or HR responsibilities. In practice, however, Heads of Discipline, together with the DoR and DoE, have become an important part of the faculty governance arrangements, and this role has recently been formalized across Sunnyside. At Sunnyside, there are two different job ‘families’: ‘Education and Research’ and ‘Education and Scholarship’, with each having their own contracts and slightly different focus within the institution. Academics in the Education and Research group, who are actively researching in their field and required to meet targets in relationship to research income and academic publications, outnumber their more education-focused academic colleagues by approximately 3:1, although this proportion varies considerably in different parts of the institution. The Education and Scholarship academics are typically not (currently) actively researching in their field, but have a significant teaching load. They may take on Director of Education roles as they progress in their career, although DoE roles are also taken up by the ‘research active’ academics. It is possible in principle at Sunnyside for all academics to gain promotion to Professor, if they meet certain criteria in relation to research, success and impact in their field and/or the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education.

Methods A brief overview of methods is given here; for more detail on the research design, please see Floyd and Fung (2013). To address our research questions, we used an exploratory, sequential mixed methods design (Creswell 2014), where qualitative data are gathered and analysed first, before quantitative data are collected from a larger sample size. First, we interviewed fifteen Academic Leads and fifteen Assigned Academics about their experiences and perceptions of the role. It is these data that we draw on in this chapter. The interview sample contained male and female staff with a range of ages, levels of experience and discipline backgrounds (see Table 5.1). To ensure anonymity for respondents, pseudonyms were used throughout and all disciplines have been grouped into the umbrella terms of ‘natural sciences’, ‘social sciences’ and ‘humanities’. Following ethical approval, participants were identified and invited to take part via email. Each participant was interviewed for approximately one hour and interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interview data were analysed using established thematic analysis techniques. These data were supplemented with the analysis of key strategic documents linked to governance arrangements and working practices that helped to determine the overall culture and working

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Table 5.1 Profiles of Interview Participants Academic Leads

Assigned Academics

Name

Age

Domain

Name

Age

Domain

Arthur Brandon Chris Diane Evelyn Francis George Howard Ian Jack Kendra Lisa Martin Nel Oliver

30s 60s 50s 40s 50s 60s 30s 40s 40s 30s 50s 50s 60s 40s 60s

Natural Sciences Natural Sciences Social Sciences Social Sciences Social Sciences Humanities Social Sciences Humanities Natural Sciences Humanities Humanities Social Sciences Social Sciences Humanities Social Sciences

Amy Bert Clare Harold James Jane John Katherine Matthew Nick Ruth Sophie Sylvia Tobias Terry

30s 30s 50s 30s 30s 40s 30s 50s 30s 40s 20s 30s 40s 30s 50s

Social Sciences Natural Sciences Humanities Natural Sciences Social Sciences Social Sciences Social Sciences Natural Sciences Humanities Social Sciences Natural Sciences Natural Sciences Social Sciences Humanities Social Sciences

practices at Sunnyside, and the individual faculty culture within which each participant worked. The whole study was framed within a humanistic philosophical framework (Newby 2014) which puts human experience firmly at the centre of data collection and analysis, and recognizes that ‘experiences are socially constructed and experienced differently by individuals depending on a range of cultural, historical and situational factors’ (Floyd and Fung 2015: 6). This approach is congruent with the principles of philosophical hermeneutics espoused by Gadamer (2004), which seek not to objectify human experiences but to create opportunities for dialogue and the shared constructions and explorations of meanings in order to enhance understanding.

Stories of leading and being led What were the participants’ expressed views on ‘good’ academic leadership? Here, we consider first the data from the stories of the AAs, who are typically in the early years of their career, then present the perspectives of the ALs, who are established academics assigned a specific leadership role within a department.

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The Assigned Academics’ stories It’s a tricky job. I have great sympathy for people who do it. (Harold)

The AAs’ interview transcripts paint vivid verbal pictures of what ‘good’ leadership in an academic setting might be. Many of the participants are sensitive to the complexities faced by those running a multifaceted organization in a rapidly changing national and internal policy context, and perceive that there is no simple, ‘one size fits all’ set of descriptors for a ‘good’ leader, but their narratives and reflections on what they would want to see in any academic leader provide an illuminating starting point for our analysis of their perspectives on Sunnyside’s new AL role. Common ground in relation to desirable characteristics of university leaders in general is seen in the personal qualities of the leader, such that they command respect from more junior staff. For Tobias, for example, You have to feel there’s someone you respect, and that’s why you take advice from them.

For Toulouse, it is very much about ‘integrity’ and the leader’s ability to ‘stand up for you when you feel you want them to fight your corner’. For Sylvia, leaders should be ‘role models for the junior member of staff to look up to’, and a good leader is someone who ‘makes everyone feel valued’. Jane talks about the need for fairness, open-mindedness, impartiality and ‘willingness to take on these big admin responsibilities, rather than being just a power trip’. For Ruth, good leadership is characterized by having a good understanding of the group for which you are responsible and of how the wider organizational structures and processes operate: I think [a leader] has to … know the processes, to understand the management structure – so you know who to go to with your concerns. If you’re leading a group, it’s really important you know your group and you understand how your group works.

Ruth also looks for realism in a leader: If you’re not realistic as a leader, then you can get people possibly feeling that something could happen when really there is no chance … and it’s just going to lead to disappointment.

For Bert, this realism should have a positive dimension; he argues that good leaders should not become embroiled with ‘negative spin’, but rather ‘concentrate

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on how we can make the teaching better, how we can research better’. We see here an example of a repeated emphasis on leaders needing to find a more productive and more connected relationship between research and student education. For the academics interviewed, leaders also ideally need to create a balance between flexibility and being directive. Some stress the importance of leaders’ being able to take steps to address situations where their AAs are not, in Matthew’s term, ‘pulling their weight’. However, Matthew also talks at some length about the challenge for younger members of staff when more experienced staff are ‘pulling against’ the institution, and observes: I think there needs to be … a lot more engagement and a lot more openness in terms of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, at every level. But if people aren’t prepared to get on board with the process, perhaps there does need to be a little more ability to rein them in at times.

The use of language here – ‘pulling their weight’, ‘pulling against’ and ‘reining them in’ – connotes an active struggle across several dimensions. There are parallel tensions: the AA may not be contributing fully to the institution’s work and goals, but some of the more experienced academics may not be doing this either. The proposed solution is more ‘engagement’ and ‘openness in terms of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it’, with some possibility of ‘reining in’ those who ‘aren’t prepared to get on board with the process’. Constructions of the ideal do vary, however, with respect to the extent to which the leaders should or should not be directorial in their leadership styles. The context for this for many interviewees in the study is consideration of the extent to which academia needs formal leadership roles at all. Academic work is often characterized as essentially an individual pursuit, for example, in Matthew’s sporting analogy: Fundamentally, I think this job is one where you stand or fall largely by your own efforts. … I’m not sure it’s a team game in the way that other professions perhaps are. … The analogy I use is that academia is more like a cricket team, say, than a football team. Everyone has their own role, they go out, they bat, they bowl … and occasionally they’ll have to field together, but basically you have your own specific role and you perform that role.

However, almost all of the interviewees talked about the increasing need for clear and effective leadership in the new era of higher education league tables and the formal measurement of research outputs. Amy has seen this in her own department:

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I think until now there almost hasn’t been leadership in the departments … It very much seems that people tend to work in silos [and] I think you almost have to have been self-sufficient. … But now … our head of department has changed and we’ve realized that to be competitive … we need to start working together.

Others, including Bert, emphasize the importance of a having leaders with a clear group strategy in an increasingly competitive environment: Ideally [leadership] is driving research in your particular groups so that everyone is … as productive as possible.

However, there remains a tension between the need for leaders to manage and direct and the desire for them simply to allow academics to get on with their academic work, as Harold suggests, People in my discipline often regard leadership as being taking the pressure off their underlings, which is all very noble of them and very good. [They] have to fight the political battles and get the money and that leaves us underlings free to do the science.

For James, the key is to have ‘somebody to rely on’: It’s the idea of having somebody, a kind of mentor – I consider him as a mentor – and I don’t want to think of him as, as part of the management. I would like to … consider him more as somebody I can rely on, instead of somebody who was here to control what I’m doing – that would be the case in a company, for instance. … The top management, I think, wants to be sure that people are working in the way they want people to work and they are productive enough. But I would prefer having my academic lead as somebody I can rely on instead.

Yet James also calls for leaders who can balance two demands. They must be ‘available to discuss and to understand the concerns of the people’, and yet also able to reconcile the independence or autonomy of everyone [with] trying to show everybody that they have to do their duty as part of a team.

There appear to be some notable differences in ideals here related to whether or not the participant makes any reference to experience of leadership outside of UK higher education (e.g. within the compulsory education sector, in industry and/or in a non-UK context) as a touchstone for comparison. Those who compare leadership models inside and outside the academy tend to describe academic leadership as being relatively ‘light touch’, and perhaps too ‘laissez

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faire’, by comparison with the more clearly defined and directorial styles of leadership (or management) experienced outside, although a number in that group also appreciate the relative freedom afforded to them by this more open and individualized tradition. Harold, who has prior experience of working in research in the civil service, notes these differences as he reflects on his previous place of work: The culture of that place in contrast to the University was very hierarchical … There was much less freedom. [But] if you wanted something done it was always somebody’s job to do it and it would get done. … The thing about being an academic is that in contrast to a proper job it’s very rare that anyone tells you what to do. … Universities are really confederations of the self-employed and every academic is really working for themselves; although in an ideal department, people get along and collaborate where they have to.

Toulouse, coming into academia after a long career in industry, feels that the leaders inside the university should have ‘more accountability’, and should be required to report back more systematically to their own leaders on the progress of the academics assigned to them. He continues, Then you could understand where you’ve got a gap, a development gap in the department … [The problem is] there’s never any interim review … Sloppy, isn’t it, you know? … Good leadership … is being fair and strong and being directive.

Amy, who also has experience of leadership in industry, elaborates on what for her a good leader should be. She emphasizes, as do a number of other participants, the importance of their making time for career-related guidance: An academic leader should be … almost like a career counsellor, so should be discussing your aims and objectives, where you want your career to go, … helping you shape where you want to be on one, three or five years’ time, and then giving you suggestions on how to get there and supporting you in that process.

Clare, who has many years of experience of teaching in the compulsory education sector, has a similar perspective, suggesting that an academic leader should really get to know [the assigned academic] and where they’ve come from, where they are and perhaps where they want to go. I think that’s the most important thing, to find out whether they’re content with what they’re doing, whether they have aspirations, to set some goals and objectives, something to work towards in the coming year.

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The theme of the need for effective communication is the most frequently repeated motif across the set of interviews; there are many allusions to the need for leaders who are willing to engage in genuine dialogue, rather than simply conveying information. For Amy, this is about being ‘open’ and ‘communicative’; for Bert it is about ‘approachability’ and having the skills needed ‘to be able to get people to discuss issues’. Clare gives an impassioned account of the need for leaders to be able to listen and to interpret the needs and perspectives of the academics assigned to them: I think they’ve got to be very good listeners and offer the opportunity for the person that they’re working with to really express openly how they are feeling about the whole work situation and their role and their post. It’s not an occasion … to be talked at. I think it should be a much more open and communicative opportunity.

Clare, having experienced what she perceived to be a very poor relationship with her AL, goes on to speak at length about the communicative attitudes needed to be an effective leader: Academic Leads should have a great deal of sensitivity towards the person that they’re working with. [They need to learn] to communicate if they’re not naturally good communicators, because not all Academic Leads are going to be naturally good communicators and communicating is listening as well as speaking.

Communication in leadership here is represented as much more than a set of skills characterized by particular actions; effective communication requires a set of attitudes towards the academic colleague, including a genuine interest in and respect for that person. Clare argues that leaders need to have a real focus and show real interest in the person that they’re working with [and to show that by doing] their homework … so that they don’t come into [a meeting] cold and are well prepared.

Amy, among a number of others, considers the issue of who should be appointed to a leadership role in the first place, and again emphasizes the importance of communication as a necessary quality: I think it’s really important that we have academic leadership [but] I do think we have to make sure that they are the right leaders, because sometimes we judge people by how much money they bring in – generally it’s money we look at from

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the research side – or how long they’ve been here, and I think sometime you have to look a bit more closely at leadership qualities: can they communicate? Will they work with a team of people?

Amy, like a number of the interviewees, emphasizes the need for leaders and their colleagues to be ‘coming from the same page’, and would like to see the university attempt to match up ALs with those on the particular career path they have gone through themselves: So if they have a teaching background, then have teaching academics. If they’ve come from a research background, then have research academics.

The suggestion repeatedly in the interview data is that a good leader, the ‘right’ leader, necessarily has a range of attributes that enables genuine dialogue to occur. Ruth refers to the impact on individuals of university leaders not getting the communication right: We’ve seen examples recently where we haven’t had that communication from leadership, not just [academic] staff, but professional services staff as well, and senior management. When the communication’s not there, that makes people unhappy and other things just start going wrong. I think communication is the really big, important issue.

This communication needs not just ‘form’ but authenticity, Katherine feels; a genuine desire to engage on a number of levels. Katherine looks for leaders who are people with whom you can discuss your morality, your ethics, your way forward, the way you work with undergraduates, with postgraduates, with post-docs.

Sylvia’s summary seems to echo the words of many of the interviewees: I wonder whether in good leadership you might want to understand exactly what individuals need to help them fulfil their needs, because that makes them happy and they will stay and do a good job.

Taken as a whole, the interviews with AAs in this study construct ‘good’ leadership predominantly in terms of understanding and supporting others, empathy, the ability both to act with integrity and as a role model, and the willingness to engage in genuine dialogue. Academics in our study want to see in their leaders all of these personal qualities and knowledge and understanding of the whole ecosystem of higher education and the ability to make tough decisions to make that successful when needed.

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The Academic Leads’ stories There was broad agreement among the ALs interviewed about the characteristics of what ‘good’ academic leadership is – in principle. In their personal accounts, some ALs stress the importance of a leader’s having the right set of skills, while others emphasize a set of underpinning values. There is some difference in emphasis between those whose roles are predominantly focused on research (these are the majority by a ratio of around 3:1, both in the sample and in the institution as a whole) and those whose main focus is student education, but interviewees typically construct a sense of needing to respect both research and teaching as vital strands of academic practice. Most also see academic leadership as necessarily negotiating the sometimes differing needs of the institution itself and the individuals being led. The personal characteristics needed for good academic leadership are typically described by George, an AL who emphasizes the importance of ‘listening to the individual’ and of being led ‘in terms of where they are and where they want to go’. For George, The worst kind of academic lead … has a set idea about where they think an individual should be heading. … I could wholeheartedly disagree with some of the things they want to do, but I don’t necessarily see that as my role. I can see, having listened to them, it makes sense in terms of what they are doing … So my role, then, I feel, is to facilitate that and be a good listener.

Howard speaks similarly about the ‘human’ qualities of listening and empathy: The coaching side, the mentoring side – that, to me, is about being a human being. It’s actually about sitting down, talking to somebody, understanding where they’re coming from, obviously understanding the expectations of the university and then just seeing and talking through with them how they can maximize their potential. It’s just human skills, really. With the other side of the role you do need to implement various university policies and so forth.

Arthur echoes the importance of leading by consent: It’s much better to bring staff with you than to try and wield a stick all the time.

The most repeated motif is that of balance – or being, as Brandon describes it, ‘even handed’: You don’t tell people what to do, but on the other hand you have to be prepared to tell people that they need to tell themselves what to do.

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Brandon explains further, You have to be able to set targets … but at the same time … inspire people to do what they want to do within the framework of the expectations that are around. And to bring out the best in people. I think that communication role is extremely important.

Howard talks of the need on the one hand to be ‘very patient, but understanding … and supportive’, but on the other hand, he says, ‘if you’ve got somebody who’s underperforming you’ve actually got to be quite firm. … You’ve got to have a split personality [laughter]’. So some kind of balance needs to be struck between the personal and the strategic: People are going to be good at [being a leader] because they’re good listeners and they’ve got strategic oversight.

Diane talks of the need for good leaders in academia to balance the demands of research with those of the teaching and learning in that they must anticipate the needs of both the REF [Research Excellence Framework] and also the NSS [National Student Survey], so that we actually balance what research staff need to do [with] the demands of the students, and try to steer a way through that.

Brandon, too, feels that leaders should recognize and promote the importance of teaching as well as research. We see here reference again to the relationship between research and education (or teaching and learning): Are they separate, competing endeavours, or part of the same scholarly culture? What does balancing the two look like, and how can leaders help create that balance (Fung, BestersDilger and van der Vaart 2017)? For Arthur, leadership on the teaching-focused academic track includes ‘leading strategically important [education-related] projects across the faculty and so helping to improve the student experience’. He also refers to the need ‘strategically to lead on innovation and in the curriculum’. In this role, at Sunnyside, you can rise ‘all the way up to professor’: this is an example of developments in the sector whereby in some institutions greater reward and recognition are being given to academics who commit to student education (Fung and Gordon 2016) or to building on the synergies between research and education (Fung 2017), rather than prioritizing research. In this complex institutional culture, with its potentially competing priorities, there is, for some, a sense of difficulty for the university in making sure that all academic leaders have the necessary skills and attitudes. Brandon notes:

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Some of it is the intrinsic skills, I suppose, of the individuals who you choose for the job, but sometimes you don’t have a lot of choice, because you need a certain number of people to be ALs and they don’t all have the right skills set.

Howard also notes that not all ALs appointed are, in his view, ideal: There are some people I’ve met and found out they’re ALs and my jaw has dropped. … They’re just not on message; some of our ALs are so anti-establishment, it’s absolutely staggering.

Here we can see evidence of a tension between the value frameworks of individual academics, who become leaders, and the espoused goals and values of the institution in which they lead. It is interesting to consider what being ‘on message’, as Howard calls it, is in these times of complexity and change. How can leaders negotiate this kaleidoscope of complex processes, cultural subtleties and strategic priorities?

Discussion What can we learn from these stories? The data from those being led suggest that academics understand the need for strong academic leadership in the current higher education landscape and there is a lot of empathy for the complexities of leadership practice in these turbulent times. In addition, academics were clear that individuals could not just ‘plough their own furrow’ without considering the overall needs of the department or institution overall. Thus, academic leadership was seen as being a collective act (Bolden, Petrov and Gosling 2009). Shared understandings of good academic leadership included words like ‘respect’, ‘feeling valued’, ‘fairness’, ‘being realistic’ and being ‘open’, and ‘communicative’. In relation to distributed leadership practice then, it seems that academics are happy to work with leaders in achieving shared institutional goals as long as they perceive the decisions taken to be in the best interests of the group, that all people involved (those whose roles are teaching-focused as well as those who are research-focused) are treated fairly and with respect, and that leaders show effective communicate skills and engage in genuine dialogue with academics rather than just transmitting information. There were many similarities in our findings between the two groups. For example, from the leaders’ point of view, good academic leadership was characterized by holding ‘shared underpinning values’, ‘good listening and

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communication skills’, being ‘understanding’, ‘supportive’ and ‘even handed’, and ‘human’ in their relationships with academic staff. There also appeared to be a shared understanding of the need and difficulty in ‘balancing’ institutional and individual needs. One key theme that emerged from our data was the perceived need for appropriate career support for academics in relation to their chosen career path. This finding suggests that the focus of development training and support activities for academics who take on leadership roles may need to be widened from traditional activities (e.g. linked to managing conflict and finance) to include more discussions on individual staff development needs. Such a finding reflects the move towards more portfolio-based careers for academics, with career development responsibility seemingly shifting from the institution to the individual (Floyd 2012), and an accompanying shift in associated developmental needs for academic leaders (Floyd 2016). More fundamentally, it also suggests the need for academic work, including research and education, to be seen as a scholarly whole (Fung 2016), and for university leadership to be seen as a special form of academic endeavour directed at strengthening the synergies between these different areas – for the good of both the individuals themselves and their institutions. The tensions between what is deemed good for the individuals (both leaders and those who are led) and what is good for the institution lie at the heart of the challenge, and our data suggest that all parties appreciate explicit discussion about these tensions, so that shared solutions and indeed shared values and goals can be developed.

Conclusions To conclude this chapter, we identify five questions arising from our study in relation to the practice of distributed leadership for other institutions to consider: ●

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Are academic staff members at all levels actively enabled to participate in dialogue focused on meeting the institution’s complex challenges? Through that dialogue, are all parties able to explore shared values and thereby create shared goals and strategies? Is the institution providing sufficient spaces, both temporal and physical, so that academics within and across departments can meet, share, collaborate and create?

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Do institutions provide individually tailored leadership development opportunities for leaders that include career development strategies for staff ? Do the policies on distributed leadership and the ways in which they are implemented promote equality of opportunity and foster a culture of dialogue, inclusion and recognition?

References Bolden, R., Petrov, G. and Gosling, J. (2009) Distributed leadership in higher education: Rhetoric and reality. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37 (2), pp. 257–77. Brew, A. (2006) Research and Teaching: Beyond the Divide. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bryman, A. (2007) Effective Leadership in Higher Education. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Bush, T. (2011) Theories of Educational Leadership and Management. 4th edn. London: Sage. Creswell, J. (2014) Research Design. 4th edn. London: Sage. Floyd, A. (2012) ‘Turning points’: The personal and professional circumstances that lead academics to become middle managers. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 40 (2), pp. 272–84. Floyd, A. (2016) Supporting academic middle managers in higher education: Do we care? Higher Education Policy, 29 (2), pp. 167–83. doi: 10.1057/hep.2015.11. Floyd, A. and Fung, D. (2013) Focusing the Kaleidoscope: Investigating the Newly Formed Role of ‘Academic Lead’ at a Research-led University – End of Project Report. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Floyd, A. and Fung, D. (2015) Focusing the kaleidoscope: Exploring distributed leadership in an English university Studies in Higher Education. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2015.1110692. Flumerfelt, S. and Banachowski, M. (2011) Understanding leadership paradigms for improvement in higher education. Quality Assurance in Education, 19 (3), pp. 224–47. Fung, D. (2016) Strength-based scholarship and good education: The scholarship circle. Innovations in Education & Teaching International. doi: 10.1080/14703297.2016.1257951. Fung, D. (2017) A Connected Curriculum for Higher Education. London: UCL Press, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/a-connected-curriculum-for-highereducation. Fung, D. and Gordon, C. (2016) Rewarding Educators and Education Leaders in Research-Intensive Universities. York: Higher Education Academy.

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Fung, D., Besters-Dilger, J. and van der Vaart, R. (2017) Excellent Education in ResearchRich Universities. Leuven: League of European Universities (LERU). Gadamer, H.-G. (2004) Truth and Method. Translated by J. W. Marshall, 2nd edn. London: Continuum. Gronn, P. (2008) The future of distributed leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 46 (2), pp. 141–58. Holt, D., Palmer, S., Gosper, M., Sankey, M. and Allan, G. (2014) Framing and enhancing distributed leadership in the quality management of online learning environments in higher education. Distance Education, 35 (3), pp. 382–99. doi: 10.1080/01587919.2015.955261. Kezar A., Gallant, T. B. and Lester, J. (2011) Everyday people making a difference on college campuses: The tempered grassroots leadership tactics of faculty and staff. Studies in Higher Education, 36 (2), pp. 129–51. doi: 10.1080/03075070903532304. Newby, P. (2014) Research Methods for Education, 2nd edn. Abingdon: Routledge. Northouse P. G. (2013) Leadership: Theory and Practice, 6th edn. London: Sage. UNESCO (2015) Rethinking Education: Towards a Global Common Good? Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. van Ameijde, J. D. J., Nelson, P. C, Billsberry, J. and van Meurs, N. (2009) Improving leadership in Higher Education institutions: A distributed perspective. Higher Education, 58 (6), pp. 763–79. doi: 10.1007/s10734-009-9224-y.

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Research Leaders and Student Collaborators: Insights from Canada Sandra Acker, Anne Wagner and Michelle K. McGinn

Introduction An interest in research leadership and social justice led us to ask fourteen Canadian education academics with social justice commitments questions about the research projects for which they are principal investigators (PIs).1 All of the faculty members2 collaborate with doctoral and sometimes master’s students who are acting as research assistants (RAs) on these projects. In this chapter, we explore how faculty researchers talk about working with student RAs in the contemporary academic climate and whether their social justice commitments influence their approaches. At a theoretical level, we are concerned with the social production of research. We strive to understand social, emotional and political aspects of knowledge production in the social sciences (Griffin, Hamberg and Lundgren 2013; Platt 1976). Our own recent research indicates that academics in Ontario universities are struggling to adapt to heightened expectations for accountability and productivity associated with an ever-spreading research culture (Acker and Webber 2016a, b). We begin with some clarifications around Canadian doctoral education. Our interest is in doctoral students in the social sciences, broadly defined and including education. These students normally enter their programmes with a master’s degree, complete a year or more of coursework, take comprehensive examinations and write a dissertation overseen by a supervisor and other academics who together comprise a dissertation committee. Students frequently work part-time as RAs on projects headed by their dissertation supervisor or another faculty member; the project may or may not be related to their

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dissertation topic. It is important to understand that these RAs are not contract researchers who have the option of registering for a degree. They are students first, and if they work on a faculty project, it is because it either contributes to their funding package or builds their research experience. There are rules around hours, salaries and other features of RAs’ work; in some institutions, RAs are unionized. If the position is part of a university funding arrangement, there is typically some mechanism to match suitable students with faculty members who are looking for assistance. Otherwise, students may be hired independently as part-time workers by faculty members who pay them through research grants. Despite the prevalence of these RA positions, and their importance to the production of academic scholarship and the development of student research skills, this topic has received scant attention in the higher education literature (McGinn, Niemczyk and Saudelli 2013). Below we review relevant work on the PI–RA relationship and set it in a context of the contemporary corporatized university and the potential of social justice-based research.

Literature review PIs and RAs: Leaders and followers or leaders and leaders? The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), a major source of research funding in Canada, expects student training to be a core component of all projects. Other staff, such as postdoctoral scholars, contract researchers or research managers, can be hired only for the largest of projects and with a detailed rationale. Although students are trained in research practice through these projects, their efforts as workers must also contribute to the project goals and Canadian research production more broadly (Larivière 2012). Thus there is a blurring of student and worker roles that requires further investigation. Scholarship on the area of academic leadership generally focuses on the university’s governance hierarchy, especially its senior ranks. For example, two recent Canadian books present rather dramatic stories about university presidents (Marsden 2016; Paul 2015) who are called upon to show a certain amount of heroism ‘under fire’ (Paul 2015). Other studies examine vice-presidents, provosts and sometimes deans (Deem 2012). In recent years, especially in the UK (Bolden, Petrov and Gosling 2008, 2009), interest has grown in leadership

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styles that allow room for collaboration, emergent expertise and bottom-up input, and terms such as ‘distributive’ or ‘distributed’, ‘shared’, ‘collegial’ and ‘participative’ leadership have been brought into the lexicon (Crawford 2012). Despite its democratic appeal, distributed leadership is not without critics, for example, Lumby (2013: 581), who argues that persistent structural barriers, such as those associated with gender and race, are occluded under the cover of wider participation or ‘inclusivity lite’. Although PIs might have a formal leadership title such as chair (head of department) or dean, they are not part of the university hierarchy by virtue of their PI role. Unusually, Bolden, Petrov and Gosling (2009: 264) observe that opportunities to ‘lead’ in research are available to a wide range of academics (thus distributed) and could provide a useful first experience in ‘managing budgets and people’ with fewer tensions than typically found in line management positions. Although Bolden, Petrov and Gosling may underestimate how difficult it can be to lead a research team, especially for new academics, their comment highlights the research leadership aspect of the PI role. To a certain extent, the PI is a blend of both leader and manager, for PIs set directions and provide vision for projects, and (in the Canadian context) also provide most of the day-to-day organization and administration.3 However, PIs are not in institutional designations as research leaders comparable to a vice president for research; nor are they formally research managers hired specifically to guide a large project or several projects. PIs supervise RAs. RAs may have the potential and sometimes the opportunity to show leadership; yet we hesitate to regard such distributed leadership as standard practice. We see academic project teams as somewhat unstable mixtures of individuals with competing commitments: academics who also teach, supervise and do other work; students who study, do their own research and sometimes work on additional projects. What do we know about how students are mentored or trained through the RA experience? In the United States, Maher et al. (2013) applied the notion of cognitive apprenticeship to describe the ways RA supervisors model the research process, coach novices, scaffold the tasks assigned so they become increasingly difficult, and finally encourage transfer of learning to other situations. Davies and Horst (2015), drawing on interviews with PIs in scientific fields in Denmark, depicted research management as a craft process (dealing with uncertainty, working with trial and error) that requires caring (emotional labour, maintaining the group, altruism). McGinn, Niemczyk and Saudelli (2013) documented eight

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months of interactions in a Canadian university between a research supervisor in education and a master’s student RA. The RA, who had little previous research training, worked closely with the supervisor across all phases of an interviewbased project; her intellectual growth resembled the cognitive apprenticeship model described by Maher et al. (2013). The authors argued that this research assistantship was equitable, educative and ethical. In the United States, Narendorf et al. (2016) surveyed 109 and interviewed 13 assistant professors4 in social work programmes who were provided with student RAs. The ostensible purpose of the assistance – easing the work for these new faculty members – seldom materialized. Challenges included deficiencies in ‘knowledge, skills, or commitment on the part of the RA’ (23), logistical difficulties, time pressures, limited task delegation, and administrative and structural issues related to funding and recruitment. These varied accounts suggest that despite the presence of leadership and/ or management, as well as collaboration and student learning, the conditions under which the process occurs is frequently more complex than realized and more haphazard than intended.

Academic work in the contemporary corporatized university The contemporary university context is significant when exploring social justice research and different leadership styles. Certainly, there has been no shortage of critical commentary over the past several decades on the intensification of academic work (Acker and Webber 2016a, b); the heightened emphasis on securing external research funding (Acker and Wagner 2017; Metcalfe and Fenwick 2009; Polster 2007); and the spread of new managerialism and invasive measures of accountability (Leathwood and Read 2013). Student research assistance is rarely discussed in these accounts; yet these trends could certainly affect faculty–RA relationships. Academics in Canadian social science are not only pressured to secure funding, they are also expected to integrate student training into these projects. Short of time and pushed to increase productivity, faculty may rely more strongly on RAs but simultaneously have less time to mentor and nourish them. Maher et al. (2013) mentioned time issues (see also Gornall and Salisbury, 2012; Ylijoki and Mäntylä 2003), and Narendorf et al. (2016) raised concerns about the challenges new academics faced when they were assigned student assistants without first receiving appropriate training or professional development.

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Social justice research work Although the turn towards new managerialism in universities has taken centre stage in the critical literature, there is a competing theme that also interests us: the increasing diversity among students (and less so, professors) and the concomitant spread of scholarship on equity and diversity, sometimes labelled ‘social justice research’. A project leader with a feminist commitment might try to incorporate principles such as subverting hierarchy, challenging power, promoting egalitarianism, collaborating and incorporating an ethic of care into team operations (Acker and Wagner, 2017; Mauthner and Edwards 2010), despite their potential incompatibility with the new managerialism priorities described above. Within social justice research in general, project teams might be expected to be more reflexive about their process and it is therefore not surprising that literature on such teams raises issues of ‘time, power, flexibility and trust’ (Kaasila and Lutovac 2015: 177). A few studies describe clashing politics and perspectives rooted in backgrounds, identities and disciplines (Houston et al. 2010; Lingard et al. 2007; Mountz et al. 2003). These studies move away from a simple PI–RA dyad to encompass the complexities of group interactions and social settings. A team built around a social justice framework may also have positive aspects, such as increasing opportunities and mentoring for marginalized students, distributing leadership opportunities in novel ways and working through differences to become more strongly collaborative.

Methods Participants were fourteen academics from three research-intensive5 faculties of education in Ontario, Canada. Among them were nine women and five men; three scholars of colour and eleven white scholars; eight full professors, five associate professors and one assistant professor. The earliest birthdate was 1948, the most recent 1980. Experience in the university sector ranged from a few years to over forty. While most of our participants held or had previously held ‘lower middle management’ positions (Acker 2014), such as programme coordinator, and three had served in middle management roles as departmental chair (head) or associate dean, none held senior management positions. Through academic websites and personal and professional networks, we sought participants who had been PIs for at least one externally funded project and whose research appeared to us to display a commitment to social justice, broadly defined. In

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some cases, these commitments were fairly obvious, centred in feminism or anti-racism, while in others they were more subtle, such as research on youth welfare. Our intention was to secure a range of perspectives rather than to be statistically representative. The study received ethics clearance through our universities. Qualitative, semistructured interviews of around ninety minutes covered academic background and current responsibilities, research history and focus, experiences of research leadership and working with teams, ideas for research development, supports or hindrances for research, balance between research and other responsibilities and demographic questions. We used listings of research projects on CVs to stimulate discussion. Once we had identified key themes through provisional coding, we returned to the transcripts and coded selectively (Charmaz 2010: 188). For this chapter, we identified statements relevant to leadership and collaboration with graduate student RAs, working in the contemporary academic context and integrating commitments to social justice into the operation of research teams.

Leadership and collaboration Faculty may be simultaneously juggling several funded and unfunded projects; these projects may or may not include graduate students, few or many, and they may be of varying duration. At the same time, these academics are teaching, carrying out departmental or wider university service responsibilities and supervising doctoral dissertations. We focus here on their work with RAs.

Devising work for students An important reason for recruiting student RAs, especially for grants from SSHRC, is that PIs and students (with co-investigators, if any, who are academics from the same or a different institution) are expected to do the actual work of the project. Thus, for faculty researchers, finding ‘really committed students who are self-driven’ (Michael)6 is critical to project success. Students’ assignments include reviewing literature, interviewing, organizing surveys, coding, analysing data, delivering conference papers and many other

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activities. Nicole, who has several well-funded projects, outlined a formal approach to planning learning experiences for a student assistant: [Name] is new to the country. English is not his second or third language even, so he has some contextual learning that he has to bring up to speed. … His task right now is that he will take all of the interviews and read the transcriptions listening … to make sure there are no mistakes and to clean them up if there are any. … It will hopefully help him with his language skills … and he’ll pick up on the Ontario education system.

Nicole’s approach would be termed ‘devolved’ in Bolden, Petrov and Gosling’s (2009) typology, as she largely prescribes what each student will do. In contrast, Christopher described what Bolden, Petrov and Gosling call an ‘emergent’ example of leadership when an RA took the initiative: [A graduate student and I] sat down and talked about something he was interested in looking at. … We have met regularly and he took off and did a statistical kind of analysis … and now it’s going to get published. … So he’s the lead author, as it should be, and he did an amazing job.

Most faculty worked with two to eight students at a time and developed a style in between precise assignment of tasks and completely emergent responsibilities.

Developing a leadership style The participants tried to capture the delicate balance between depending on students to do the work of the project while also trying to train, mentor and support them. For some, project leadership involved careful planning: ‘I can be a task master’ (Nicole); ‘I plan everything and I’m always prepared for it so that keeps things going’ (Marilyn). At the other extreme are Richard, who likes to ‘set people up and then let them do it’; William, who indicates ‘I’m not one who is constantly controlling the process’ and Michael, who tells students ‘look, the thing that you have to understand about working with me is that I’m going to give you a task and I’m probably not going to follow up on that, and you get to decide’. A gender divide appeared to be operating, as most of the women described careful planning, while most of the men were relatively ‘hands-off ’. Perhaps as a result of the tensions within the role, several participants were hesitant to equate heading a research project with acting as ‘leaders’. Melissa thought a more appropriate term would be ‘mentor’, whereas Janet preferred ‘teacher’.

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Attempting to collaborate If not leaders and followers, did faculty regard their relationships with students as collaborations? Jennifer said that she ‘really likes to collaborate’. She has put together a group of students who are RAs, supervisees and other interested parties, and ‘we have been meeting once a week for three hours’. She likes that ‘everybody is helping one another, and the more they help one another, the easier it is for me, but also if I help them in the context where everybody else can see, it builds on itself ’. She continued, I tend to bring a lot of the decisions to the group to figure out who is going to do what, or we’re all going to learn this thing and everybody is going to take a shot at doing it, and we’ll come back and we’ll do this coding together, whatever. We were developing some analysis together.

Yet Jennifer was aware that that there are limits to collaboration and emergent leadership and that she holds the ultimate responsibility where there is a grant or a contract: ‘In reality, “I’m your boss.” ’ Carol appeared to delegate tasks in a thoughtful way and was rewarded by enthusiastic students. In the best-case scenario, she has helped students to gain confidence and learn new skills. As a result, ‘[all] of us feel good’. Echoing Maher et al.’s (2013) cognitive apprenticeship approach, she explained, The person is like, ‘well, I haven’t done that before’. And [I say] ‘well, I’ll help you. We can do this’. … In most instances, it has worked out very positively that the person did more than they ever thought they could do.

The question of where power is located or how it circulates in the PI–RA relationship is complex. In some cases, the PI is also the dissertation supervisor, which would intensify his or her authority role. However, in other cases, the student may only work for the PI for a short time and (especially if their remuneration comes from the university rather than the PI’s grant) may gradually drift away without incurring any apparent untoward consequences. Faculty all had stories of such cases, which is why they generally preferred to locate a suitable RA through their teaching and other contacts and pay them from a grant. There were occasional, but rare, anecdotes of students who had done something dramatic to upset a project. More frequently, faculty complained about situations where the work just did not get done: for example, ‘In the beginning of the summer I say these are the things that I want to have done and I revisit them in July and nothing is done and in August nothing is still done’ (Nicole). Nicole’s response was simply

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to pull back on any mentoring efforts for those individuals. Others regarded the disappointments as par for the course: ‘Life gets in the way for people and that’s something you have to live with’ (William). Another problem was the occasional flair-up of what Heather called ‘student strife’. She pointed to competition for very few jobs for PhD graduates in a particular field and difficulties in managing the team when ‘the money runs out’. Michael described a situation where he belatedly realized that the students in his team were competing for his attention, which harmed the project: ‘I was naive to the fact that even the perception of favouritism and of preferential treatment can have a really negative impact on the way that the students get along with each other or not.’ Michael believed that the situation reflected a gender dynamic as his students were all young women. In fact, this instance, as well as Heather’s examples, speaks to ways in which apparent interpersonal communication issues have a structural basis, as in Narendorf et al.’s (2016) study. We can go further to identify several major structural factors impacting upon our participants and their students. First, a key inhibiter is that students are part-time, temporary workers with competing commitments. As Janet stated, ‘there’s a million things going on, some of which are work, like other courses, and some of which are just life. They’re young and they have other things that they want to be doing and so some are more committed than others.’ Full-time students may take up part-time teaching or other employment, or be engaged in internships; part-time students tend to have full-time employment off-campus. The duration of funding does not always align with student degree timelines. Second, there are issues related to work quality. Doctoral students receive some research training and experience during master’s degrees and in doctoral coursework, but what they have learned may not meet the research requirements of a particular project. RAs are not well-trained contract researchers hired for specific skills. PIs have to decide whether (and how) to push RAs beyond their comfort zones (Carol’s example), which might clash with what Susan called ‘playing to [their] strengths’ and potentially with the good of a project. Questions may arise about the quality of the work RAs produce even with training. As Jennifer reported, ‘I couldn’t rely on my students because I’m training them and teaching them how to do research, and I wasn’t going to rely on those collective papers to go anywhere. I couldn’t count on them even being finished.’

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Academic work in challenging times Focusing on structure leads us to aspects of the contemporary university landscape that may be impacting upon PI–RA relationships in ways that might not be fully appreciated. Below we discuss two possibilities: the pressures upon our participants to secure external funding for projects that will employ students as researchers, and the ‘time crunch’ that makes it increasingly difficult to achieve the balance of work and learning that would be the ideal outcome of these projects.

Playing the research game Securing externally funded grants was an expected part of being an academic in these universities. Several participants had applied multiple times to SSHRC for funding before achieving success, moving to other funding sources or working without funding. Participants characterized their grant seeking efforts as ‘trying to play the grant-getting game’ (Melissa). They felt pressure to seek grants to secure their academic futures and status and to be seen as contributing academics: ‘I brought in a good SSHRC and so that’s like being a good citizen of the department’ (Marilyn). This perceived need to secure external funding shaped the research the participants did or proposed to do (Acker et al. 2017). Janet spoke of ‘quite selfconsciously trying to frame a fundable project’. Trying to predict what made a project ‘fundable’ was a challenge. Among other observations was the generally shared belief that ‘SSHRC is obsessed with student training’ (Amy). Heather explained that her strategy was ‘trying to write the students in as big as we could’. In other words, the participants saw the strategic value of preparing grant applications that included extensive student involvement because they believed adjudication committees considered student training favourably.

The time crunch PIs received no formal rewards or recognition for working with RAs. Yet ‘leading’ a project made up of untrained or partly trained student workers inevitably took up precious time. Time was an ongoing concern for these busy academics. Heather commented, ‘I think the demands of the job are exceptionally high, and that hinders what happens’, and Michael admitted, ‘The truth is I don’t have time to be micromanaging.’

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The intersection of the time crunch and the expectations for student training resulted in a persistent lament about duplicating effort: I basically have to do all the work myself anyway. The student can maybe compile some articles for me, but I’m going to be reading all of them anyway. I can’t rely on a summary. (Melissa) It’s extremely rare for me to feel as if my research assistants have really assisted. I feel as if we are working together, but again, it would be easier to do it myself. (Janet)

Participants were frustrated at the lack of recognition for this extensive responsibility and the uncertainty of finding and keeping students who would make real contributions to their projects. In the next section, we describe how social justice commitments shape the ways PIs undertook research and worked with RAs.

Implementing social justice in a research team Despite institutional constraints and heavy workloads, some participants conceptualized RA involvement as an opportunity to integrate their social justice commitments into their research practice. In this way, they moved beyond the challenges identified above and instead focused on the ways their work was ultimately enriched and could effect positive social change. Janet, for example, identified four ways that social justice considerations entered into her research: ‘One is the sort of topic itself. … The second is choosing [the] contexts and the third is more in the analytical frame. … [Also] I try to do things that contribute something to the people I’m studying.’ These scholars described possibilities for prioritizing the needs and interests of RAs as a form of social justice. When participants had grant funding, they could make strategic hiring decisions. In a climate of declining availability of tenure-track jobs for doctoral graduates (Muzzin 2009), targeted hiring was a strategy to make students from marginalized groups competitive in the job market post-graduation. Paul remarked, ‘The academy has not been that friendly a climate for [minority scholars].’ As a result, he deliberately recruits racialized students as RAs as a means of mentoring them and providing opportunities. Michael echoed Paul, ‘I would say if I am going to be completely transparent, I do make it my priority to mentor scholars of color.’ Paul and William made special efforts to collaborate with students in their research work and their publications. For example, William

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commented, ‘A lot of my publications are with students. And many of them have been PhD students, and … many times I might give them first authorship, and that’s deliberate.’ Participants were aware of student financial difficulties. Heather, Nicole, Richard, Susan, Melissa and others foregrounded the significance of paying for conference attendance for students who struggled financially. Janet applied for additional grants because many of her RAs are international students with few alternative opportunities for employment: ‘So if I can write another [grant application] to get another slot, I’d bring them in.’ Commitments to marginalized students and social justice supported a leadership style that evoked Davies and Horst’s (2015) emphasis on caring and craft and Mauthner and Edwards’s (2010) discussion of feminist research management. As we showed earlier, many participants consciously tried to be collaborative and less hierarchical. Some adapted their projects to the interests and skills of RAs or undertook additional side projects to accommodate those interests. Janet added three case studies in different countries to her international research to match the backgrounds of the RAs working with her; the students thus became ‘emergent leaders’ in a slice of her project. Susan gave similar examples: ‘So when I have a student who says that’s what I am most interested in, I immediately say how can I make that possible in the context of this study?’

Conclusion This study uncovered dynamics of graduate student involvement in faculty research that have not been broadly explored to date. Increasing expectations related to research productivity and the accumulation of external grants affect the ways academics conduct their research and the social dynamics that underlie knowledge production. Acknowledging the small sample size, geographic homogeneity (all within Ontario, Canada), single (although multidisciplinary) subject area and the inclusion of faculty perspectives without corresponding RA viewpoints, the findings nonetheless identified some pervasive tensions as well as opportunities associated with students’ inclusion in the social production of knowledge. As noted earlier, time is a key focus in academe (Gibbs et al. 2015; Vostal 2015). Pressures to inflate research productivity within the contemporary academic context may mean greater faculty dependence on graduate students as RAs in order to save time, yet participants tell us that it takes time to teach or direct students, or that they lack time to do more than ‘set people up and

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then let them do it’, in Richard’s words. A common challenge of meaningfully engaging students in research projects involved reconciling their simultaneous roles as workers and learners. Faculty were perpetually balancing the need to be productive and thus ensure that RAs completed the work assigned with the recognition that RAs were also learners who required training, mentoring and collaborative opportunities to develop as researchers (Browning, Thompson and Dawson 2011; McGinn 2015). Participants struggled with these competing priorities in the Canadian social science context where substantial student participation is an expectation of the main research funding body. Although these academics are pushed to obtain external grants, the impact of adding supervision of student RAs to other work (but not crediting it as teaching) has not really been investigated. Nor has there been much discussion of the fact that Canadian education (and other) academics tend not to be trained to manage or lead research projects beyond their own dissertations. Consistent with the findings of Davies and Horst (2015: 371), we uncovered a considerable amount of ‘caring craftwork’ in the form of leadership through building and nurturing a team. This caring work is especially significant because it directly challenges traditional positivist research approaches that stress detachment and objectivity and it is usually edited out of publishable findings (Davies and Horst 2015). Many participants deliberately and altruistically structured their projects to mirror their social justice commitments. Although similar efforts have been noted in feminist research (e.g. Krane et al. 2012; Mauthner and Edwards 2010; Pratt 2010), our findings expand upon the range of social justice framings and the multiplicity of ways that such priorities might be operationalized. Consequences for students of these rather haphazard and often strained – though at times productive and positive – approaches to leadership, collaboration and research development have not been fully considered. Mauthner and Doucet (2008: 973) write, ‘There is a critical gap in our understanding of academic collaborative processes.’ Hence, this research serves as an initial foray into complex aspects of research teams and research leadership that merit further attention.

Notes 1 Depending on country, individuals leading research projects may be known as grant holders, directors, or principal, lead or chief investigators. Consistent with the terminology preferred by the Canadian research councils, we use the term principal

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investigators (PIs) and also refer to supervisors when describing oversight of research assistant work. North American terminology uses faculty and graduate students for what might elsewhere be termed academic staff and postgraduate students. Some administrative functions may be fulfilled by departmental business officers, or their equivalent, who (among other tasks) oversee financial information for funded projects within a department. Normally assistant professors are early career academics on the so-called tenure track, that is, with the possibility of achieving a permanent position following a thorough review of their research, teaching and service about five or six years after hiring (see Acker and Webber 2016a). Promotion to an associate professorship accompanies or follows tenure and a further promotion to full professor may occur later in the career. Although there are different ways to categorize universities, our simplification here is to regard institutions with ready access to PhD students as ‘research intensive’. All names are pseudonyms.

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A Paradoxical Blend of Scientific Authority and Distributed Leadership: Exploring Higher Education Research Collaborations in Spain Julián López-Yáñez and Mariana Altopiedi

Introduction This chapter will analyse collaboration relationships and leadership patterns in two Spanish research groups. The empirical basis of this analysis derives from a broader study, the main purpose of which was to identify organizational features and social dynamics of acknowledged research groups from Andalusia. The second phase of this research consisted of an ethnographical study on four of the research groups that participated in the first phase, and which we draw on here. These groups were identified as ‘excellent’ on the basis of their productivity and their capacity to obtain financial resources, among other criteria. Sample selection also took into account other issues including diversity of knowledge fields (ecology, fluid engineering, archaeology and neuropsychology); institutional filiations (three of them belong to different universities, while the other is part of a national research institute that has no grade-teaching functions); and size (small or medium). The second phase of this study focused on work-site practices and group ethos. A detailed description of the research design and conclusions of that study can be found in López-Yáñez and Altopiedi (2015). In this chapter, we describe the social dynamics that allowed those groups to achieve recognition and relevance in their scientific fields. In particular, we focus on their collaborative relationships and the leadership patterns that sustained those relationships.

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Scientific collaboration in an era of academic capitalism The field of scientific research presents interesting paradoxes for researchers on social organizations. One of them is the increasing need for collaboration in the context of a system that, paradoxically, promotes competition as it takes the amount of production as the principal key of success. Clearly, science develops in a collective way (Gibbons et al. 1994) and requires collaborative relationships at different levels (Boardman and Corley 2008). Organizations, laboratories and groups are the habitual context of scientific knowledge production. In many places around the world, they tend to concentrate in areas or parks dedicated to science and technology, promoting interdisciplinary and international collaboration (Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons 2003). Research groups also develop a determinant role in this system. They are the locus where scientific socialization takes place. That means that behavioural models, values and social meanings as well as the rules of each scientific field – the ‘scientific habitus’ (Bourdieu 2008) – are learnt by the newcomers inside the group (Blasi and Romagnosi 2012). Additionally, social and emotional support received by the researchers from their reference groups is decisive in keeping the high level of motivation required by such a demanding task (Hackett et al. 2004). All this explains the ‘organizational turn’ operated in the field of sociology of science (Fernández and Torres 2009), where increasing interest is paid to organizational conditions and institutional dynamics affecting academic performance (Hoffman et al. 2013). Nowadays, scientific practices are framed by so-called ‘academic capitalism’ (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). This tendency can be characterized as the generalization of assessment and accountability mechanisms and the increasing pressure of university rankings or ‘league tables’ (Strathern 2000; Tight 2000; Liu and Cheng 2005; Elken, Hovdhaugen and Stensaker 2016), the growing selectivity of the scientific research (Harley 2002), the changes in financial patterns (Lewis 2000; Willmott 2003; Reale and Seeber 2011), as well as the consequent shifts in the scientists’ habitus from public intellectuals to skilful funding attractors. These new conditions are the visible consequence of the establishment of ‘researcher–entrepreneur’ university that represents the second revolution in higher education (Etzkowitz 2002). This follows the first that took place during the nineteenth century, which was a move from a teaching university to a teaching‒researcher one. The tight union between scientific and entrepreneurial initiatives has represented undeniable benefits in many knowledge fields

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(Etzkowitz 2003). However, it has also become a focus of tensions for groups. Among these tensions the following can be underlined: autonomy versus external control and supervision; autonomy versus group affiliation; mainstream acceptance versus originality and openness to new research lines; collaboration inside the group versus competition among researchers, as well as among researchers and leaders: change versus stability in group’s composition and in its research interests; scientific versus managerial leadership; and hierarchy versus participation (Hackett 2005; Hoffman et al. 2013). The new researcher–entrepreneur university has everywhere adopted the same ideological principles and the discourses of ‘new managerialism’ (Deem 1988; Deem and Brehony 2005; Ferlie, Musselin and Andresani 2008) and established new rules for the participants in the ‘research game’ (Lucas 2006): these are marketization, elitization, resources concentration and hierarchization. Negative consequences of these transformations must be taken into account and include the stratification of groups and researchers on the basis of their capacity to obtain financial support; the increase of uncertainty about the continuity of long-term projects; work overload, the lack of independence; and so on (Ylijoki 2003). In this context, the coexistence of market values (capacity to obtain financial resources, efficiency, networking, etc.) and the traditional values of scientific research (autonomy, freedom, scientific reputation, intellectual capital, etc.) is, at least, complicated. All these changes are generating tensions and dilemmas in the identity building of scientists (Kyvik 2013) and their organizations (Jacob and Hellström 2003) too. The idea of the scientist as an autonomous craftsperson thus coexists with that of a factory worker, carrying out a small part of a whole task according to the specifications of a large corporation (Krige 1993). The complexity of the new ways of making science requires groups more than single scientists working in the isolation of their own laboratories. Actually, almost no scientist has their own laboratory these days. Instead, laboratories are big installations equipped with very expensive devices that need to be financially supported by states with strong research and development policies, or by industries hoping to secure millionaire benefits from their investments. As we have already shown (López-Yáñez and Altopiedi 2015), groups conform to a situated ‘ethos’ in the early stages of their development. Internal collaboration emerges in such a framework where members co-operate to achieve common goals while they try to preserve their own (Hoffman et al. 2013). That means that a scientist’s identity is constructed in the frame of a particular organizational

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culture (Deem and Lucas 2007; Hackett 2005) which establishes the shared assumptions and the collectively accepted ways of working and living together (Harvey, Pettigrew and Ferlie 2002). Also important for analysing the social dynamics of the research groups is to explore the role of leaders, particularly their impact on the group social climate (Pirola-Merlo et al. 2002; Blasi and Romagnosi 2009). Leaders’ personalities and styles have particular relevance, as they seem to influence knowledge production conditions (Travaille and Hendriks 2010) in that they appear to deeply influence the responses to the tensions experienced by the group, including pressures to increase publications or to attract new members, or the contradictions between the exercise of control and the adoption of a democratic style of functioning (Hemlin 2006).

The cases Pleiades1 is a group consisting of twenty-five researchers in the field of archaeology, a discipline at the crossroads of multiple fields – from history of art to geography, and more. This particularity explains the diversity of its members’ backgrounds. While some of them have an academic profile, other members have a professional profile, usually as in charge of protection and management of cultural heritage in public and private organizations. One advantage of such a configuration is that it allows complementing the funding obtained in public calls for scientific research with those addressed to projects regarding the recovery and preservation of the archaeological and cultural heritage, both inside the country and abroad. At the same time, academic members of Pleiades belong to three different universities, located in two Andalusian cities. The Pleiades research group was founded in 1992, when its leader – an acknowledged academic – moved to a small university, followed by a few young researchers. Having a consolidated academic career, she moved repeatedly from one organization to another, assuring the opportunity of promotion to some members of the group that remained in the original university each time. Nowadays, she is close to retirement and, in her own words, ‘going out on tiptoe’, proud of having created a sort of constellation of groups that are relatively autonomous but interconnected in practice by means of an array of shared projects. The size and the institutional dispersion of this group not only affect the closeness of the links among researchers and increase the variety of experiences and expectations about research work, they also make the borders of the group

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itself less clear. A sign of this feature is the difficulty that interviewees found in responding about the composition of the group: I think we are fifteen … (INV_01) I really don’t know … every year come and go and I am not in relation with everybody. (INV_17)

That dispersion is also seen as a feature that characterized Pleiades as a group. In that sense, INV_01 affirms that ‘the philosophy of our groups [...] is not to be an unitary group, united and doing always the same things’. These characteristics represent an evident source of uncertainty that must be managed. Pleiades tackle this potential risk on the basis of the following features: a high level of specialization; a clear distribution of responsibilities; and a strong sense of group belonging. Special characteristics of the fieldwork in the area of archaeology determine the kind of required specialization. The archaeological site is a shared space where the whole group works together for long periods. In this context, specialization has to do with the type of the expected archaeological remains in terms of historical stage, and of the kind of artistic or cultural manifestation (e.g. a researcher is specialized in numismatic from the early Romanic period). On the other hand, responsibilities are distributed among the group in order to respond to the necessity of managing well-founded projects that involve varied public organizations and private firms. Regarding the sense of belonging, this is based on some shared values as well as on the unquestionable respect accorded to the leader who is perceived as the heroine of a saga called to develop major tasks. Other leaders are equally recognized and respected as part of a familial structure where each member occupies a precise position, avoiding in this way any potential conflict or rivalry. That can be seen in the feeling of ‘being orphans’ referred to by INV_02, regarding the leader’s departure. The second research group, Gaia, was founded in 1998, under the ‘pioneer modality’ like Pleiades: the pioneer is taken here as a senior and outstanding researcher who attracts a group of young academics. That modality makes sense in opposition to the ‘collegial’ one, in which two or more researchers decide to follow the same research line (Rey-Rocha, Martín-Sempere and Sebastián 2008: 749). Pioneer modality supposes the existence of two hierarchical, clearly asymmetric levels. Data gathered in our study support the idea that collaboration patterns inside the group are strongly affected by the group foundation modality. Curiously, Gaia has an antecedent, as a former research group organized

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according to the collegial modality around two acknowledged researchers – one of them is the current director of the group – that had to disperse because of the differences and tensions that emerged between them. This group is dedicated to ecology, a still emergent scientific field. In opposition to Pleiades, Gaia does not belong to the university but to one of the regional centres of the most important scientific institution in the country: the Consejo Superior de Investigación Científica (CSIC). It is a small group, made up of ten members. Just a few of them have a permanent contract with the institution. The core belonging to the CSIC is constituted by the leader and two consolidated researchers as well as by two laboratory technicians. They also count on some pre- and postgraduate students who spend part of their training period with the group. Obviously, that supposes a high turnover among the junior members. The scientific capital of Gaia’s leader is very high, materialized in its productivity, in the high impact of their publications, and membership of editorial councils and public scientific organizations. Just as in Pleiades, Gaia’s researchers are highly specialized, focusing on the study of some species or ecological environment. The autonomy required by such specialization coexists with clearly asymmetrical relationships among the members. In that context, the leader is the scientific authority, the manager of the community and, in some ways, a parent who takes care of the group’s well-being. He is also well respected by the other members of the group who recognize his intellectual capacities as extraordinary. Recently, a member of Gaia’s intermediate generation has started to assume the direction and management of her own research projects in what makes clear the asymmetry of the relationships inside the group, at least from the academic point of view. In this sense, while Pleiades’ leader is seen as the soul of the group and everyone refers to her as ‘Doña Pilar’, Gaia’s has a slightly lower status, determining that relationships are more egalitarian and less formal with him. Besides, as happens with Pleiades’ leader, Gaia’s head is perceived as someone who takes care of the group’s well-being, somewhat like a head of a household. As such, he foresees and intervenes in conflicts, or is in charge of the managerial tasks, conserving the time of the rest of the group in order that they can concentrate on the scientific task. Both groups present similar values in their respective ethos, like compromise, responsibility and the relevance attributed to work and personal effort. They also show specific values such as intellectual modesty, in the case of Pleiades – in some ways imposed by specialization – and enthusiasm regarding the scientific task, in the case of Gaia.

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Collaboration strategies inside the groups A previous condition to analysing collaboration practices inside the scientific groups is to know how they focus their object of study. In both cases, the individual researcher chooses his or her object on the basis of a blend of autonomy and constraints. These latter are imposed by the projects in which the whole group is involved under the direction of the group leader. We have called this strategy ‘complementary autonomy’. It warrants the autonomy and interdependence among the researchers: each of them has a specific field which is elucidated, in some way, by the knowledge achieved by the others. There are many reasons for this strategy. The accomplishment of outstanding projects such as the one developed by Pleiades since 2003 – with high public as well as private financial support – requires a significant effort in managing different fields and coordinating many specialized researchers. Something similar happens in the field of ecology, where the study of each species concentrates the efforts of researchers but makes ‘whole sense’ only relative to the other species that share an environment or habitat, which is the group’s real object of study. The so-called strategy of ‘complementary autonomy’ brings some important benefits to the researchers as well as to the group. On the one hand, it underpins the specialization that allows the researchers to stand out in a well-delimitated field. On the other, it allows the group to analyse the whole samples obtained in fieldwork from the point of view of a knowledge constructed in common. This can be exemplified by the way they organized the shared work developed in a roman palace that [It] is INV_02 who is in charge of it, but the Andalusi construction is studied by us. If some decoration appears, [it] is CM who studies it … if there is a burial, it is analyzed by LO … you know who you have to ask. (INV_04 and INV_14)

This strategy prevents the emergence of confrontations inside the group, counteracting the risk of a break in solidarity and cooperation among researchers, which derives from the competitiveness inherent in much scientific activity (Lucas 2006). Actually, there were no apparent conflicts or confrontations in any of the studied cases. The only and discrete disagreements identified derived from the necessity of assuming some undesirable task, like tasks related to management. However, even rejected tasks seem to be accepted as something that ‘someone has to do’. In a similar concept to ‘complementary autonomy’, Hackett (2005: 807) talks about ‘collaborative competence’. This is when a leader encourages the members

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to undertake their own projects autonomously, increasing the visibility of the whole group in the field. At the same time, this offers members the opportunity of defining and conducting their own research lines. Even if ‘collaboration’ is referred here mainly as regarding professional relationships inside the groups, we have also to mention collaboration with external researchers. In the frame of this work, we call it ‘cooperation’. If something defines a group as ‘consolidated’ it is the collaboration that it keeps with other groups, from the same country or abroad (Beaver 2001; MartínSempere, Rey-Rocha and Garzón-García 2002). Such external collaboration has many benefits for the scientific groups, as it correlates with the quantity (number of articles) and the quality (in terms of the prestige of the publications) of their scientific production (Abramo, D’Angelo and Di Costa 2009). However, cooperation is not a panacea. Gaia seems to have such an assumption, as this group restricts the participation of its members in conferences in order to ensure their concentration on the research projects, both in the fieldwork and in the lab. On the other hand, collaboration needs close and fluent personal relationships. Scientific professionalism is learnt basically by emulation and modelling in a social context (Arechavala and Díaz 1996). Learning is achieved in the context of a professional community where learners incorporate not only new knowledge and abilities but also attitudes and feelings, a universe of meanings and a way of being in the world. In order to get constituted as a group, some social scaffolds must be built first in order to sustain interaction and knowledge interchange. This implies creating structures of communication that must bring together the group and, at the same time, should be compatible with a meritocratic – and in some ways autocratic – power structure characteristic of the scientific groups (Merton 1973; Hamui Sutton 2010). In particular, the coexistence of strong affective links among the members with a clear hierarchical structure organized around the scientific productivity of each member was found. Gaia’s leader refers to this in the following terms: ‘I am in charge.’ In a similar sense Pleiades’ director affirms: ‘everyone in his place’, referring to the necessity of different levels inside the group. Interestingly, the Gaia group promotes the above-mentioned communication structures through shared breakfasts. At approximately 11 a.m. daily, every member interrupts their work to meet the others and share a light meal or drink in the largest room they have in the laboratory. This offers the opportunity to talk informally about ongoing projects, problems and activities. In the case of Pleiades, these kinds of rituals take place less frequently, probably because of the

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geographic distance between its different subgroups, but also due to the clear gap between professional categories, which is more evident in a medium-sized group like this. In contrast, members of each subgroup – particularly those who are of similar age and rank – are in almost permanent daily contact during the excavation season, as well as at the end of the day, when they often meet for a beer or dinner outside the archaeological site. Notwithstanding, Pleiades’ leader would like to further increase the frequency of meetings among the whole group. Notably, since 2003, Pleiades’ members have been spending a complete month together in Rome as part of the previously mentioned research project developed by the group. Obviously, this cyclical communal-living period impacts on the consolidation of specific patterns of communication and social relationships. It is also an opportunity for establishing more horizontal communicational structures that coexist alongside the hierarchical ones. Related to this, Pleiades’ leader insists on standing by her conviction of the necessity of keeping a clear distance between her and the rest of the members, especially the youngest. Even if it is not so evident, that separation is also visible within every subgroup when we take into account relationships between researchers of different ages and ranks. Such relationships are shaped by the members’ status, shaping a clear meritocratic culture also crossed, sometimes by micro-politics.

Leadership Historically, Pleiades’ leadership has been focused on its founder. However during the last few years, it has adopted a more distributed pattern (Gronn 2009) because the researchers that comprise the second generation have been gaining relevance in the group. This growing power delegation is a response to the necessities derived from geographical dispersion as well as to the expectations of the founder’s eventual retirement. Currently the image that better describes this group is the one of some stars that, even if they have their own planetary systems, constitutes just one constellation. The group has reached this configuration in part because of its main strategy – called ‘expansionist’ – to gain visibility among the scientific community. The ‘expansionist’ or ‘colonialist’ (Blasi and Romagnosi 2009) strategy consists of a repeated movement of the leader from one organization to another taking with her part of the group, in order to facilitate the promotion of those members who remain in the original organization. This strategy combines the openness

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to new institutional spaces with a strong support for academic and professional promotion of the members, and it is oriented to colonize a field. In spite of been officially constituted as autonomous research groups, they work in practice as a single group with a clearly recognized leadership. The group ethos is strongly shaped by the personal and intellectual features of its leader and by the academic tradition in which she was socialized. Pleiades’ director belongs to a well-off family of intellectuals and academics, such social capital being an undeniable advantage in achieving her academic capital. Among the characteristics that Pleiades’ leader transfers to the group can be underlined the intellectual rigour and the rigidity of the courtesy forms that regulate the group relationships. These establish some distance among the interlocutors on the basis of his or her academic position and scientific capital. Respect for the hierarchy, humility facing a superior academic position and social distance among the researchers based in academic capital are also features that can be recognized in the relationships established by members of different positions even inside each subgroup. The rest of the leaders are equally recognized and respected as part of a structure that reproduces that of an extended family with clear hierarchy and a shared vision of both the task and the group. For instance, the role of ‘primus inter pares’ (INV_21) is recognized to INV_01 as the heir of the primal leader. This can also be appreciated in Gaia, whose leader is so valued by the other members of group that one of them affirms that ‘he may be also better without the ballast of the group’ while another recognizes that ‘inside the group there’s not competition because there is a ranking’. As in Pleiades, the ‘expansionist’ strategy adopted by Gaia is related to the leadership provided by the group director. In this case, we identify a ‘proselitist’ strategy, similar to the one described as ‘extroversion’ by Blasi and Romagnosi (2009). This strategy is based on the sending of already socialized young members to ‘conquer’ other organizations while the leader remains as the pillar that secures the group’s continuity and stability. The departure of some members formed as part of its core to other organizations allows the dissemination not only of knowledge and technical abilities but also of ways of being and seeing the world that have characterized the group’s culture. This strategy very much contributes to the visibility of the group, since it spreads its conception about ecological research, based in systematic and patient fieldwork. Second generation Gaia researchers are currently in a process of consolidation and empowerment as they begin to assume responsibilities in the direction of the research projects. Consequently, leadership adopts a more distributed

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configuration. Actually, the most evident distribution of leadership is focused on the best-positioned researcher among those of the second generation. As a consequence, the group’s structure is getting more complex as the hierarchical patterns become more horizontal, strengthening knowledge production and dissemination (Mejía 2007). That new structure is accompanied by the members’ growing autonomy, and a growing freedom to modify the goals, the strategies and the research agenda (Taylor and Machado 2006). This can be illustrated by the increasing autonomy of the second researcher in Gaia, who is in charge of her own research project funded by a bank foundation. Therefore a kind of leadership ‘hybridization’ (Gronn 2009) may be identified in both cases. While both directors delegate some managerial tasks, they retain symbolic leadership and the role of guarantors of group identity. This dissociation between the cultural and the managerial aspects of leadership can be seen as a practice of ‘collective distribution’ of leadership (Spillane and Orlina 2005: 166). The strategy – shared by both directors – can be thought of as a device to solve the tensions provoked by the growing of bureaucracy and economic control on the process of building their identity as scientists (Goslig, Bolden and Petrov 2009). At the same time, it allows the emergence of an intermediate hierarchy that assumes some of the managerial tasks, giving room to a redistribution of responsibilities and functions (Taylor and Machado 2006). That is the case in Pleiades, where managerial tasks have been assumed by two members of the second generation even before the initial leader decided to move. Referring to this, she declares herself to be ‘very grateful’ to them. In sum, some common elements can be identified in the leadership of both directors. One of them is the parental character of their relationship with the rest of the group members, legitimized by a very strong academic reputation in both cases. On the other hand, both leaders are perceived as caring by the ‘followers’ (Gabriel 2015). Finally, the effect of the above-mentioned characteristics is an evident respectful attitude of the rest of the group – close to devotion – which is a common trait of the relations between academics and those who recognize them as a master (Bourdieu 1979). Also similarities regarding the values shared by Pleiades and Gaia were identified. Specifically, these refer to commitment, responsibility and the importance of personal effort and hard work, which frequently appear as characteristics of successful scientific groups (Travaille and Hendriks 2010). However, some particular characteristics of every group can also be pointed out: intellectual modesty in the case of Pleiades, and enthusiasm for scientific research in the case of Gaia.

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Conclusions Even if in different ways, in both research groups that have been analysed, an apparently paradoxical combination of scientific authority and ‘distributed leadership’ (Gosling, Bolden and Petrov 2009; Gronn 2009) is appreciated. That contrast is especially evident in Pleiades, where the clear hierarchical delimitation seems to function as a device to ensure the group’s cohesion, taking into account that it assumes the configuration of a sort of planetary system with satellite groups. Even if the relationship among the members who occupy different positions can be more or less horizontal and informal, every one – even those who are more experienced and professionally recognized – keeps a markedly formal relationship with the leader. Being constituted by four subgroups, Pleiades faces the risk of dispersion. This is tackled by means of two strategies. The first one is the high level of specialization of each member that makes collaboration in the development of wide projects indispensable. The second strategy is linked to the search for relevant projects – in terms of economic resources as well as scientific impact – in which the whole group must take part. In this way, the same archaeological site is studied from the perspective of the specialists in different branches of the discipline – sculpture, architecture, numismatic, and so on – as well as taking into account the different historical stages of those cultural expressions. In contrast, Gaia faces the risk of lacking continuity by means of the diversification of research lines based on the increasing autonomy of the researchers who belong to the second generation. The strategy is, in this case, based on a strong intellectual and academic leadership concentrated in the group’s director, who acts as consultant and supervisor, warranting the coherence between the whole tasks. In synthesis, the leader of a research group assumes a variety of roles, from that of scientific authority to those of mentor, project manager, organizational strategist, and negotiator between networks, coach and community director, and so on (Hansson and Mønsted 2008: 662). Each of these roles is developed, with differing styles, by the group leaders. In Pleiades’ case, distance and formality are underlined while in Gaia relationships seem to be more informal and closer. Either way, both leaders are perceived as unquestionable authorities on the basis of their scientific prestige and their intellectual recognition. Another coincidence between them is the adoption of a sort of parental position in relation to the other members of the group, which makes them true ‘caring leaders’ (Gabriel 2015).

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Additionally, in both groups there coexists the tendency to overspecialization and the establishment of collaborative links among the members under the form of complementarity in their research activities. That represents, from our point of view, a strategy to promote the visibility of the group, its competitiveness in the field, and the rising of its scientific capital, which also reinforces group cohesion.

Note 1 We use fictional names to anonymize the studied research groups.

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Networks, Alliances and Emergent Leadership: A Large-Scale Innovation Project in UK Distance Education Roger Cannon

Introduction – from local to global In the fields of education and innovation, many case study examples of collaboration are to be found, illustrating what may be taken as pedagogic or practitioner-inspired work (Hannan and Silver 2000; Laurillard 2008; Barsh, Capozzi and Davidson 2008). For this discussion, however, it is not the fact of ‘collaboration’ itself, or its perceived benefits, but the nature and strength of enrolment into networks of collaboration and programmes of action that are the foci of interest. The question of who leads these may be different at particular times. Leadership, engagement and collaboration are not ‘given’ in this perspective, but emergent. This chapter examines the sociotechnical context of an innovation in an educational context, where one actor (which could be a group, a technology or person(s)) accepts and takes up the problem put forward by another (the innovator) (Akrich et al. 2002). To deal with and problematize some of these notions, we invoke concepts from actor-network theory (ANT) (Latour 1986, 2005; Law and Hassard 1999; Fenwick and Edwards 2011; Nespor 2011; Kamp 2012). For Callon (1991) and Latour (2005), organizational power does not emanate from the leaders at the centre or top, but through, in the terminology of ANT, subordinate participants’ actions of translation. The management and policy context in this case study is one that led many higher education institutions (over the last twenty years or so) to move towards ‘re-engineering’ their existing courses for distance learning delivery (Petre et al. 1998; Brown 2002; Bates 2008; Kirkwood 2009; Tait 2010; Cleveland-Innes and

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Garrison 2010; Arinto 2016). Academic work in this setting is where marking and assessment are experienced as key aspects of workload and working life. The work of student assessment and feedback by academics and administrators in higher education also involves complex sets of pedagogic and subsequent interlocking management and administrative processes. The role and exploration of technology in the boundary area between academic practice and administrative processes has been surprisingly piecemeal. Where evidence exists from early projects in the late 1990s, to more recent and rapid take up of technologies, similar characteristics can be observed. That is, where boundary applications are embraced enthusiastically by some staff, subject areas and institutions, less so by others, but with outright hostility in further cases (Cannon 2004; Palmer 2006; Thompson 2012; Ferrell 2013; Gillespie and McConnel 2015). Higher education agencies such as the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) now routinely deploy the term electronic management of assessment to describe the way in which technology is used across the ‘institutional assessment lifecycle’ to support the electronic submission of assignments, as well as marking and feedback (JISC 2010; Ferrell 2013). It is argued here that a formidable mobilization of processes became necessary for electronic marking to ‘embed’ within existing university systems, and then become an ‘immutable mobile’, capable of transferring its influence elsewhere (Law 1986, 1991; Law and Hassard 1999; Latour 2005). Suggestions are included as to how a local application (manifestation) was made more global through further mobilizations and enactments. At the practical level, this required various actors – course teams, managers, project staff and tutors, as well as electronic resources – to come together to co-operate, collaborate, create consent, alliances and allegiances in transforming (in ANT terms) the assessment systems. Based on original and extensive case study material gathered at the UK Open University on assignment handling and tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) – for nearly 200,000 students in the early 2000s – this chapter looks at how sociotechnical networks are evolved and then sometimes dissolved. Some eventually garner external support and funding (often a necessary condition for ‘stability’) where the early pioneers can become forgotten, or whose original ideas are then later taken on as commonplace. Here, leadership is situated in the relations between people and things (Scribner et al. 2007). The stories that are told are those about how multiple actor networks counted as ‘leadership’ – with project and faculty leaders acting in relation with technical expertise, university

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administrators, software developers, computer systems and tutors; computer services acting in relation to issues of teaching style and user (in)convenience; the shifting roles of practitioners acting in relation with research groups and written documents.

Student assignment handling and TMAs Internet presentation of courses and electronic submission and marking were first introduced at the UK Open University on a trial departmental basis during 1995 (Petre et al. 1998). From these early beginnings, the university took up this idea and decided to offer the processing of electronic assignments as a more formal service to students across the university. In this case, where the marks from the assignments are returned electronically to the central processing where they are added to the student records (Petre et al. 1998). The overall system was introduced more formally as the ‘eTMA’ (electronic tutor-marked assignment) system. A key component of the eTMA’s original conception had been the ‘marking tool’ (MT), desktop-based software designed to support tutor interaction with a student’s assignment. The aim of the tool was to completely emulate a written assignment where the tutor’s comments and feedback are interspersed throughout the work, together with the actual marks for each question or part. The tool, first developed in 1995 as an academic department initiative by one staff tutor, went through several designs, iterations and also versions optionally able to interact with commercial software, such as MS-Word, but with mixed results. Thus, the MT aspect of the eTMA system was an in-house development, but was released more widely within the university before it had been sufficiently tested (Cannon 2004). This along with the difficulties flowing from the management and organizational challenges associated with its implementation, led many (home-based) part-time Associate Lecturers (ALs) to experience great difficulty with electronic marking. The MT in particular was unreliable, sometimes with damaging consequences, in terms of incorporating the tutor input onto marked assignments. Ultimately, this tarnished the reputation of the eTMA system as a whole, to such an extent that, even when many of the initial problems had been resolved, the goodwill of a great many of the university’s part-time staff had been exhausted. For some, the whole system became known colloquially as the ‘marking toil’. Originally

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introduced as a ‘marking tool’ but then rolled out more widely as an ‘electronic marking system’ led one tutor to remark that it was ‘like renaming Windscale as Sellafield’ (Cannon 2004: 5), a reference to the rebranding of the Cumbrian nuclear waste reprocessing plant. An added problem, and complication for tutors and the university too, was the increased length of time it was taking the majority of tutors to mark assignments digitally, compared to dealing with them in paper-based format.

Innovators, leaders, collaborators and conspirators The particular focus of this research has been to trace the development of electronic marking and assessment from its initial idea, and some negative early trials during formal acceptance by the university, through to the emergence of the Open University’s own version of an ‘e-University’. Concepts from an actornetwork orientation are used as an analytical framework to make sense of the empirical findings and to contextualize this within this particular educational setting. This aim was an attempt at a redescription of how e-marking came to be the way it is, and the role that the electronic assignment system plays in defining the changing identity of the university. Law and Callon (1992) provide a summary of the approach, which for our purposes, holds that an innovation is materialized through a process of ‘translation’, involving four relatively discrete, but abstract stages. First, a ‘problematization’ stage identifies actors who are persuaded that the solution to their own problems lies with key enrollers. A second stage involves the gradual dissolution of existing networks (or interessement, literally ‘interposition’), and their replacement by a new network created by the enrollers (see Callon 1991; Law and Hassard 1999; Nespor 2011). ‘Irreversibility’, in network terms, is now the condition (stage 3) in which it is subsequently impossible to return to a point where alternative possibilities exist, and a ‘stabilization’ of the eTMA network of alliances occurs as interpretive flexibility is diminished. Fourthly, it is argued, the whole alliance is ‘mobilized’ to represent an even larger network of nonpresent entities represented by other evolving agendas of the university. These entities then exert great force by becoming immutable (i.e. unchangeable) over space and time (Fenwick and Edwards 2011). From a leadership standpoint, ANT suggests two important and seemingly conflicting perspectives. The first perspective is that all actors are also themselves

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networks. They are not simply a person or thing, but are a consolidated pattern of heterogeneous relations. The second is that the meaning of an actornetwork is that an ‘actor’ is conceptually a network, which itself is defined by the order of materials, and the patterning of, and an effect produced by their relationships. This can be related to socio-materiality or where theory is built on the intersection of technology, work and organization, which attempts to understand a nexus of interconnections or entanglements. According to this perspective, leadership – along with knowledge, power and even organizations (such as the OU) – are social products or effects of a heterogeneous network of the context that surrounds them. This context includes other people, financial resources, facilities, equipment, technology, space, location and many other entities (Perillo 2008; Fenwick and Edwards 2011; Kamp 2012). It is argued that entities compete with other entities for dominance within the network. The patterns that emerge from the struggle and conflict thus define the network, be it a leader, organization or other phenomenon, and determine its capabilities and options. A leader in this sense will be anyone who may devise strategies for influencing the network. Related questions that arise are as follows: What ideas, innovations, objects, facilities and resources are created or mobilized and juxtaposed within the network to achieve desired results? How are ideas and material objects within the network needed for patterning of social relations be communicated? The next section discusses some of these areas.

Method of Investigation – ‘follow the actor’ Initial data were gathered in early 2000 by design of an online questionnaire for part-time tutors ((ALs) n = 40), as part of a pilot phase of research. Stakeholder interviews with key personnel (n = 10) took place between December 2000 and June 2001. The author was also a participant observer at two staff development sessions on electronic marking held in June and July 2001 including a small focus group (n = 4). Documentary evidence (n = 244) was collected from committee papers and minutes, of faculty and university boards, groups, and internal surveys reported between 1998 and 2004. The key stakeholders interviewed were relatively powerful actors, active at a policy level, involved in both project and course development, in technical or administrative services. The anthropological approach adopted of ‘follow the actors’ (Latour 2005) means not only looking at what they do, but also at what interests them, what they believe in, that is, their values.

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A case study account was developed based on these data, documenting the development and implementation of electronic marking that took place at the university during this period (Cannon 2004). Interview transcripts with project development staff and tutors, together with documentary analysis, formed the main sources of data used. This chapter draws on my own dissertation account of this work, written up in 2004, and brought up to date here. A large number of network connections were identified within the academic faculty, consisting of Project Boards, strategy groups and forums, including IT service units, and tutoring groups, for example. Foregrounding the work of developers, administrators and senior academics has drawbacks, since using such individuals as entry points for analysing organizational change favours particular kinds of actors over others. For instance, although I include the enactments of tutors, the student experience was in fact very different. Surveys of students showed that, unlike the part-time tutoring staff, they felt quite positive about the electronic submission for and marking of their assignments (Carswell et al. 1999; Palmer 2006). Thus, a critique of the ANT approach is that the ‘points of entry’ in tracing networks are most often high-status participants – officials, administrators, engineers, technicians and technocrats – situated in ‘their own separate world’ (Nespor 2011). It can also be said that there are boundary issues which fail to take account of the effects that technology can have on those who are not part of the network that produces the technology. However, the interface created by such boundaries can create leads for ‘actions of translation’ by groups in other spheres. Bowker and Star (2000) address this issue by defining boundary elements to be objects or collections that are used in more than one way by different social groups who may be acting independently and not in agreement or contact with each other. These therefore provide an interface for those groups, translating in ANT terms across their differences. This idea of boundary difference is important, in that it can provide an account of co-operation and collaboration where consensus or agreement may not be evident. My entry point for the research is indicated below by some of the voices elicited from various enactments as they were uncovered. The chair of the Electronic Tutoring Group (ETG) explains here how informal support for small-scale research was experienced, and how the idea of electronic assignment handling was raised and became available. The aims of the electronic assignment system can be understood as materialized through this early mobilization of special interest groups – new relationships were established and realized, as one informant commented:

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My involvement goes back to 1995, I had just stepped down from being [Senior role] and was looking for something to do. A colleague said they’d been doing some work, and did I want to get involved? What happened was we set up a small research group in the Faculty to do some experimentation with students – on what we would describe as electronic tuition. Now that was 1995. What had already happened was that a researcher in the department was working on how to support tutors in their role of marking TMAs. I think they had in mind helping people [students] not based in the UK, but working abroad. (Faculty/ chair)

The proposals were quite ambitious, and included such features as an automated web-based student registration system, an electronic assignment handling system, computer conferencing, web-based teaching resources, and the use of electronic examinations. The faculty took up the particular proposal offered, and through these elements we can see how links are made with wider problem orientations within the university. In this way, the enrolment of an intervention (i.e. the eTMA) into a wider community of actors within the university became possible. The original proposal became conceptualized as something that was all-encompassing, and with an appeal that could make itself indispensable. The chair of the ETG explained how the idea was chosen from a number of possible options on offer: What you did in those days – you decided you wanted to do a bit of an experiment, and you built your software and your process. Then you went off to see someone and said I want to try this out on this course, and so long as you weren’t fouling up the system, basically the experiments could go ahead. The one that had been invented [i.e. eTMA] was basically the one which was closest to fitting in with what the University did. Probably the most all-encompassing process or mechanism. (Faculty/chair)

The problem identified was that of dealing with students who could not easily submit their paper-based assignments for marking and processing via the normal postal service – for example, students might be based on an oil rig. The problem orientation was largely towards helping tutors in their support of students based outside the UK. An existing course, M205 (‘Fundamentals of Computing’), later to be replaced by M206 (‘An Object-Oriented Approach to Computing’), was chosen as a basis for the early trials. It was agreed that at least twenty students from outside the UK should be involved initially, particularly those who were not in Europe. There were about half from North America, across Canada and the United States, the other half were Australasian, with one person on board a

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ship. The course materials were sent via express airmail, and in that sense this was not an electronic course, but it was considered to be electronic in terms of the way communication between the student and the university took place. Improvements and upgrades to the desktop MT had also been undertaken. At this point, the still loosely connected network elements were represented by the electronic tutor group, course teams, tutors and electronic systems, which all needed to form new alliances in order to take on a stronger and more solid identity. The researcher/innovator (the academic who developed the eTMA marking tool and system initially) expressed clearly the importance of having an advocate for the project, and the role of persuasion and negotiation needed: It did take sort of two years of lobbying and having someone, like my boss. At that point, [name] was [in senior role] then, and was I believe the Project Manager by the time it got to 1996/97. So he was able to lobby all of the powers of the University saying – you know – you have to take this over. (Researcher/ innovator)

Two distinct entities emerged, one known as the ‘eTMA submission system’ (which was electronic), and the other as the ‘marking tool (MT)’ (which was a desktop system at the tutor level). At that stage they were not integrated. Both components became variously referred to as the ‘eTMA system’, depending on which actor was speaking. Key actors become crucial to the success of the project in that they are the ones to build interessement (through the dissolution of previous alliances), by blocking or contesting one programme against another. Clashes between powerful actors arose that developed over time into a ‘battle of wills’. The introduction of issues about the various roles of the Academic Computer Services (ACS) and the Management Services Division (MSD) led to the replacement or modification of the original definitions of the electronic assignment system. A project director from the ACS explained how this conceptualization had come about. Although the MT as originally conceived was intended for tutor use, many tutors were resistant to its use, or found it too difficult to master: It was decided when the notion was ‘sold’ to the University that there should be a central eTMA system. There was this other side also – the desktop tutor based marking tool. There had been some initial work done, based around [Microsoft’s] Word, and clearly it hadn’t been done professionally – not to a standard for students anyway. It may have been all right for a little pilot where you could babysit for the 20 ALs who were involved, if there were ever that many. (ACS project director)

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It was decided that Academic and Administrative Computer Services (AACS) would provide the staff to carry out a number of preliminary feasibility studies in new areas of development. It was now attempted to move this part of the development out of the hands of individual academics, as various issues relating to the robustness of the system, and the levels of support required, had been raised, also, how queries and problems were being logged and dealt with. However, some work continued in parallel, with one AL setting up their own alternative support website. A TMA forum was set up to help channel feedback and to hear various suggestions for the Project Board to consider. This would include making a case for further funding, and overseeing further development. We see here a new alignment of relationships and how they are translated into action. Meanwhile at a different level, requirements for the development of systems relating to electronic assessments in a wider sense were being promoted and taken up. As a Learning and Teaching Services (LTS) board member noted you either sell it [e-marking] to a course team, or you sell it to a Pro-Vice Chancellor who is keen to move forward to interactive media, and involving other learning/teaching strategies at the time. Trying to move more and more courses on-line, and it seemed to be part and parcel of that. You are teaching on-line and you seem to be doing everything on-line, registering, pay your fees on-line and that is seen as the way the University will go. This idea was one part of this whole picture. (LTS board member)

In spite of difficulties associated with scaling up for increased student numbers, the Project Board remained convinced about the benefits of electronic assignments, and that the marking overheads would settle down in due course, as people gained more experience. However, an increasing number of tutors (ALs) began to contest in principle, the value of electronic marking, and in another case started to develop their own independent system. Often, tutors expressed strong feelings about the effect of using these systems on the pedagogic process – for example, tutors using standardized phrases and re-quoted comments – as well as the additional workload of electronic marking. As one observed in a key comment: It’s a total failure of imagination in terms of the implementation, if I could grace it with that word. Whereas I think it hasn’t been carefully thought through … is what do we want to do with it – why do we want to do electronic marking? Why isn’t it using open standards so I can use it in the environment I am comfortable with – why do we have this unreliable environment? I’m not used to working with things that fall over every ten or twenty minutes. (AL tutor)

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Often the controversy surrounding the MT amounted to confrontations to determine among the spokespersons, those who were legitimate and trustworthy, and those who were not. ALs were numerous but part-time and peripheral in the organizational hierarchy; however, they were also often highly qualified industry practitioners engaged in high-level software development. The university’s Project Board developed a number of strategies that legitimized and strengthened its own position. An Examinations and Admissions (E&A) board member discusses how strenuous efforts were made to bring the different aspects of the system together, since not to do so was likely to jeopardize the project: We had to bring the Marking Tool and the so called eTMA system together and consider them as one system because it was too dangerous to build half a system or redevelop half a system. (E&A board member)

Larger networks are mobilized The association of ‘e-marking’ with modernization of the university is identified with wider government policies and thus the stage where larger networks were mobilized. The ETG succeeded in mobilizing interest in ‘all things electronic’. It enlisted support for the eTMA system across the university, such that others also started to experiment with uses of learning technology, and attempted to interconnect such projects, strengthen the links. But these remained weakly connected with the modernization programme. In network terms, ‘enrolment’ into a programme of action begins the moment other key actors, such as a course team or a tutor, accepts the interests defined by a dominant group, such as the ETG. This did not happen at that time. We can conclude that the higher the degree of alignment and co-ordination of the various groups, the more its actors worked (or collaborated) together, and the less their status as actors was in doubt. This did not mean that everyone did the same thing, for these groups included a range of complementary stakeholders, such as faculty and regional staff, course teams, learning technologists, managers and so on. Rather, it pointed to the way in which the activities of the various stakeholders fit together despite their heterogeneity. We can observe, for example, a high degree of convergence when the Project Board presented its funding proposal (a translation ‘script’) to the university. In return, the university accepted the proposals, as described below by a faculty board

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member. The translations have become aligned because they fitted the emerging network, despite the technology remaining problematic. But its promotion ensured the actors’ existence and further development; not all collaborations were incorporated (enrolled), and significant resources were at stake, The Project Board put in a bid to the e-University – the VC [Vice-Chancellor] has £12 million set aside for this – and for about half a million to have the marking tool redeveloped. The project board has never been turned down, mainly because the ProVC and the Vice Chancellor and so on, see electronic assignment handling as being central to the University’s future. In some ways it’s slightly embarrassing because people know the importance of it – so there is not a great deal of difficulty in getting the required amount of funding. That’s not to say there’s not a lot of ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ goes on – do you really need £400,000 etc? (Faculty/chair board member)

A common argument that proponents of the actor-network perspective make is that strongly convergent networks only develop after long periods of investment, intense effort and co-ordination (Latour 1986, 2005; Callon 1991; Law and Hassard 1999). There will be many other networks that have an association with e-marking, which are only weakly convergent. In such cases, the argument goes that the actors will find both their status constantly in question, and that it is difficult (if not impossible) to mobilize other parts of the network. What we can say is that it is not simply the agency of an actor or any intrinsic properties of the technology that makes the network a success (and therefore the innovation). It is the coordinating leadership role of all the heterogeneous elements, such as the Project Board, and the eTMA components, that are able to steer other network elements in the direction required by the programme of action. This leads us to the view that the fate of the electronic marking system depends on the active participation of all those who have decided to develop it. Success (or otherwise) is thus not necessarily dependent, as we discover, on any particular technical merit it may be perceived to possess, and may not actually solve some of the very problems it was initiated to address.

e-Marking becomes durable and an ‘eOU’ emerges A consensus between different groups, such as the Learning and Teaching Innovation Committee (LTIC), and the Learning Technologies and Teaching Board (LTTB) about the dominant meaning of ‘all things electronic’ began to

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emerge at this stage (early 2000). The AL status, their use of alternative technical solutions, and criticisms of software and workload, were being undermined, in order to ensure the maintenance and dominance of the official system. A board member expressed a view about the totality of these developments, where eTMAs had by now become accepted and an embedded element of the way the university functioned: The University is taking fundamental decisions and if you look at our learning and teaching strategy there are really quite ambitious targets about the number of courses that are going to go this way. And the eTMA thing is part of it. And if an AL really finds it that difficult to deal with, assuming it’s robust enough ok, then maybe they should reconsider being an AL if they can’t cope with it, because it will just become part and parcel of the way we do things. (LTS board member)

The LTIC provided a briefing paper during this period, on the university’s own branded ‘e-OU Initiative’, carefully distinguishing this from the national ‘e-University’ initiative (HEFCE 2000; DfES July 2003). As these new ‘e-projects’ emerged and e-marking became a component of these, its original identity also began to fade, as e-marking became embedded into the university’s infrastructure. In actor-network terms, eTMAs, although still problematic, had become seamless (or ‘black boxed’) and sufficiently embedded to become stable. We hear from a board member how, over the period of its lengthy development, eTMAs have become a legitimate part of an emerging e-University: What you’ve seen is a little local initiative, developed into a University system. More and more people are using it, and it’s now really gone into the University’s infrastructure, but it’s taken 6 or 7 years for that to happen. But that’s right. It’s now where it [the eTMA] belongs. The University has made a commitment that this is what it needs and wants, that it fits in with our strategy of becoming an e-University and therefore must be maintained and developed. All that’s happened really is that the developers have changed. We still have the same projects, the same aims and objectives, it’s just being done by different people. It’s being embedded into the University’s systems. (Senior chair)

During 2003, the Project Board, concerned about low take up of the eTMA by course and tutor groups, conducted a review of their growth potential and how courses might be encouraged to make greater use of the system. Since electronic submission and assignment assessments had been introduced, the number of courses adopting the eTMA process, and the number of assignments processed, had increased substantially. The number of electronic TMAs processed had

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been in the region of 100,000 during 2002, representing about 11 per cent of the total assignments processed during the year. The Project Board was keen to promote further usage. Based on estimates of a further 30 per cent increase during 2004/2005, the Electronic Assignment Project Board (EAPB) advised that plans should be made for the deployment of more web servers and other system components to handle the volume of assignments. By 2008, 47 per cent of all TMA across the university are reported by as being submitted using this method (Lowe, Mestel and Arrowsmith 2008). In different subject disciplines, students and tutors are also reported as now using PC Tablets and iPads for submission and marking (Freake 2008). However, a lack of take up in some subject areas requiring symbolically rich elements and diagrams (such as mathematics and technology) were reporting unresolved technical limitations that remained to be solved (Jordan 2010). There is a sense of irony in reporting this, given that individual academics in these very subject areas were the active innovators in initiating a MT to address the very issues they identified and also to create something new.

Discussion and conclusions Despite reporting a financial deficit (2010), the Open University made further investments of £7.3 million in its ‘FutureLearn’ online platform, leading to an increase in the number of staff across both the university as a whole, and a £2.8 million rise in personnel costs (Open University 2004–08; Parr 2015). As part of this, the issue of online marking was reported as continuing to polarize academic staff across not just the Open University, but many other institutions as well (Ferrell 2013: 34). The discourse of resistance appears to be reported in a highly personalized way, for example, some members of staff citing eye strain as an issue with online marking, whereas others of the same age group would cite the affordances of technology to adapt to their personal needs and make reading easier. The notion of ANT is introduced in this discussion as a device for articulating how sociotechnical networks are evolved, mobilized and then sometimes dissolved. Here, we argue that multiple actor networks can count as leadership. This can also be seen as a systematic way to bring out the infrastructure that may be left out of the ‘heroic’ accounts of scientific and technological achievements. Thus, this is not about technological breakthroughs, and charismatic leaders, or the narratives of conventional accounts. Rather it tells of the unfolding of

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an innovation process, which took place in fits and starts, with successes and failures, over an extended period of time. The outcome is not predetermined, but is materialized through translation of various actors and networks. A leader in this sense will be anyone (board member, tutor, chair, academic innovator, group) who may devise strategies for influencing the network and which arises. To fulfil the project vision, we see the actors nurture collaboration, not only between the project members, but also between some of the users. Collaboration across boundaries attempts to resolve the battle of wills, and conspiratorial challenges. Tutor resistance may still challenge and influence the project, but consent is no longer a precondition as it has become ‘impossible’ to revert to an earlier state. Thus, the focus is on what ideas, innovations and relationships need to be established, realigned, repaired, and how does a leader lead effectively within this network? The answers to these questions can represent key strategies that may be observed of a leader’s influence on a network. In this case study, the initial project managers’ and original innovator’s influence decreased, and new strategic key actors started to play increasingly important roles, especially in the confrontation between the intended programmes of action and other competing programmes. These forces or key actors have the will or legitimacy to drive the project and take on the role of spokesperson. Representing an innovation through its translations gives us no indication of the future, since it tells us nothing about the likely shape of future translations. However, at the practical level, it has been possible to demonstrate that a large field of study can be framed by applying techniques simultaneously at both the macro and micro levels. The e-marking system as a case study is located within a large scale of operation, but by applying a translation model as a ‘framing device’, it has been possible to explore aspects of the mutual shaping and aspects of distributed leadership that took place between the innovation and the university. Following these developments, the UK OU became an international leader in pioneering applications of technology to educational organization and learning, which enabled its significant expansion.

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Parr, C. (2015) Open University’s numbers dive 28% as pool of part-timers dries up THE, 19/02/2015. Perillo, S. J. (2008) Fashioning leadership in schools: An ANT account of leadership as networked practice. School Leadership & Management, 28 (2), pp. 189–203. Petre, M., Carswell, L., Price, B. and Thomas, P. (1998) Innovations in Large-scale Supported Distance Teaching: Transformation for the Internet, not Just Translation. Report No. 98/4, Dept. Computing. Milton Keynes: Open University. Scribner, J. P., Sawyer R. K., Watson S. T. and Myers, V. L. (2007) Teacher teams and distributed leadership: A study of group discourse and collaboration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43 (1), pp. 67–100. Tait, A. (2010) Foreword. In M. F. Cleveland-Innes and D. R. Garrison (eds), An Introduction to Distance Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning in a New Era, pp. ix–xi. New York: Routledge. Thompson, T. L. (2012) I’m deleting as fast as I can: Negotiating learning practices in cyberspace. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 20 (1), pp. 91–110.

Summary

Assumptions about collaboration are often that there are elements of people ‘coming together’, but this voluntaristic character may be on a continuum, from an involvement specified by role to one dictated by role, or even imposed. While this is true of the case studies here, these are stories of relationships as the engine of collaboration. For Alan Floyd and Dilly Fung, connection, relationship, mutuality and values take centre stage. This chapter explores the extent to which academic leadership rooted in these characteristics can resolve the ‘tensions between research and education’. It leaves us asking how higher education institutions can create the conditions to support collaborative academic leadership and practice. It challenges us to see this type of leadership as one based on values, ethics and centred on people rather than hierarchies. In the second chapter, the relationship between research leaders and research assistants is explored. For Sandra Acker, Anne Wagner and Michelle McGinn, working with students as both learners and colleagues in research requires attention to the working relationship. Leaders have responsibility for helping to develop and grow their learner-collaborators and this ‘caring work’ is part of the additional unseen emotional labour of collaboration and mentoring by academics. This centring of supportive, collaborative relationships is consensual leadership writ large. In the third chapter, Julián López-Yáñez and Mariana Altopiedi address collaboration that allows for autonomy while maintaining a clear set of social mores and rules that govern this collaborative work and the relationships that underpin it. In two scientific research groups, an authoritative leader sets the social rules of collaboration and these are reinforced by the group. Academic autonomy is preserved within a highly collaborative environment, in which a familial atmosphere is encouraged. Leadership and responsibility are distributed even as the authority of the most senior figures is preserved; consent is found in the academics’ understanding of their individual roles and collective mission. Roger Cannon, in the final chapter of this second part of the book, finds that collaboration is driven by individual interests, location and ‘temporality’.

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These ‘networks of collaboration’ are examined as sites of leadership and found to be places where leadership is emergent and dependent on circumstances and shared goals. These relationships are not imposed but are instead time-limited and utilitarian, coalescing to identify and then resolve a problem. It is the multiple relationships of people and things that count as leadership, through their collaborative efforts. As a consequence, it is possible for any ‘actor’ to emerge as a ‘leader’ in collaboration if they are able to recognize and exploit a network in the service of a shared goal. Devolved and distributed leadership styles, like collaboration itself, can be hard work. As our case studies from Canada, UK and Spain show, they require constant levels of attention and sustenance as well as a commitment to the principles, ethos and values that motivate the original sets of linkages and associations themselves.

Part Three

Partnership

Introduction Lynne Gornall

In this group of Part Three chapters, ‘partnership’ is viewed as involving relationships that are longer term than the previous considerations of ‘co-operation’ and ‘collaboration’. They may be more contract-based in their relations, arising from employment, project or governmental-based funding and policy initiatives. Partnerships cross boundaries of country, group or sector, and often bring together unlike organizations. Our problematized case studies on consensual leadership in Part Three thus draw on material from both within and outside of higher education. Leadership in this context of ‘partnership’ working can be an interesting question. The situations and examples we explore here involve historical and ideological relationships (in South America), teams and performative stress in the workplace (Anglo corporate models), strategic university alliances and governmental connections (China and Asia-Pacific) and finally, some essentially ‘European’-based project associations involving different sorts of organizations and European cultures. At the heart of the discussion is the personal account, an essentially experiential journey, one that takes place in the context of an aspired-for mutuality and teamworking yet in the face of wider challenges of competitiveness and some bad behaviours. Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela and Ana Luisa Muñoz-García, academics in Chile, open the discussion with an account of some essential inequalities in our key narratives about knowledge and partnership in a ‘globalized’ world. They discuss how asymmetries that stem from colonialism, and more recent hegemonies, inscribe working relationships today among cross-cultural researchers. The country’s history and its early marketization of higher education, the positioning of Latin America itself, are also part of this informing context. Epistemology, geography and cultural psychology play their part in shaping experience and impact, such that Chilean researchers abroad and graduates overseas ‘returning home’ arrive still absorbed in a Western, Southern paradigm and contacts milieu. Leadership would be to question this, to recultivate and

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analyse, to own or disown these legacies. In some ways, this chapter is concerned with the disruption of the consensual, the hegemonic, and there are some painful experiences along the way, ones many will recognize. There are also consequences for social science and education, learning and knowledge. The authors argue for the development of ‘new grammars’ in the articulation of the relationships between knowledge and place, and also to acknowledge the role of the affective in identity and positioning, in these and in the partnerships still to come. If Guzmán-Valenzuela and Muñoz-García locate us in a ‘world’ and paradigms that relate to colonial history, postmodern ideas and knowledge, we soon have a reminder of what working life on the ‘front-line’ in the UK private sector looks like. Prior to the interventions of a group of researchers (called ‘DNA’), the delivery-focused ‘machine’ environment for staff in two service centres in the UK is almost shocking. Paul Thomas looks at the most exposed of realities, the services sector in the UK business workplace. This is not a ‘big picture’ story of grand change, but a micro study of what a new team empowerment might look like. It is ‘change’ from the most basic perspective, about decision-making/taking over target setting in the post-industrial workplace. Thomas and his colleagues explore what it might be like to begin to change relationships and accountability in a commercial contact centre and a financial services business. He engages the support of managers and executives, who want to be more consensual leaders. They start by making the complex simple, empowering teams and team leadership, with a belief in the power of change to affect whole systems. The listing of worker targets is a sobering one, challenging preconceptions about ‘performative’ culture in the education sector. The conscious decisions (of executives) to allow the leadership and talents of ‘front-line’ staff in the workforce in two companies to begin to shape the business processes has dramatic productivity results, but is also a powerful exercise in learning and education too. The author, of course, hopes that the change will continue; we do not know, but the effects on the individuals, we would hazard, will be much like those of an education itself. Cultivation, the author suggests, is the way forward, and to tend our organizations as if we were gardeners, growers, arguing for a human rather than metric-centred approach to UK business progression. At the heart is workplace partnership and the power of self-management: the parallels with the decreasing assets of autonomy and collegiality in Higher Education are obvious. Brian Denman, Yumiko Hada, Qiang Liu and David Turner are a group of writers who consider what it is to be the lone international scholar in a host

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organization setting. From four countries, Australia, Japan, China and UK, respectively, and with experience of working abroad, they cite cases and experiences from China and beyond. We see how the pressures to be there, do something, be seen, are in high profile. But what is it like for the person, sitting there alone, struggling with perhaps a very different culture, the unexpected situations, from student learning to staff socializing? And these visits and exchanges take place in what is one of the most market-oriented contexts of our higher education sector, that of improving access to internationalization and sometimes the race for rankings and ratings in the global education economy. But the policy expectations, which may well be leaderly and articulate a vision, do not always match the ground-level experience. And sometimes host staff do not welcome the ‘improving’ incomer either. Not much consensus there! It makes the question of ‘how to get work done’ one of wondering what is the work? Language can be the least of the issues, and incumbents are expected to ‘produce’, to create associations, facilitate research, learn and teach colleagues in pedagogy and innovation. In short, make a partnership work. Being there, culturally, is a good reminder of what it is like for the many students studying in ‘our’ universities, and of the importance of hosts who lead the way and help the outsider to understand everyday living and learning – interpretation as leadership, as the authors suggest, in the new context. A chapter that involves two of us on the editorial team – Brychan Thomas and Lynne Gornall – and one of our colleagues, Lyndon Murphy, finds us as frankly nostalgic for some previous experiences of ‘partnership’. This co-working and new learning, and the remaking of ideas and discourse about our work, were some of the contexts that energized and made these relationships so worthwhile. We are recalling the highs and lows and opportunities of European project partnership working, and to take a moment to celebrate some of these experiences as ‘the times of our lives’. There are accounts of problems and difficulties of course, of poor partners and disengagements, of misunderstandings and lost resources, but also, we show how these situations allowed the leadership of middle-ranking staff to emerge. The personal and interpersonal connections in a locality and in cross-border locales we argue, build social capital and new opportunities for the participant organizations – if willing to access it. Indeed, this story is one of development, cultural learning and of genuinely innovative work, but it is also one of wasted human capital and of opportunities lost. As in many of the examples in the book, dissensus and absence of trust create obstacles to building on gains made in knowledge and partner-making work. We wonder whether

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this is a problem for industry and economy as well as within higher education, and what our post ‘Brexit’ partnerships may look like, be they alter-nationally, or also in Europe. These four chapters in the last section of the book lead into a conversation about leadership in a different environment, and one we can learn from, in a sympathetic kind of working/relationship modelling, in our final and concluding chapter of the book. Lynne Gornall and Daniel Bickerton look comparatively at higher education academics as well as groups from a different sector – music – and what they can learn from each other about creativity in leadership and collaboration. The voices of interviewees from higher education and jazz ensembles are interwoven to explore how ‘leadership’ is thought of and talked about, the nature of co-working and consensus within collaboration. We find that relationships in music are not only between audience and performers, but between composers and those who realize the work on stage. But who is in charge? We learn that prior consultation and mutual respect between practitioners are important, but also that another performance means a different chance to work things out. In education, the creative initiative is to give opportunities to others and see them lead, develop. We can see this as a kind of mobile or liquid leadership. It can move around. But leadership, as other authors point out, is also a service. It has responsibilities, burdens even. As musicians say, it’s the one who takes the booking! In this final chapter, the authors raise questions about authority, creativity, visibility and embeddedness of leaderly roles, and suggest that as in cultural enquiry, to learn is often to look elsewhere, beyond the fixity and inherited features of our current situation.

9

Decolonizing International Collaborative Work: Exploring New Grammars for Academic Partnerships in Chile Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela and Ana Luisa Muñoz-García

Introduction In this chapter, we critically examine issues of research collaboration, leadership in universities and academic mobility, as part of internationalization processes. We pay attention to historical processes of colonialism and post-colonialism that have been shaping the collaborative relationships between academics and universities located in the global South and in the North/West. Also, we draw on a literature that addresses issues of geopolitics in the production of knowledge (Santos 2010, 2014; Levander and Mignolo 2011; Cheng 2010; Connell 2007; Dirlik 2007). The discussion of this chapter is also an invitation to understand and problematize issues of partnership within an international collaboration framework, in order to explore new principles for academic partnerships. A ‘consensual leadership’ paradigm is needed to promote space for a deep thinking on the forms and ways of working with different cultural contexts, tensioning what co-operation and collaboration means. We name these spaces as ‘new grammars for academic partnerships’. To assist our analysis, first, we offer a brief historical overview of colonialism and neocolonialism in Latin America, which, in turn, are related to the concepts of Southern theories and epistemologies of the South. Secondly, we refer to the processes of internationalization of universities that have impact on the ways in which partnerships and collaboration are built. And thirdly, we describe and illustrate, with both empirical data and our own academic experiences

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in Chile as a South American country, a relationship of encouraging research dependency. We conclude by suggesting forms of academic grammars that might help in shaping and promoting new principles for academic partnerships.

A brief historical context for the Latin-American University: Colonialism and post-colonialism Colonialism is understood as a process of imposition in which value is ascribed to certain visions, people or societies while neglecting others (Mignolo 2003; Quijano 1993, 2000). In Latin America, the colonial period started and extended between 1492 and the nineteenth century. Soon after the arrival and colonization of Latin America by the Spaniards, several universities were established by the Spanish royal crown in close connection with the Catholic church (Arocena and Sutz 2005). The main objective of the colonial university was to educate the creole elite in the continent, the same ones that later were to become the leaders of the independence process in different nations of Latin America (Tunnermann 2003). In more recent times, universities have sought secularization and autonomy (Jiménez 2007) and since the 1980s, they have been seeking their autonomy in opposition to political and financial restraints. In the twentieth century, student movements have played an important role in reshaping universities’ identities by promoting self-governance and ideals of political nationalism (Arocena and Sutz 2005; Van Aken 1971). Also, during the 1970s and 1980s, universities across Latin America were active places in resisting political restrictions imposed by dictatorship regimes (e.g. in Chile and Argentina). Recently in Chile, between 2011 and 2016, there was an important student movement in universities that protested against neoliberal policies in education and which prompted higher education reform. From the 1980s onwards, universities in Latin America, as well as around the world, have been affected by global tendencies such as the massification of access in higher education, the retreat of the state in terms of public funds, the tight regulation of quality and performativity and the marketization of universities (Etzkowitz 2004; Clark 1998, 2004). All of these features might be also seen as a form of neocolonialism (Alatas 2003) or academic imperialism (Raju 2011), that is, a dominance of a Western model of the university. In this context, rankings, competition among institutions, sale of educational services and publication in leading journals – most of them originating in Anglo-Saxon

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countries and addressed to an English-speaking community (Marginson 2016) – are paramount. In Chile, since the 1980s, the higher education system has become a paradigmatic case of marketization and privatization that has been well documented in the literature (Guzmán-Valenzuela and Barnett 2013a,b; Acosta Silva 2002). Chile has developed a series of policies focused on academic productivity and rankings that are linked to public money and that have been critically examined by national and international scholars (Bernasconi and Véliz 2016; Davies 2005; Munoz-Garcia and Chiappa 2016). For example, academic mobility and international collaboration have been instruments for meeting the demands of the development of advanced ‘human capital’ – that is, the economic value of academics’ specific skills (Chiappa and Munoz-Garcia 2015) – identified by reports coming from the OECD and the World Bank (OECD and World-Bank 2010; Rizvi 2011). Aligned with this policy is the pressure for publishing in mainstream journals in English.

The construction of knowledge relationships between the North/West and the South The ‘unequal geographies of knowledge’ between the ‘West and the rest’ (Epstein 2007) invite critical reflection among academics from different nation states amid processes of globalization (Appadurai 1998; Sassen 2001) and internationalization (Munoz-Garcia and Chiappa 2016). The so-called North/ West and South/East distinction refers to a set of power relationships established both historically and geographically. It involves economic, political and cultural dimensions (Connell 2007). This distinction establishes horizons in the construction of knowledge that shape human narratives about social processes (Santos 2010, 2014; Connell 2007). Fahey and Kenway (2010) refer to the ‘empires of knowledge’ (2010: 629) which involve the asymmetrical traffic of knowledge and its expansion through the movement of ideas and intellectuals. Connell (2007) proposed what she calls ‘Southern theory’ to analyse the relationships between the ‘metropole’ and the ‘colonized areas’ in the production of knowledge. Connell suggests that the majority of the world produces theory that follows patterns of colonialism, so that mainstream social science pictures the world as understood by the educated and affluent in Europe and North America. Nonetheless, ‘Northern’ theories,

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albeit in different ways, fail to acknowledge the specificity of their grounds for knowing, and disregarding local issues such as language and ethnicity, among others. In turn, colonized and peripheral societies produce knowledge and social theory about the modern world that have intellectual value but not social power. They appear to be more a source of data for Northern theorists, rather than as a site of knowing and self-conscious social reflection. In connection with this literature, Santos (2010, 2014) refers to the concept of ‘abyssal thinking’ that distinguishes between two types of knowledge. Visible knowledge, on the one hand, is valuable knowledge. Invisible knowledge, on the other hand, is non-existent in terms of value or importance. Through a process of continuous ‘abyssal thinking’, some types of knowledge have been relegated, producing an ‘epistemicide’. Epistemicide refers to a particular form of European colonialism that not only has occluded knowledge produced by the South, but also has established the kind of knowledge deemed as relevant. An example of this in the humanities and the social sciences is the importation of ‘explanatory’ theories built in the North (Connell 2007) and used by the South without considering its cultural specificities (the theories of Bourdieu and Foucault are good examples). Santos (2014) goes further, proposing an epistemology of resistance against a cognitive and cultural hegemony, called ‘Epistemologies of the South’. This is ‘a set of inquiries into the construction and validation of knowledge born in struggle and of ways of knowing developed by social groups, as part of their resistance against the systematic injustices and oppressions caused by capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy’ (2014: x). Colonialism and ‘abyssal thinking’ are deep-rooted in both the cultural imagination and in social and psychological spheres. They exist in our bodies and minds and are related to people’s subjectivities and desires, both spheres, social and psychological, operating actively (Chen 2010). In the academic world, processes of exportation-importation of ways of thinking about the university are deep in the exchange between universities in the Western and the non-Western worlds. This type of reflection invites us to question the ways in which processes of collaboration and leadership in academic life are built up and how they might promote power relationships and processes of intellectual dependency of the non-Western academy on the Western academy (Naidoo 2008). We do this in order to better understand these processes and also to provide knowledge and practice strategies for overcoming them, to make our future and potential partnerships more consensual, more symmetrical and equitable.

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Universities and internationalization Universities play a key role in the production of knowledge and in positioning countries in the international knowledge discussion (Morley 2016). Consequently, universities have been developing a set of strategies ‘to position higher education systems and institutions in a global context’ (Britez and Peters 2010: 101). These strategies include transnational, national and institutional schemes and practices aiming for the internationalization of higher education with a focus on economic productivity. For example, several transnational mobility research initiatives (such as Erasmus Mundus and Universitas21) ‘promote knowledge exchange and international cooperation with a view to ‘value-adding’ and so maximize the national or regional benefits of (researchers’) mobility’ (Kenway and Fahey 2008: 162). At national and institutional levels, the process of internationalization of universities has been criticized as being largely a commercial process (de Wit 2011) involving a set of economic strategies aiming to respond to the global market (Beck 2012). The latter includes the sale of educational services – especially by attracting wealthy international students and the establishment of international branch campuses – and the generation of international research income. It also includes the recruitment of staff and scholar exchange programmes, the internationalization of the curriculum and the establishment of education partnerships within regions and across countries. Universities therefore compete for financial resources and reputation within a global knowledge economy and circulation of human capital (Rizvi 2011). In Chile, as in many other universities around the world, some academics devote much of their time in applying for research funds as a means of advancing a reputation both nationally and internationally (Guzmán-Valenzuela and Barnett 2013a, b). However, the simultaneous participation of advanced and emerging economies in the processes of internationalization may have a different nature. On the one hand, for advanced-economy countries, there are research schemes and mechanisms for collaboration in which interaction among participant countries/universities is based on partnerships, where every country has a similar role and position. On the other hand, within research collaboration schemes among regions, and particularly where these are between advanced-economy countries and emerging-economy countries, schemes in which collaborative partners do not occupy equal positions might emerge. As Naidoo claims, this type of academic collaboration works implicitly under a logic of a ‘dominance

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of Western hegemonic research models … (and in which) … research partners from developing countries are positioned as research dependent’ (Naidoo 2008: 258). As Guzmán-Valenzuela (2017) has shown, the theories of teaching and learning processes in Latin America, and published in mainstream journals, emerged mainly in the North. In the following section, and based on the concepts we have identified above, we examine empirical data and academic experiences on international mobility and collaborative work and leadership in our home country.

Policies to promote internationalization of higher education: The case of Chile Chile has developed an increasing process of internationalization over the past decades, aiming to create a strong research agenda that promotes development and innovation. This agenda has been encouraged by international organizations such as the OECD and the World-Bank (OECD and World-Bank 2010). The Chilean government has paid particular attention to academic mobility through a scheme of postgraduate fellowships in prestigious international universities defined by their positions in international rankings. This has been realized through a series of doctoral scholarship programmes. Across the five existing programmes of scholarships during 1988–2014, there were more than 10,500 postgraduate scholarships funded by the Chilean government, with almost 70 per cent of them assigned in the six years between 2008 and 2014. A related current policy, getting funded for a doctorate abroad depends on a new scholarship programme – the Chilean Scholarship Program – that emphasizes the development of ‘internationalization’ of new academic staff. The doctoral scholarship has been used as an instrument to develop research capacities in Chile (OECD and The World Bank 2010; Rojas and Bernasconi 2009) (see Figure 9.1). The Chilean government has also created a series of international grant schemes to promote research leadership and international academic alliances, for example, through collaborative international grants or the organization of international seminars. In analysing the annual reports of the International Co-operation Program funded by the Chilean National Funding Body (CONICYT) during the last eight years, the number of international collaboration projects has not changed much. However, there

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Chilean Doctoral Fellowship Programme 1400 Total Number of Fellowships

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1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

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Figure 9.1 Chilean Doctoral Fellowship Programme. Own elaboration with data from: (a) DIPRES (2007). Minuta ejecutiva evaluación en profundidad de becas de postgrado, DIPRES, Santiago. (b) CONICYT (2014). 25 años becas de doctorado CONICYT, Santiago. (c) From 2001 to 2005, data were obtained from source (a). For the period 2006–10, data were obtained from source (b)

is an exponential increase in the amount of money given to this programme. In 2008, the amount designated for the International Collaboration Program was 565 millions of pesos (around $852K); in 2011, 730 millions of pesos (1.1 million dollars); and in 2014, 3,873 millions of pesos (around 3.3 million dollars) (See Figure 9.2). International Co-operation Programme 2008 – 2015 3873

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Figure 9.2 International Co-operation Programme funded by CONICYT Source: Compendios Estadísticos Conicyt 2008–15, CONICYT

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In addition, academics and their institutions are adopting, progressively, a practice of co-authoring papers and books with international scholars as well as participating in international conferences and events. Chile occupies the third place in relation to the most productive OECD countries in terms of international partnership collaboration (based on the number of publications of a country published in collaboration with an institution of another country). The average international collaboration of OECD countries is around 20.4 per cent and, in the world, 15.1 per cent. In Chile, the current international collaboration between 2009 and 2013 is about 49.5 per cent (CONICYT 2015). Further, in analysing the impact of this international partnership collaboration, it appears that Chile has mainly collaborated with the North, and particularly with the United States, Spain, Germany, France and the UK. According to the report, ‘the international collaboration has a major impact on the production of knowledge compared with the local collaboration’ (CONICYT 2015: 38). Based on these data, the report concludes that joint publications with international collaborators is a decision taken in the design of the research, and that ‘the evidence shows that there is a tendency to choose very well with which partner it is possible to collaborate’ (CONICYT 2015: 38). The Chilean National Funding Commission, therefore, promotes partnerships with countries that have historically been leaders in the construction of knowledge. However, little discussion has been forthcoming about what it means to be working in partnership with those countries. Without doubt, this strategic international partnership implies access to new methodologies, technologies and knowledge by Chilean scholars (and vice-versa – with benefits flowing to the ‘receiving countries’). However, it also poses questions about local knowledge. While it is recognized that processes of internationalization are an important step in positioning Chile in the international scene and in improving impact indicators related to national research outcomes, less attention has been paid to establishing a long-term strategy about research. In other words, while there are indicators about the growth of international collaboration and its impact on the production of publications with scholars from other countries, there is little discussion about the impact of such international collaboration on the construction of knowledge both locally and regionally. The practicalities of these policies promoting international collaboration have also been questioned, especially in connection with an important number of returning Chilean scholars who have obtained their PhD in the most prestigious universities in the world, but, who in fact, are not being offered adequate academic positions to develop their academic careers (OECD and The World

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Bank 2010). This has generated a multifaceted discussion in Chile about the type of human capital that the country is aiming to produce and the benefits of higher education for both the country and the professionals involved (CONICYT 2008, 2009). In addition, there is a dearth of discussion about the complexity of reintegrating new returning scholars into the university system practically and epistemologically, their adjustment within academia structurally, and the ways in which knowledge is moving globally (Munoz-Garcia and Chiappa 2016), and their understanding and role in this. In the following sections, we examine the experiences of young scholars from the humanities and the social sciences who recently obtained doctoral degrees abroad, together with our own experiences in academic research collaboration and leadership. These experiences illustrate the North/West-South division in academia, as well as what we argue are processes of epistemological dependency (Connell 2007) and epistemicide (Santos 2014).

Returning home: Processes of using, moving and building knowledge As discussed above, Chile has developed a strong process of internationalization. Among those Chilean scholars who studied abroad, most of them pursued their doctorates in European countries (40 per cent), United States (52 per cent), while only about 4 per cent pursue their doctorates in Latin American countries (CONICYT 2014). As a result, the number of scholars returning to Chile has increased exponentially (Gonzalez and Jiménez 2014). For instance, in 2007 there were around 500 academics with doctorates within the country and, in 2014, there were 7,871 (CONICYT 2014) which shows a huge increase in the number of academics with doctoral studies. Drawing on empirical research, our focus here is on the processes of reintegration of scholars who obtained their PhD abroad back into Chilean academia, and particularly, the ways in which they are using, moving and building new knowledge. Miguel (not his real name) obtained his PhD in History in Europe. He explains that academics are much better prepared there than in Chile. In the following quotation, a disturbing thought about the incapacity of Chilean scholars to create new theories is observed. Rather, academics can ‘adapt’ and/or ‘copy’ theories and research paradigms learnt in the North:

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We have to assume that we will never build paradigms and that we are always copying others. So, you have to copy very well and adapt. My goal is not to create paradigms, because it is absurd to think we will construct something new … we have to be able to adapt things to enrich local knowledge … more than thinking of creating new things. (Interview with Miguel, 2012, doctorate in history)

This quotation illustrates an example of processes of academic dependency and epistemic domination. It also shows a position of acceptance of valued knowledge produced in the North, while denying the capacity to question it or resist it, or create valuable new knowledge at home. Complementarily, and in connection with the concept of academic dependency, the idea of ‘academic openness’ emerges. It refers to the ways in which Chilean academics are open to ‘first world’ interpretations, theories and methods learnt in the North. Ulises (a pseudonym), for example, who obtained his degree in France in 2010 and is now working as an academic in a public regional university, commented that most of the scholars he knew completed their doctorates in countries considered as ‘first world countries or colonizers’ countries’. In his view, academia in Latin America is less settled than intellectual traditions in the North/West, so Chilean academics easily welcome new theoretical and methodological approaches. In turn, he observed an intellectual closedness towards theories built in the South on the part of countries located in the North: So [epistemologically] we can be mixing German with British or French [theories], etc. (and) we feel like there is a big dance party that is happening on a big stage above us … you feel open to every [Northern] theory. When you’re there [Europe], you realize that there is some intellectual closedness, an inability to see what you don’t want to see. In Latin America … there is an enormous intellectual openness …. We are theoretically and methodologically hyperopen; this is not the case in Europe. (Interview with Ulises, 2012, Doctorate in Social Sciences)

Additionally, Ulises points to a ‘perverse logic’ in Chilean academia, whereby colleagues give great value to the name and fame of their former PhD advisors: When you come back [to Chile] as a ‘Dr’ … [your colleagues] tend to minimize what you did. [Rather] they want to know who you studied with, and you end up not being important at all. All that is important is the name of the ‘guy’ that guided your thesis. That is a perverse logic that makes Latin American intellectuals never lift their heads. They are always going to think that they really aren’t as great as their professors. … you end up turning into a type of

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ventriloquist. The voice of your great professor in France is heard through your voice. I felt that when I brought one of my professors from France over for a conference. (at my university)

This quotation shows that academic weight is attached to the academic status of the North. It also illustrates Santos’ (2014) notion of ‘abyssal thinking’ which involves a simultaneous process of overvaluation of a ‘colonizer knowledge’ and an undervaluation of knowledge locally produced. The experiences analysed here raise questions as to how national power within the North and the West influence the construction of knowledge among academics in Southern countries and the establishment of collaborative partnerships even after academics from the South have finished their doctoral studies and travelled back. Also, this analysis invites us to think about and revisit our conceptions about academic mobility, its aims and challenges. Although collaborative partnerships with former doctoral advisors might be seen as a strategic and valuable networking resource – for possible future collaborations – it might also promote complex power relations in the construction of knowledge. We suggest that new principles for academic partnerships are needed. New grammars are needed to create collaborative spaces to think about these complexities. They should also open the imagination to build up academic relationships where knowledge created in the North and in the South is based on a symmetric dialogue rather than on an intellectual dependency. In addition, and based on Connell’s ideas, we interrogate the ways in which knowledge in the social sciences in particular is constructed and moved to particular contexts in the South. Considering the historical processes of colonization experienced in Latin America and particularly in Chile, both history and territoriality are key issues to be considered. According to Grosz (1995), there is a naturalized idea of knowledge as a product or a ‘thing’ that denies its historicity. A reified conception of knowledge asserts its indifference to questions of politics. The direct consequence of this common understanding of knowledge as a thing and not as a historical and political process is the neutralization of the complexities of what it means to be an academic constructing knowledge within a context and a territory. This view of the historicity of knowledge, territoriality is also relevant. Fahey and Kenway (2010) invite us to think about the ways knowledge and power are linked to territoriality. Both knowledge and territory are connected in different ways, as a material political, historical, temporal and relational and also as an imagined reality. These multiple connections lead us to think about

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the idea of ‘empires of knowledge’, which involves an asymmetrical movement of knowledge, together with its expansion from the centre to the periphery. The latter raises questions on how national power within the North and West influences the direction of the movement of knowledge, and how the identity of a travelling researcher constructs his/her identity within this power/knowledge geography.

Research collaboration and leadership: Own experiences in academia As suggested above, more discussion in Chile on the role of policies of internationalization among universities and their impact on the geopolitics of the construction of knowledge – and on the ways of being an academic – is needed. In the context of these international research collaborations, one of the authors of this chapter experienced some challenging situations in processes of collaboration and leadership between local and international academics (all of them from the North). These are discussed below.

Situation 1: Academic writing and contribution to a book edited by colleagues from Anglo-Saxon countries One of the authors of this chapter and a colleague were invited to contribute a chapter to a volume in the field of higher education. In general, we did not have any problem in producing our article until we received the chapter proof. When that happened, we realized that the tone and the style of our writing were consistently changed without our being notified. When we referred to a change in the use of pronouns and asked that the previous version be restored, we received a justification of these changes on the part of the editors. However, we were not satisfied with the stated reasons, so we insisted on keeping our chapter as it was. And it was here when we felt the power of the editor in relation to the use of English. We were informed by the editors that our understanding and use of this language were incorrect. The following quotation belongs to a response to a personal communication in which we were showing our reluctance as to the use of the tense ‘should’ in academic writing. We were told that the replacement statement you consider an imposition may be due to a language issue, as should can be interpreted as ‘Used to express probability or expectation’:

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for example ‘John should arrive at noon’ does not mean he is forced to arrive but the expectation is that he probably will arrive at noon! Hence as editors we advise you to accept this change in the statement.

The condescending tone used by colleagues occupying a powerful position (both were editors and professors in Anglo-Saxon universities, one of them in English) in universities of the Western world did not give us opportunities for further discussion. It is true that we were not native English speakers but, at least, we were sure about the grammar of ‘should’ as used in our chapter. In the end, although we did not agree with this and other imposed suggestions, we accepted most of them but we introduced more changes in the text in order to keep the tone we were wanting to give to our paper. It is important to notice that, although this example might seem innocuous for other academics, we experienced and shared disturbing emotions and cognitions about power relationships in academia, especially when one of the parties is in a superior position (because of both of his/her academic status and the place from where he or she is speaking). The example above shows the cultural and psychological aftermath of colonization deeply rooted in language issues, attitudes and education policies and practices. Luk and Lin (2006) have found that many myths about the superiority of the colonizer’s language and the ‘beauty of English native speaker speech’ are still present in ‘post’-colonial days.

Situation 2: Leading international research collaboration funded by a host (Chilean) institution We now move to a joint-collaborative study intended to promote international academic networks financed by the Chilean National Funding Body (CONICYT). On several occasions, during visits within the study, some academics (from the North) deployed curious attitudes of ‘having the truth’ about the ways in which we ‘should’ implement educational policies, or the ways in which their (exemplary) universities were addressing a problem. The fact is that very few of them had an accurate idea of our educational system, the political conditions of our country or the particular problems we face. Consequently, the solutions that were found in their countries and in very specific contexts, did not necessarily match our needs or expectations. Something similar happened in many cases when these professors in academic seminars referred to the main literature and authors (all of them from the North) who are ‘a must’ and the

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ways in which an educational topic ‘should’ be addressed in both intellectual and practical terms. These experiences illustrate an ‘abyssal thinking’ (Santos 2014, 2010), through which one type of knowledge and practice prevails (the one produced in the North) while our knowledge and experience are held apart. But more worrying was our attitude of intellectual compliance during these exchanges. This connects with feelings of intellectual inferiority that we, in the South, experience and, at the same time, reflects a power relationship that is based on (at least) two geopolitical different positions. This situation of an international collaboration makes us think about the naturalization of the ‘violence’ in colonial relationships – actual, linguistic, psychological – and the metropolitan vision about what became a social problem in a specific context and how we should talk about it (Connell 2007). Both experiences depicted here lead us to think about important aspects that need to be taken into consideration when establishing and developing international partnerships and collaborations, especially when issues of power, territoriality, language and history are involved and promote asymmetric relationships.

Concluding remarks: Leadership, collaboration and the creation of new grammars The establishment of strategic international partnerships among universities has become an important dimension which, in turn, impacts on the production of knowledge in the academy. Nevertheless, more critical and geographically situated perspectives questioning about how, when, by who, and for what purposes these partnerships have been established are needed. This chapter invites a rethink about the relationships between knowledge, collaboration, power and geography. It has paid attention to the ways in which knowledge is produced through collaboration and mobility processes in academia and has questioned why some types of forms of interacting in academia are presumed to be more valuable while others have been made invisible. We have interrogated the implementation of strategic internationalization policies of advanced academic capital and international research collaboration that countries with emerging economies – such as Chile – are generating in order to promote the creation of knowledge so as to situate their universities in an international scenario. These policies have been promoted in Chile in a context

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of indicators of excellence and research outcomes (publications and research grants). As seen through the empirical data discussed in this chapter however, these policies overlook how knowledge is created and moves internationally, especially between the North/West and the South. Also, the ways in which returning scholars reproduce Northern theories in the South without contestation need to be interrogated and lead us to reflect on processes of intellectual creativity and academic freedom in academia. Finally, through the exploration of our personal academic experiences in collaborative and international endeavours, we have revisited our own subjective experiences and we have reflected not only on the practices of academic imperialism and epistemic imposition from the North/West, but also on the ways we ourselves – as Latin American scholars – reinforce such relationships of domination and academic dependency. Inspired by the concepts of epistemologies of the South proposed by Santos (2010, 2014), we want to invite consideration of a new grammar for collaboration and academic mobility between academia in the North/West and in the South. In this grammar, a first step consists of developing an awareness of our own roles in academia and the ways we create knowledge in order to understand our communities. This awareness includes not only reflecting on how knowledge or practices produced in the North/West are imposed on Latin America from outside but also questioning how we ourselves promote an academic dependency from inside. A second step and challenge consists of creating and developing spaces for dissensus at different levels in academia. This will assist in interrogating hegemonic knowledge, the geopolitics of knowledge and the ways through which we take for granted certain types of knowledge while making invisible others. The latter includes interrogating our collaborative and leadership practices in the construction of knowledge not only in relation to other (international) colleagues but also with our students through our teaching practices or with the wider community through academic service tasks. It also involves an awareness that North and South are large categories that conceal difference(s) and need to be interrogated. From this type of reflection and also through the promotion of spaces and practices to think about these, and from the perspective of an epistemology of dissensus, we suggest that it is possible to reshape the relationships between the North/West and the South in order to create new ways to understand the world and to construct new grammars for academic partnerships.

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Acknowledgements Work on this chapter was supported by Becas Iberoamérica Santander for Young Researchers (2016). Funding from PIA-CONICYT Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence Project BF0003 and Proyecto de Mejoramiento Institucional University of Chile (PMI-UCH) 1501 are also gratefully acknowledged.

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New Leadership in Commercial Organizations: Self-Management in UK International Company Settings Paul Thomas

Introduction The notion that any work environment or leadership style is perfect is of course flawed. Rather, in the cases discussed here, the issue lies in the persistence of ‘managerialism’ and traditional thinking in relation to people and organizational design (Lam, Sleep and Dugan 2017; Dugan 2017). The idea of ‘control’ in the organization is part of a business rhetoric that aims to reframe management thinking to ‘modernist’ values about reform and change (Child 1999; Thomas 2015). It is found across many countries and company practices and, in the author’s view, needs to be replaced in favour of a more ethical human-centred focus (Taleb 2012). The terminology of ‘management, structure and control’ will be interrelated throughout this discussion with that of ‘collaboration and effective leadership’, to help in demonstrating that ‘managerialism’ is counter-intuitive to a successful organization. This view is based on research and intervention using the Simplexity model, which will be discussed later. The approach in this chapter is to explore the subjective world of practitioners and managers in the wider context of the private sector workplace in the UK and internationally. It identifies some of the multiple realities at particular moments in time, captured for example, at the start of the change project and at its midpoint. The two organizations under consideration here include one based firmly in the UK and the other in nineteen countries across the globe. The focus of the inquiry is less on seeking reductive causal relationships than on understanding the meanings of change, consent and leadership, from the perspective of the participants. The work looks for interconnectivity too, with employers and

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researchers, who are not involved as objective observers but recognized as interested participants, and we acknowledge their positioning as engaged in the change process also. The case studies explore the effects of changes in leadership and evolution of ‘grassroots, bottom-up decision-making’, in moves towards a more consensual model of operation in these companies. The discussion presented here is thus an exploration of the social impact of democratic leadership with a degree of self-organization, in two settings. It depicts a small representation of that adaptation in its results, in both a service and a service-manufacturing-based company, and its possible wider impact. The very features of ‘modernist’ management (Dugan 2017; Byrne 1998), it is argued here, create a reduced ability of front-line staff to react to the dynamic and changing needs of services and customers. The work will also point to issues that emerge from the diverse nature of an organization arising from increasing differentiations in gender, race and religious affiliation in the workforce (Stacey, Griffin and Shaw 2000; Owen 2002; Kollen 2017). These contribute to a larger inventory of complexities, from the small day-to-day problems of individuals, to the design of much larger organizational operations. All of this highlights the problem of a ‘one-size fits all’ approach by managers to areas such as policies, processes and procedures: they are simply too complex to work consistently in practice, and instead, often bring about unintended consequences (Cillier 2000; Taleb 2012; Bolman and Deal 2017).

About the research These studies in two private sector organizations were carried out as part of the work of a team called ‘DNA’ who were originally based in a university Business School. They piloted ‘democratic workplace’ change management practices in both commercial and public sector organizations and were the subject of six television (BBC) documentary programmes about business change in the UK. The data were gathered through confidential, qualitative interviews (Bolman and Deal 2017), randomly sampled, in these organizations. The research in both of these cases was funded by the DNA project, apart from the expenses. The ‘Insights teams’, who directly interviewed staff and management, were separate from and independent of the ‘Change teams’, those who carried out the work with the company personnel on the ground. It was felt that this allowed people at all levels the freedom to say what they felt, saw and believed throughout the

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process, through a series of loosely semi-structured interviews gathered at key points (McCracken 1988). Only key themes were presented to the DNA Change teams, allowing them an insight into the issues, thoughts and feelings within each section, team and context. In our company research, communication, trust and information were major issues. In many of the organizations, communication, especially from senior members of the system, was seen by employees as extremely poor, untrusted, incomplete and containing outdated information. Team members were not kept up to date, even when the information and/or decision had a professional and personal impact on them. They coexisted in a culture of increasing performance checking and evaluations through management-imposed targets and metrics, and few possibilities for making decisions or putting forward solutions. With limited autonomy and not having the freedom to grow or develop, ‘being watched’ and ‘having to do what we are told to do’ were the norm. However, it was also noted in the transcripts that senior management were working to try to change this. They realized and aspired towards a more ‘quality’ than ‘quantity’ (outputs) focus. ‘Managerialism’, we argue, is not the fault of the managers themselves. It is a product of a system, of business education paradigms, their literature and assumptions, rather than of the people in those roles (Taleb 2012). Managers are briefed and trained, with behavioural models and reprisals all around them. They act out what is expected and required by the organization. Once they experience an alternative, a place where leadership and people drive the outputs and top-line, they are often attracted to this architecture and able to adapt quickly. Thus, while we do not see ‘managerialism’ as some innate quality of people, some of the interview data from our qualitative research confirm that existing management practices have to give way to more democratic and facilitative leadership styles, if companies are to find sustainable improvement and modernization for the longer term. Thus, the notion of the collaborative leadership of teams provides a space for exploring possibilities, understanding co-development, and not seeking ‘right’ answers but possible and relevant answers (Dugan 2017) to organizational problems. This approach helps us understand the current state of work practice, and the twin contradictory criticisms faced by workers of management, that ‘they are intervening too much’ as well as ‘too little’ in how things are done (Munroe, 2010). The value of what in the UK are called the ‘front-line staff ’ in the delivery of quality measures in services, manufacturing and output has been recognized for many years (Lam, Sleep and Dugan 2017). Yet far from removing bureaucracy or speeding

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up the customer journey, many of the sectoral and organizational ‘transformations’ we have seen to date have resulted in the greater status of the professional manager, and a related increase in the use of consultancy. Meanwhile, leadership styles have remained largely autocratic (Cloke and Goldsmith 2001; Seddon 2014). Thus, some rebalancing of managerial input and front-line agency needs to take place through facilitation and dialogue.

Applying Simplexity ‘Simplexity’ means ‘intertwined’, and includes the notion of ‘making the complex simple’, which is important in both strategic and human terms. This approach suggests that complex behaviour arises from the connectivity and interaction between systems and their environments, with emergent properties mostly that are unpredictable. So, decisions or actions by one individual or system have the potential to impact on other related individuals and systems (Seddon 2014; Thomas 2015). These interactions are not totally controllable, and the extent or nature of any impact is not completely predictable either, and will be neither uniform nor equal. It will also vary depending on the state of each system, and each system’s state is dependent on factors including its history, constitution, structure and organization (Bolman and Deal 2017; de Roo 2017). All professions grapple with some of these ‘messier’ aspects of complexity. Simplexity offers an architecture for dealing with problems that are not easily defined or have no definite solutions, and where there is a high human activity component, such as is characteristic of work in contemporary organizations (Bolman and Deal 2017). While the overall philosophical and methodological stance of this approach is interpretivist and phenomenological since no prior assumptions have been made, this study does not set out to test any hypothesis (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). Simplexity takes as a central tenet that human ‘systems’ and the social world cannot be understood in terms of cause-and-effect relationships. Instead, it assumes that how we understand the world is central to how we understand others and ourselves. There is no separation between the self and what we know, subject and object (Sarup 1987; Leydesdorff, Petersen and Ivanova 2017). Simplexity in practice facilitates democratic leadership through empowering front-line staff and joining managers into a dialogic process. The ‘DNA process’ in the example case studies below reflects a ‘mixed methods’ approach to data collection through long interviews, action research

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and a biographical interpretive model (Stake 2005). This creates, at stage one, a set of internal disruptors, and agents who help drive projects, who are questioning ‘Why?’ and ‘What?’ thereby allowing the first-tier staff to develop the ‘How we do it’ solutions within boundaries (Henry 2001). These boundaries are initially based around money, performance and quality, but quickly move to much more sophisticated areas posed by the staff themselves. This methodology is not radical or controversial. It allows the views of staff throughout the organization to be heard, but without any unwanted and unhelpful process, which we find is normally the legacy of a forgotten need that might have been useful in previous years (Cloke and Goldsmith 2001). It also offers an alternative that creates an increase in resource outputs in working with front-line staff. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests how service improvements and innovations can be made quickly, while retaining a ‘client focus’ and ‘valueadded-cost-removed’ perspective for the company (Lam, Sleep and Dugan 2017).

The case study organizations The organizations in these case studies are companies in both the service sector in the UK and manufacturing sector, and based at different geographical locations. They include a commercial contact support service centre (UK) and a financial services organization that also provides in various locations, heavy machine or high-technology manufacturing. They and their staff and managers are under continual pressure from increasing demand on the one hand and economic constraint on the other. These issues include rising inflation and the complexities of Britain’s coming exit from the European Union, global rises in exchange rates, and so on at the present time. Both organizations also see frontline staff numbers decreasing, which is due to cutbacks, efficiency drives and also knowledge changes. So staffs’ ability to apply cutting-edge skills and experience for improving performance is constantly reduced because of company low-skills acquisition and recruitment (de Roo 2017). In other words, buying in cheap resources and failing to fully invest in induction, staff development and training.

External context and its impact The wider context of business is also one of increased legislation, competition, political challenges externally, and a related target-driven culture seen

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throughout both organizations internally. These external pressures can lead to greater hierarchical and managerialist approaches within organizations (Mintzberg 2015). For instance, in one business, communication was perceived to be inherently one-way and dominated by company feedback, especially on performance targets, and also frequent changes to processes that ‘were decided by management’. In one case, weekly manager feedback reporting (one-way) and the issuing of bulletins was used as a ‘checking regime’ about change decisions, promoting their ‘benefits’ but with little consideration of the impact on staff and without further consultation. It was thus the cause of a major disconnection with front-line personnel. This was contrasted with communication ‘within teams and sections’ which was seen to be effective and appeared to occur through faceto-face modes – ‘we just go and talk to them’.

Company A: Empowering team leadership ‘Company A’ operated a dedicated service centre from offices in the UK but worked internationally with large multinational clients, so the expertise within it was multicultural and diverse. Three service-driven departments were based at the centre, working alongside each other, supplying support for the needs of a 1,200-strong workforce based over four locations. Services included human resources, finance advice, payroll support and legal services to a global client base. With varying degrees of service level agreements (SLAs) in place, targets such as answering calls in thirty-two seconds, replying to emails in five days and ‘voice of the customer’ satisfaction scores were in force as performance measures. Each department faced its own challenges. These included issues of compliance, efficiency and staff morale. As by one employee expressed it, [T]here are far too many targets, measures, and performance indicators to even start to understand what we are meant to achieve. [The company employs] people to make these up and then monitor them in our behaviour, and [in doing this] have removed the focus on the production and on the equipment we sell. Staff member, Manufacturing sector

There were also significant ‘issues’ around the international staff working at the centre (who were called ‘off-shorers’ reflecting prejudiced attitudes) in terms of conflicting values and management styles. This was part of the growing need for a continual information sharing with staff throughout the entire division, given increasing volumes and types of services being offered, as well as briefings

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about the cultures, laws and nuances within each new country being supported. The level of management interventionism was also very high from bottom to top in the organization, exemplified by the Senior Leadership Team itself. The service area manager, UK born, with six years’ experience in the company, headed the contact centre. Her team of 250 staff responded to the daily needs of the service units’ employees across the UK in different company settings. The tasks and target setting were always clearly identified for the team and these were continually referred to when assessing divisional success and customer satisfaction levels. Example targets included the following: ●

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Approximately 200 pieces of work to be completed by each team member each day; Three-day SLA in place – each customer query (email or telephone) to be responded to and dealt with within three working days; Customer surveys sent out each week – customer satisfaction score target set at 80 per cent; Calls to be answered within two minutes and a 90 per cent achievement record each month; Work in progress (WiP) list to be reduced in size, considerably – typically with over 200 backlog queries to be dealt with on an ongoing basis; Sixty-five per cent of these staff were multicultural and ‘offshore’ origins (mainly from India).

In reality, although the staff were performing well and with speed, the WiP list was not being dealt with quickly enough. This was due to the volume of new queries coming in daily and led to staff being asked to work overtime to deal with the backlog. This increased costs, and customer satisfaction surveys revealed that scores continually came in between 70 and 80 per cent – below the target. Staff morale was low, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for this centre manager to motivate and inspire her team. There were lots of issues, including the lack of induction for the ‘offshore’ people into the company culture and values. One example was the simple problem that Asian background staff at the centre wanted to all eat together, with food they brought into work. The breakout rooms used then became crowded and not used by other staff, creating some tensions. The DNA team was engaged with staff on sensitive cultural and workplace issues like these at the same time as the wider performance ones were pressing.

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The researchers were commissioned to create an ‘organic’ home grown and safe challenge for this organization, with leadership involvement from the staff throughout. It was not so much to create the ability to be different, or to develop engaging leadership, but to simply show how people could change their environment and thereby remove frustrations. The hope was that this would help maintain the energy and create a ‘way’ of doing things in that company for the future. It challenged traditional management rules, of course. The company also experienced a ‘DNA’ technique called ‘disrupting practice’. This helped individuals who struggled with change, and managers who did not lead, to celebrate the ‘mess’ of helping people drive the organization forward in a ‘do-itnow’, feeding-forward process and in an ethos of ‘psychological safety’. The impact was seen within weeks of starting the process, with more questioning from staff being encouraged, as well as challenges to the systems. The honesty required to confront culture clashes was more open, this led to compromises being made that allowed all staff to be treated with equal value and respect, while also confronting the issues that were harmful to teamship and performance such as meal breaks and venues. The changes that were introduced included removing constraints and some of the rules in recruitment, so that new team members were in post within one week, not three months. They were placed in ‘academies’ and values were discussed from the onset. The teams could recreate the service in ways that added value to the cultures and countries they were delivering to, so creating effective first approaches. They introduced frontline collaboration with other teams – even on different floors – to join up the customer needs and break down barriers. ‘Leadership’ was exercised in taking the decision to drop ‘key performance indicator’ allocations, and gathering data on that impact, so each person followed what interested them, rather than being told what to do. Instead, each diverse team created key behavioural indicators to indicate the performance of a team or value stream themselves. So, input and feedback on a group basis were encouraged, and the DNA team held sessions with different team members each day and with each team over a period of two weeks. Everyone led. As part of these sessions, the teams discussed ideas such as removing targets altogether, the ‘WiP’ posters, moving more experienced staff to sit by less experienced staff, having a floor walker to instantly deal with problems from customers and so on. The biggest issue was stopping the team leaders from producing daily and hourly statistics on each member’s performance. While useful, these dragged the teams into managing numbers rather than dealing with more complex issues on the ground.

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After some weeks, the team began to take some of the decisions themselves about the best way to approach the challenges they were facing, and this created interesting and diverse conversations around cultural mindsets and backgrounds. They began to query everything, asking of many processes their impact for the client, why they were doing things a certain way and what they could do to improve. Staff began to believe that they really could effect changes, and ones that would make a significant and sustainable difference in the company. The idea of the ‘daily floor walker’ arose because the division of experience across the team was often unevenly stretched, and training of less experienced staff had become difficult to fit into the working day. But with this role in place, it meant that there was an experienced person or a culturally aware person, available to support more junior members throughout the day and could respond to queries (or tensions) at any one time. The impact was quite dramatic: ●

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For the first time, the three-day SLA target was being met regularly; in some cases volumes of queries were answered within one to two working days. The WiP list of outstanding queries was reduced by 80 per cent. Customer satisfaction scores (from the weekly surveys) were now consistently 90 per cent and above. A significant increase in calls was being dealt with at first resolution level (with floor walker assistance support). No overtime had been worked for over six months, saving the company in excess of £90,000 of additional pay, and staff more satisfied with what they were achieving.

These metrics – so important in the company environment – were in addition to a happier, more empowered and active workforce. One senior manager at the company, commented: I have to say … I was sceptical about the proposed changes at first. My team was already under pressure to deliver in the time they had available, [yet] they kept being asked to engage with Simplexity processes and spent many hours talking with [the DNA team] receiving coaching support. A section leader observed, Both myself and the staff have been encouraged and supported to take a leap of faith … whilst absolutely capitalizing on the talent and expertise of the team. With the results being both expected and amazing. But the key aspect for me is how we became a team again even though we are diverse.

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Company B: Financial leadership – ‘consensual fun’ Company B was a financial services organization providing a multidisciplinary service offering financial investment and banking disciplines via a rapidly growing workforce of 198 people in this part of the organization. Professional workers included accountants, contact officers, pensions and stock administrators, advice services staff and more. The organization had also acquired some twenty years ago, nineteen manufacturing plants that created heavy-end machinery and high technology. These plants ranged from 60 to 400 employees, with profit margins ranging from 0 per cent in two plants, to 43 per cent in the top five. A restructuring of the service in London had taken place in 2010 and three years later, many of the team had moved from two locations to one location in the capital. The teams and staff were still recovering from the organizational restructure as well as the company growth. At the time of the research, there was an apparent fixation on cost reduction and many of the manufacturing plants felt under constant threat of closure and staff loss. However, while there had been a natural reduction in plant numbers over the past twenty years, none had actually been forced to close, or reduced in any way, as a direct result of management decisions. But there was a sense of a loss of control throughout the company’s leadership. Symptoms of this were that people were using ‘rules and procedures’ to avoid responsibilities and there was a general reluctance among the staff to embrace the recent changes fully. The complaint ‘they’ve no idea of the culture here’ was in use at almost every location we visited in a six month period. There were major issues with the company’s information technology services and network too, and the amount of casework across the company and their often-over-complicated procedures meant that the client service and production targets had started to be affected. In response to these difficulties, the CEO and company co-owner, working with the DNA/Simplexity researchers, decided to offer the entire service team ‘the choice of working differently’. Alongside him was a managing director of global operations (MDG), who felt change was necessary where identified, and in many cases, people already had potential solutions in mind. Yet no one, regardless of country, would offer solutions without directives from management, telling them how to do it (Manolova et al. 2002). The company needed the independent and impartial support of the DNA team to instigate changes with the managers and countries. At the time, senior first line managers were discouraged from micromanaging; however, we quickly found that ‘this was the way things are

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done’ on the ground. So, to demonstrate their own commitment to change, the CEO and MDG decided not to respond to emails ‘copied in’ or not directly sent to them for a period of four weeks. The MD commented: I wanted to move away from that as a fail-safe mechanism, to encourage staff who are extremely capable, to make the decisions themselves, and to come to me when they genuinely deemed it necessary and had exhausted their own skills and knowledge. This wasn’t to avoid decision-making, but to empower the workforce and encourage responsibility … spreading both skills and responsibility is vital for the sustainability of the whole team as well as [people’s] individual career progression.

Further, apparently ‘simple’ solutions, such as securing mobile phones for staff members who were out on the road and sometimes in difficult and challenging situations (and countries) were put into effect through the consultation process. Establishing a weekly work plan meeting, and setting up a service-dedicated web page on the intranet, contributed towards improving internal communications too. It also raised the profile of the good work that the service team was providing. A ‘paperwork, systems and rules amnesty’ allowed each country and each plant the freedom to discard the ‘things that did not add value or help’ in creating the empowered culture. More radically, the team’s ‘structure charts’ were discarded, to break down institutional barriers and improve practice and maturity across the organization. This took place in the UK first, but quickly moved to all countries except China, as they had already removed this, without telling former and current CEOs, many years previously! Job titles in the company that had been recently introduced were also removed. And a flatter structure meant that every team member had access to every other team member, and they did not have to go through a hierarchy of contact and management levels. For the CEO, the result of reading only emails addressed directly to him, alongside a strategy of prioritization of tasks, cleared four extra days in his diary in the first month. To help create this serious change in a fun way, the DNA team suggested that any emails sent on a Monday or Friday, or before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m., would incur a payment to charity of $10 – and if anything from the weekend landed, it was $20 to charity. The impact was immediate – although a few did attempt to get the CEO to respond on a weekend, simply to raise more money for the cause! Staff reported that the CEO has said for two years in the company: ‘What would need to change to make it fun and enjoyable for you to come to work?’ During the change process, he offered support for those who wanted to participate, adding

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that it would involve discussions, attending meetings and so on. Devoting time to these initiatives is a key asset and an issue too. The company is still in a state of transition and internal reassessment, but the potential of change and new thinking on workplace empowerment has been established. The MD stated: We had previously worked with other methodologies such as lean, agile and Kaizen, and forced these throughout all the countries. They focused on the idea that if you sort out the systems then the rest will follow. I instinctively didn’t buy into this at the time, as in practice and with people, specifically tough clients, we had to ensure we were thinking in more ‘human’ individual terms and the ultimate unpredictability and chaos that accompany this. [This was alongside] changes to working cultures and countries that were required. It meant that … we needed our staff to be able to make decisions and take responsibility in what can often be quite challenging circumstances. Systems and procedures have a place in this, but they are not the key and will not provide the ultimate answer, not in the finance or manufacturing worlds.

The changes meant that each country adopted only the processes and procedures that meant staff felt really empowered. Many of the countries, the UK being one of them, found this extremely difficult, as they, the staff, felt it ‘wasn’t their role’ or position to make decisions on such matters. The shift took three to eight weeks, but meant significant savings and production improvements however, and instead of waiting three months to advertise, recruit, induct and employ people, this was brought into one week. Production increased, as a result of less staff shortages or waste on procedures, such as advertising globally for positions in one country.

Human-centred leadership So what happened in both cases? Complexity theory argues that attention should be paid to the constantly changing nature of a system rather than the notion that people are identical as ‘roles’ within it and can be uniformly controlled regardless of context. As in both company examples and across countries, this included the impact of individual practitioners, as they became part of the system. What happened in particular was that problems were approached in terms of relationships and connectivity between interrelated and interdependent aspects of a whole, rather than as a reaction to a single problematic outcome or event (Holland 1998; Leydesdorff, Petersen and Ivanova 2017).

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The case studies reflect business and organizational change and this thing we call ‘leadership’ in various context and countries. They follow the ‘humanist’ model in appreciating the importance of people and the impact that each can have on organizations. The outcomes of partnership and working together with management at all levels, were that as the teams developed, a natural and organic system of interaction and interdependency occurred. But when an unnatural system structure was imposed managerially, the outcome was disruption and the emergence of ‘shadow systems’ as seen in the plant in China. This simple, nuanced change had a significant positive impact on performance and staff satisfaction within the companies and we can think of it as ‘ownership’ of the product, service and outputs. This addition to thinking and the constant small changes made were perceived as favourable, since the system was evolving. However, there was also a negative aspect too, because as soon as staff had gained the knowledge and understanding necessary for something, it changed again. So the leadership support became one of the need to coach, rather than instruct, in how to maintain continued growth. In the cases of the zero profitmaking centres, it was about survival too. In UK public service (cf. commercial) organizations, we find employees under considerable pressure too, with hugely increased social expectations, reduced budgets – in one case we studied, a 22 per cent cut in the last three years (IIM 2015; Jones 2017) – and difficultly in attracting qualified new staff. Yet two organizations we worked with both won awards for service improvements, innovative products and excellence in this context, following the work of the DNA team (Thomas 2015). This came from placing leadership, power, trust and co-development at the forefront. Both organizations, and in many others we engaged with in the UK and internationally, had problems of communication and information, which were part of the lack of trust and separation between groups and management in those services. One way to understand this research and its case studies is in relation to contemporary management discourses. In the historical development of management science, and particularly taught management studies, authors such as Drucker (2000) have represented the early and still dominant influences. But writers developing approaches from Argyris (1978) and Senge (1992/1999) and Stacey (2010) to Mintzberg (2004, 2015) and de Roo (2017) illustrate a move away from this to a more humanistic, agency-based model. Human-centred management theory reflects the need for a new basis for the discipline of leading people. It also takes place in the light of a growing distrust about the theory

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and application of past ‘scientific’ theory application to organizations, as well as fears over future impact on practice (Vroom 1973; Mintzberg 2004; Bolman and Deal 2017). Horton (2003) makes the point that although ‘managerialism’ can provide more clarity over standards, objectives and expectations, this businesslevel ethos conflicts with human-mess and culture. The continued growth, in the face of all its failings, of performance management, traditional leadership and strategic planning, suggests that the alternative prospectus, the ‘collaborative leadership of teams’, is worth pursuing. Any concept of a ‘service or production ethos’ may be somewhat abstract and difficult to quantify, let alone measure holistically, yet while an ‘accountancybased’ perspective has been dominant, this has been associated with a focus (and a leadership style) that increases the expectation away from the social and emotional intelligence of individuals, and towards a centrist control, defined rather simplistically by management discourse (Lam, Sleep and Dugan 2017). ‘Managerialism’ according to Cloke and Goldsmith (2001), is cruel to those attempting to pursue it, harmful to those trying to implement it, as well as being injurious to those on the receiving end of its impossible ideals. Speaking about the old way (management), one production team leader [India] said: New ideas should be celebrated, not quashed. We could do a lot more, have a better-quality product, and a happier work force by rethinking who we are and how we can allow our people to get there in the most efficient way.

Unlike ‘business school’ and management course postulates, post-structuralism offers a set of theoretical positions that require practitioners to participate in a self-reflective discourse. This encourages an awareness of the tentativeness, slipperiness, ambiguity and complexity that exists in relation to text and meanings, regardless of context (Sarup 1987; Leydesdorff, Petersen and Ivanova 2017). Consequently, the approach in the above work has emphasized the importance of subjective and individual changes, and established a framework for making sense of the everyday situated experiences of the people within the companies. This perspective has allowed actors to understand the dynamics of the world in which managers make decisions, where staff are anticipating and responding to changes that they realize they cannot control (Streatfield 2001). But now they are given another option: the ability to influence change as it emerges in the organizational setting, and not to rely on calculations or past trends to predict future events. Consensual leadership is not management in a softer form. It is required in our private sector organizations, which means that individuals

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in former management roles need to be able to reflect, understand the mess of people and take time out to achieve a deeper level of understanding of how to best serve others and the organization, through collaboration and insight. For Mintzberg (2004), managers must develop the notion that they are dealing, within their workforce, with people – each with their own perspectives, vision and needs. Stacey (2004, 2010) supports this and comments that managers should become ‘gardeners’, and tend to their gardens (organizations) in a natural, organic and influential way rather than in a controlling and ‘controlled’ way. We need an understanding of the rules of natural systems thinking, and how as humans we connect, co-evolve and emerge (Lewin 2001; Pascale 2002; Thomas 2015). The key is in exploring and establishing authentic partnerships both within and outside the company, leading through developing passion not processes, and facilitating ‘human learning’ through growth and empowerment. Our work has been to help confront and reject rather than simply reduce or mitigate the metrics and performance management thinking in the above organizations. It required a partnership approach, not only between teams, units or centres and across countries, but with management and workforce, between company leaders and the DNA researchers. Our aim was to show that it is the messy, uncertain stuff that humans bring, and the unpredictable dynamics of the human social system, that are the important assets. This work challenges the view that the ‘professional manager’ will end the ‘crisis’. Indeed, what we see, and the evidence we gather at each client organization, has indicated the complete opposite.

References Argyris, C. (1978) Organisational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Byrne, D. (1998) Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Bolman, L. G. and Deal, T. E. (2017) Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, 6th edn. Cambridge: John Wiley & Sons. Child, J. (1999) Organization. London: Harper and Row. Cillier, P. (2000) Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. New York: Routledge. Cloke, J. and Goldsmith, K. (2001) The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy. London: Warren Bennis Series.

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de Roo, G. (2017) Ordering Principles in a Dynamic World of Change – On Social Complexity, Transformation and the Conditions for Balancing Purposeful Interventions and Spontaneous Change. New York: Elsevier, Progress in Planning. Drucker, P. (2000) The Essential Drucker: In one Volume. Republished June 2001. London: HarperCollins. Dugan, P. J. (2017) Leadership Theory: Cultivating Critical Perspectives. Leeds: Emerald Publication. Hamel, G. (1999) Strategic Flexibility: Managing in a Turbulent Environment. Boston: Harvard Press. Hamersley, M. and Akinson, P. (2007) Ethnography: Principles and Practice, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Henry, J. (2001) Creativity and Perception in Management. London: Open University, Sage Publication. Holland, J. H. (1998) Emergence from Chaos to Order. UK: Oxford University Press. Horton, S. (2003) Participation and involvement – The democratisation of new public management. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 16 (6), pp. 403–11, https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550310492058 IIM (2015) National Management Salary Survey. Institute Of Management (In Association With Remunerations Economics). Kingston upon Thames: IOM. Jones, N. (2017) Budget 2017: What’s left for the Public Sector? PWC Blog.com Budget 2017: http://pwc.blogs.com/publicsectormatters/2017/03/budget-2017-whats-left-inreserve-for-the-public-sector.html Kollen, T. (2017) Sexual orientation and transgender issues in organizations. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 36 (2), pp. 132–43. Lam, S. K., Sleep, S. and Dugan, J. P. (2017) Leveraging frontline employees’ small data and firm-level big data in frontline management: An absorptive capacity perspective. SAGE Journal, 20 (1), pp. 12–28. Leithwood, K. (1992) The move towards transformational leadership. Educational Leadership, 49 (5), pp. 8–12. Lewin, R. (2001) Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, 2nd edn. London: Phoenix Paperback. Leydesdorff, L., Petersen, A. M. and Ivanova, I. (2017) Self-organization of meaning and the reflexive communication of information. SAGE Publications, 56 (1) pp. 4–27. First published 8 February, 2017. Manolova, T. S., Brush, C. G., Edelman, L. F. and Greene, P. G. (2002) Internationalization of small firms: Personal factors revisited. International Small Business Journal, 20 (1), pp. 9–31. McCracken, G. (1988) The Long Interview: Qualitative Research Methods. University Papers Series, 13. London: Sage. Mintzberg, H. (2004) Managers not MBAs. London: Pearson Education. Mintzberg, H. (2015) Time for the plural sector. In Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer edn. New York: Standford Press.

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Munroe, E. (2010) The Munroe Review of Child Protection. Part One: A Systems Analysis, available at: http://www.education.gov.uk/munroreview/downloads/ TheMunroReviewofChildProtection-Part%20one.pdf. Owen, J. (2002) Management Stripped Bare: What They Don’t Teach You At Business School. London: Kogan Page. Pascale, R. (2002) Surfing of The Edge of Chaos. London: Prentice Hall. Sarup, M. (1987) An Introductory Guide to Poststructuralism and Post-Modernism, 2nd edn. Athens: Georgia. Saunders, C. S. (1998) Strategic contingencies theory of power: Multiple perspectives. Journal of Management Studies, 27, pp. 1–18. Saunders, I. (2001) Strategic Thinking and their New Science: Planning in The Midst of Chaos, Complexity, and Change. New York: A Free Press. Seddon, J. (2014) Systems Thinking and Public Sector Performance. Oxford: Vanguard Publications. Senge, P. M. (1992) The Fifth Discipline, 2nd Rev edn. London: Random House Business (Reprinted 1999). Stacey, R. (2004) Complexity and Management: Fad or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking. London: Routledge. Stacey, R. (2010) Complexity and Creativity in Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler. Stacey, R., Douglas Griffin, D. and Shaw, P. (2000) Complexity and Management: Fad Or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking? London: Routledge. Stake, R. E. (2005) Qualitative case studies. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 443–66. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Streatfield, J. P. (2001) The Paradox of Control in Organizations. London: Routledge. Taleb, N (2012) Antifragile. Oxford: Random House Publishers. Thomas, P. T. (2015) Reinventing Leadership. Wales: Cambria. Vroom, V. H. (1973) A new look at managerial decision making. Organizational Dynamics, 1 (4), Oxford, pp. 66–80.

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International Connections: Personal Stories and Cultural Contexts in University Partnerships from China and Beyond Brian Denman, Yumiko Hada, Qiang Liu and David Turner

Introduction Around the world, strategic leaders within universities are looking to extend their organizational reach and influence, both as a business goal and for attributions of prestige (Brown 2013). Universities and academics are also under increasing pressure from comparisons such as the Times Higher international league tables, Quacquarelli Symonds comparisons and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University World University Rankings (Turner 2008). A growing number of national ministries of higher education are adopting explicit policies to develop ‘world-class’ universities and many governments are providing funding to support activities with this goal. Finance for these initiatives is generally provided to institutions that are recognized as ‘excellent’ in local or regional sectors, enabling them to become more internationalized and also recognized as excellent at the global level too. So there is a positive cycle for comparison, analysis and future developments. A typical example is China, where funding was provided to leading institutions under what has been called the ‘211’ and ‘985’ Projects. Here, under policies that were intended to ensure that China would have a hundred world-class universities, large funding allocations were linked to specific targets for achieving numbers of institutions in the upper places of international rankings. The sort of things they encouraged in particular were described by one of the chapter’s authors: I am a ‘985 Professor’ at Beijing Normal University. Project 985 refers to May 1998. It is the date when the government announced that it was going to provide

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a massive injection of funds into a number of elite universities (originally 9, currently 39) to make sure that the country had its fair share of world class universities in the international rankings. This was to be achieved by increasing the numbers of visiting professors and students from elsewhere, to ‘internationalize’ these universities. Well, that’s the national level picture, and that’s why I am here. There are positive experiences and also the seeds of collaboration that take root and develop later on. Of course, incomers and hosts have different expectations about an international or world class university and what it does in society. But I am teaching courses in English and collaborating with colleagues to publish in international journals and it would be good to work more with institutional leaders at ‘home’ and ‘away’, to make greater use of our shared ‘human capital’.

Competitive pressures and rankings are everywhere (Dent, Lane and Strike 2017). In the United States, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education was established in 1970 to provide a framework for classifying colleges and universities, because not all accredited and degree-granting colleges and universities could be equitably compared. Allocation of institutional funding was then made according to classification ‘rank’ and driven by student demand. The question arises of whether this has resulted in a ‘fair’ system, as academics would judge? There are other approaches more based on partnership. Australia has fostered its reputation particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, by establishing ‘twinning’ programmes with other universities such as in Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Malaysia, so there are mutual benefits to the linked institutions. In some instances, Australian and other Anglophone-based institutions have founded permanent overseas branch campuses in the Asia-Pacific area. The leaders of these higher education institutions may well have pursued a desire to be recognized as world class, but producing institutions that are world-renowned requires substantial capital investment. One of the principal ways in which universities can meet their goals of global recognition is to use whatever resources are available to them to promote the international movement of students and postgraduates/researchers and staff. Collaborations can include individual academics in exchanges, as ‘fellows’, student or scholarly visits, partner researchers and in roles leading projects, or as part of strategic teams. Within the institution, university personnel will then have to negotiate the boundaries between possibly competing expectations, including over staff development, support, accountability and the sharing of resources. There has been more research and data collection on international student mobility than on staff or how institutions are impacted in such exchanges

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and transfers of people and skill (de Wit 2011). In this chapter, we present the complementary aspect, namely the personal experience of academics who move across international frontiers as part of higher education internationalization. In particular, we concern ourselves with some of the processes of negotiating a shared working and social or personal life, and how this is to be achieved on a daily basis in the new context. We look at some of the understandings of role, the adaptations and perceptions about status or hierarchy, told through stories about international experiences and partnership at the higher education level. These are drawn from the chapter authors who represent Australian, Japanese, Chinese and UK academics, who have severally been based in other countries’ higher education institution systems, and our colleagues. These narratives also suggest the role that ‘leadership’ can fulfil. Undertaking and making international academic mobility work involves ‘leadership’ at several levels, as well as initiative from many sources. It may come in the form of drivers, initiatives or ‘push’ from policies and/or institutional managers. But it is also through the interventions and support of local ‘interpreters’ in the host culture, who aid in the entry to the receiving institution, as well as the explorations of academics themselves, through placement, that, we argue, create the ripples of association which can cement (or inaugurate) small or larger alliances for future partnerships in practice.

Adjusting to a different culture in everyday living There is an apparent ‘transnational’ identity between scholars and globalized institutions whereby, in sharing ideas in English across email and internet connections, publishing in common journals and co-writing using Microsoft or Google tools and resources, ‘difference’ is minimized or not visible, until the direct encounter in another country is experienced. This is especially so in a working/employment context. The international scholar may be less than aware of the nature of the expectations or cultural framing behind particular situations, events or even everyday life in general. And in many countries, the incomer will be treated with such extreme politeness and deference (Streitwieser, B and Ogden 2016) that it may make it very difficult to work out where they do fit in, what they have got right or wrong, and to know how to react to what is taking place around them. This is where the leadership of local ‘interpreters’ and supporting colleagues makes its vital appearance.

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Adapting to a new culture, as we all understand in the abstract, affects much more than just what happens in the workplace. In Beijing, one of the first questions asked by Chinese colleagues is, ‘Do you have a special cup for drinking your tea?’ That may not seem immediately significant, but it does draw attention to the fact that residents of Beijing carry a container of water or tea with them everywhere. The British like tea, too. But in Britain, drinking a cup of tea is an event; one sits down and has a cup of tea, and then it is over. In Beijing, drinking a cup of tea is a way of life; one carries the container of tea, and sips it now and then throughout the entire day. So too, eating is never just about eating. Social spaces are constructed around meals and mealtimes, but not necessarily in ways that are common or understood across cultures. Is dinner a place where it is taboo to talk ‘shop’ (business), or is dinner an occasion for business? It can be very difficult for an outsider to read the signs, and a mistake may mean that an important opportunity is missed, or a social event is ruined. And how should one broach a difficult subject with colleagues, or know whether a particular meeting is formal, or a formality? These are unknowable without some assistance. One of the authors of this chapter was invited in China to an ‘informal gathering’ after work ‘for a few drinks and a talk’ by a friend from another university. In fact, contrary to the description, the event was highly formal. A Chinese formal dinner may involve drinking and relaxing, and talking about diverse topics, but the structure is extremely formal, and involves everybody present understanding the hierarchy of relationships in the room, and where they fit into that hierarchy. The drinking rituals require that every person present in the meeting will drink a toast (and talk and develop social connections) with every other person attending the dinner. The sequence of toasts and the responsibility to move to initiate the conversation is highly choreographed and dependent on the status hierarchy. The entire dinner is comparable with a formal icebreaker or a speed-dating event, and is an extremely efficient and effective way of establishing and consolidating relationships that can be called upon in working settings at a later date. But in the setting, it can be difficult to know what is going on or how to actually participate; and as with many such occasions, the non-drinker everywhere has to negotiate their position carefully. When scholars and departments are planning international placements and fellowships, the matters of cultural norms at the micro level such as the above are often ignored. Indeed, such differences may sound trivial, but they require adjustment and sometimes may, as with the case of sipping water in Beijing, have

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greater consequences if not managed properly. It took an unpleasant throat and ear infection as a result of not keeping the lining of throat and nose moist, to underline the wisdom of what Beijingers take for granted. Health issues as well as psychological/emotional well-being are rather important matters, and they affect productivity and employment effectiveness as much as the overall experience. But if eating or drinking together can be a tricky matter, then working together and collaboration, joint research projects, or partnerships in overseas settings, can be highly challenging too, as well-being as an opportunity to learn.

The personal in the institutional and policy context The growing interest and substantial literature in the area of the internationalization of higher education include matters of policy, competitiveness, incentives and cross-national trends (Carm and Horntvedt 2017). However, examination has largely been either (1) of how governments and institutions can develop an environment where international connections are increased – with an emphasis on the movement and recruitment of international students or (2) on the characteristics of and challenges to the students who move across national borders. Streitwieser and Ogden (2016) discuss academics who manage flows of international students and engage with internationalization at the level of research-informed policy. Similarly, Knight (2010) examines the growing range of institutional arrangements – joint degrees, branch campuses, exchange programmes and other strategies – that encourage the movement of academics across borders. Denman (2015) has explored the regionalization of higher education as a new development towards a unified labour market, but with consideration given to different economic imperatives and cultural perspectives, while Coates and colleagues have documented some of the early shifts in academic work in Australia (Coates et al. 2009). Denman (2014: 7–8) provides a classification system of cross-border higher education partnerships based on administrative patterns and purpose: Faculty [staff ]-initiated partner-making: Academic staff-led initiatives, who conduct joint or collaborative international research in two or more countries. Most are likely to start in the form of academic interests but usually become project-based once established. Examples may include a specific field of study, a concentrated area of scholarly focus such as language study, regional studies, cultural studies, or development studies.

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Institution-initiated partnerships: Types of international partnerships that are generated by institutional projector program-collaboration. The project- or program-based function tends to be directed to an individual department, school, or faculty and may be dependent on external funding controls such as foundation or governmental support ‘soft monies’, short-term institutional funds, or donor wishes. They may also be considered to be self-supporting inter-institutional partnerships in which membership fees, tuition fees, program fees, and the sale of publications are used to help defray program-based costs. Quality control measures and maintenance of standards may be imposed to ensure academic integrity. Examples include projects that are research-oriented or program-based initiatives aimed at promoting and developing the internationalisation efforts of partners. Cluster-type groupings: These are partnerships where the emphasis is placed on the consolidation of resources as a means to reduce administrative costs, minimise duplication, and build on inter-institutional relationships through student and faculty exchanges, joint research, and/or the sharing of knowledge. They may also incorporate an exclusive membership in the form of a ‘club’, which shifts the focus of partnerships based on voluntary participation to privileged invitation. Market-driven partner-making: It is not uncommon today to find partner-seeking and making initiatives where the focus is solely on the sale of international education as a profit-making enterprise or commodity.

These categories of partnerships can be further identified as they relate to purpose, but an alignment of the personal interests of the academics involved with the intentions of the participating or initiating institution, cannot be assumed. Most often, the movement of academics across national boundaries takes place as part of a specific project or programme, and is thus policy led, inspired or funded, through macro initiatives or part of a sector initiative in higher education. These have the advantage that there are usually some general or specific resources linked to the role of the incoming academic – and perhaps a specific colleague in the host institution who takes some responsibility for introducing them into the organization and liaising over their work. As one informant commented, As someone who often hosts visiting fellows, I know how difficult it is to get the balance right between leaving people to do their own thing, or over-involving them in the work of the faculty. I liked [the UK] approach I experienced. From

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the Vice-Chancellor, right through the teaching and research staff and the research students, there was a sense of welcome and inclusion, but without being overwhelming. I managed to have conversations with an awful lot of people, and these were productive and I hope will lead on to later collaborations.

This initial personal link is extremely important, and at a personal level may make all the difference in how much ‘the outsider’ comes to feel productive and at home in the new setting. Interviewee: [You at HEI] were great at basic info: bus routes, good cafes, shows coming up at the theatre etc – without pressuring me to come along to everything. I completed a huge amount of my own writing, thanks to the time and space I was granted. So for me, some contact pretty well every week, without me necessarily having to write lectures and prepare materials, was perfect.

These links can also be limiting too, however. For the incomer to a university, having a single link may compete with the need to build up other networks that reflect own interests, rather than those of the contact person. Building a network is not easy either. Sometimes, cultural norms or even a person’s gender, age or perceived status, combined with their lack of understanding about things like social spaces, can lead to lost or overlooked opportunities: the chatting, gossiping and making friends or developing ideas around the shared printer, the water cooler or coffee machine, for example. So visitors miss out on exchanges and encounters that could help their work. And water coolers do not exist in all cultures! Such conversations may happen off-campus, over tea or a beer after work. This process of developing a scholarly network can take many months, or even years. Especially when it involves making connections that cut across faculties and other institutional unit lines. Two of the authors of this chapter took part in a programme for international scholars at Hiroshima University. This was based in the Faculty of Education. However, both academics had a research interest in higher education, and making links with the specialist centre, the Research Institute for Higher Education, was made more difficult by the administrative and geographical boundaries that separated the two centres. This was nobody’s fault, but shows the time, sometimes persistence, and personal investment that academics must typically expect to make in building their interest group, contacts and networks. Even in an institution where one has worked for years, a separation of working groups into fields, subjects, faculties and/or departments can make interdisciplinary connections difficult in any circumstances. Of course, some scholars may regard the ambiguity over who they should relate

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to as an opportunity to conserve time, to lie low and pursue their own work – without much benefiting the new milieu of colleagues, but who also may reciprocally lack time or related mutual interests for collaboration. Time, shared spaces and flexible, permissive environments are needed for scholarly partnerships to ignite.

Understanding the system and fitting in There can be considerable cross-national differences in assumptions about norms of decision-making. For example, Hada (2013), one of the chapter authors, has made a study of decision-making in UK universities as perceived by key personnel. Where, how and by whom decisions are made in the institution may be specific to a higher education institution or sector, but will also have national cultural aspects: and one group’s ‘consensus’ is another’s surprise. In many systems, ‘local’ academics and staff may hardly be able to describe the explicit and tacit channels that direct resources and agreements within their university or sector. In China, a tradition of more than 2,000 years links higher education with the civil service and to the Mandarins that administered the state for the emperor (Hayhoe 2007). The link with government, and thus with political party, persists today, including in education, and is assumed. For Chinese academics, there is an expectation that they will make their research practical, and highlight the consequences, especially those for policymakers, of their research. In the UK’s Research Excellence Framework assessments, researchers needed to frame and adjust their work to highlight ‘impact’ and other externally imposed criteria of success. Performative and supervisory practices are present in many countries and institutions today, from ‘rate my teacher’ and student attitude surveys to external agency metrics of academic work and publication of institutional outturns (Brown 2013). In China, the link with state and party is direct. Prevailing assumptions about workloads and about what is expected of academic staff generally, may bear less heavily upon the international ‘incomers’ than on employed staff in the institutions. Negotiating and working out what is expected as well as what is feasible are not easy. One experienced academic, ‘a visiting research fellow at 6 or 7 universities, in 4 countries’ who had ‘worked collaboratively with several more’, explained: For me the biggest difficulty is knowing what my new temporary colleagues want or expect of me. In some cases, that is little or nothing – I have, before

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now, spent 3 months at a university and seen or heard virtually nothing from the faculty members. In such a case, I would have spent my time more productively staying home and writing. In other cases, too much is required. At one university I found myself giving weekly lectures, running workshops for research students, conducting tutorials – all of which seriously ate into my research time, while the faculty concerned showed no interest in connecting with me as a visitor and researcher, only as an unpaid teacher. These are extreme examples, but I mention them because they’re two sides of the same coin.

Writers of this chapter have experienced both of these disturbing situations in international scholar roles, of isolation and exploitation. But related to this, there are also different national expectations about how closely the work of academics is to be monitored. Some, as in the above example, are left to their own devices, with assumptions that accountability for work produced relates to the ‘home’ organization or sponsoring project. Visiting scholars may receive special treatment – or they may be expected to conform to local norms. Academics in Japanese universities, for example, are routinely expected to clock in, or sign the register daily, which some incoming scholars interpret as an infringement of their independence. It reflects an attitude common in Asia and many cultures, that conscientiousness at work is indicated by visible presence at work. In China, the visiting academic must be prepared to have their teaching video-recorded by media staff in the host institution. Expectations of academics in Asia normally involve a relatively light teaching load, compared with their counterparts in the United Kingdom, United States or Australia. There are obviously higher hurdles to be overcome for incomers before they can be given work in the areas of thesis supervision, examining and administration, and language is the most obvious obstacle to full involvement. But the fact that the visitor is only present for a short and pre-specified time also militates against participating in certain kinds of work. Outside and beyond the institution, as the discussion in this chapter indicates, national policy in many countries, including the UK, Japan and China, produces a top-down approach to developing international initiatives. The national authorities responsible may make resources available for international exchange programmes, but the productivity of such initiatives depends upon the people who have to collaborate on a personal, as well as a professional level to achieve these goals. However, the presence of this approach, and the smoothness with which it functions, can also indicate a cultural environment that actually stifles or suppresses initiatives at the more local and personal level. As van Ginkel (1998: 40) comments:

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Linking universities’ competence to the needs of society not only means that we have to co-operate more with other universities and participate in networks with external partners. It also means that networks [need to] work with external partners … [and] that we have to change our internal organisational structure to be able to work together with partners from different cultures – i.e. universities in other countries, governments (local, regional, national) and their semiautonomous agencies, and the private sector. (emphasis added)

There are few instances in our experience of knowledge and experience from international academic initiatives and exchanges being used to inform policy and national partnership agenda-setting.

Teaching, scholarship, pedagogy – and cultural learning In China, the migrant academic comes to understand that the metaphor of the family is frequently used to characterize the relationships between teachers and taught. While this implies a sense of pastoral care, the view that the teacher is literally in loco parentis can also mean, especially in the context of a society that highly values filial piety, that academics can make demands on their students’ time. This includes seeking help with tasks such as preliminary research, conducting surveys, drafting reports and so on, efforts that would not be expected in European or North American institutions of students. So this causes surprise, as offers of, or responsibilities to help are made. And when returning to the employing higher education institution, academics having to remember to do more for themselves! Crucially important in the context of scholarly and pedagogic work is the question of how one constructs an argument or, indeed, whether ‘argument’ is the best way of describing the central component of an academic essay. In written discourse, the ‘eight-legged essay’ was the standard format for answers in the Chinese Imperial examinations during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and designed to select candidates for the civil service under the emperor (Liu 1974). The eight legs begin with the title, which introduces the subject, and an introduction that expands the subject. The exact function of each section was tightly specified, sometimes to the extent of directing the number of characters to be used to develop the theme. Ultimately, it was a triumph of form over content. Practitioners of higher education in the UK will also be familiar with this notion, which in some ways is very modern, even if it does have its roots in

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the Song dynasty (960–1279). The eight-legged essay has survived a number of attempts to remove it from the examinations in China, serving as an example of ‘the difficulty of abolishing conventional practices in a short time’ (Liu 1974: 392). Its format is still an influence that shapes preconceptions of the way that Chinese colleagues view the structure of written work as well as the nature of argument. Cultural values and expectations will have many effects in the classroom and lecture theatre too. Chinese and Japanese students, among many others, are not expecting to take an active part in their lectures and classes. They expect that the teacher will teach and that they will pay rapt attention, and perhaps memorize the class by heart. It is not uncommon to see students in China in the early hours before class, reciting the notes from the previous lessons as they prepare themselves to attend the next session. And concepts of a ‘good mark’ are of interest to every student, but some of the cultural issues around assessment are more difficult. Setting and judging academic standards is a matter of long professional socialization, to the extent that it appears to gain objectivity. For an academic from the UK system (and depending on their own ‘sector’ and subject), a good pass mark is over 50 per cent, and there may be few occasions when a mark above 70 per cent is awarded. The same academic can expect to be faced by many indignant comments when based where a good student expects a mark of 80 per cent, and the cut-off for receiving a scholarship or bursary is 90 per cent. Situations like this can create deep dilemmas, with the international scholar recognizing that there are cultural differences and contrasting expectations, but at the same time believing that his or her role is to support international comparability of standards where the host higher education institution is aspiring for its programmes to be recognized as ‘world class’. Different language communities also have different expectations about what constitutes an appropriate way to present a topic; translating a good English language essay into Japanese would not produce a good Japanese language essay. (Boardman and Frydenberg 2008: xv–xvi), and the work of writers such as Montaigne or Orwell have influenced Anglo-Saxon conceptions of what constitutes acceptable public and academic writing in Britain and Europe whose norms can be difficult to explain. The pressure towards publishing in English associated with international rankings, as well as the fact that English is frequently the common second language among non-English-speaking academics, means that this is a goal for many academics. In writing to produce an article that is publishable in an English language journal, an Asian scholar

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may have more hurdles to overcome than just language. If publishing in English language journals is a goal of internationalization (as it is in many institutions that aspire to be ‘world class’), it can be a difficult balancing act to find a place where the work is publishable and also retains an authentic voice of the scholars involved. As Denman and Higuchi 2013: 11 note, There are notable gaps in research originating in other Asian nations, specifically Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Thailand, but this does not mean that significant comparative education research is not being conducted there. Put simply, it suggests that either more comparative scholars from these regions need to be identified or that the research should be published in English in order to be recognised on the global stage.

This is from the Western point of view, but there is an acknowledged hegemony here (see Chapter 9, by Guzmán-Valenzuela and Muñoz-García). In addition to a focus on teaching or research, there may also be an assumption that the involvement of outsiders as ‘critical friends’ can improve the quality assurance of processes in the institution. Thus, an assumed asymmetry in the relationship(s) or partnering may be a tacit factor from the outset. However, learning is arguably at the heart of the experience – for all players. Equally and unsurprisingly, some partnerships or interventions may not always be welcome by staff in the host institution, arising from the presumption by institutional leaders or policy makers that teaching, research, outputs or quality can be improved by the inclusion of ‘new blood’ from outside the institution, even outside the national system. Colleagues in the hosting institution may resent the implication that their scholarship or processes need improvement. If not actively hostile, they may well be ambivalent about the addition of incoming or overseas colleagues (often without secondary language skills) within familiar processes. If international leadership is to be produced that meets the macro-level policy goals, then the detailed nature of everyday operations needs to be negotiated at the micro level. ‘Enhancement’ needs co-operation, and ‘development’ can only be successfully achieved by consent. There is also a role here for internal leadership, where it may be possible not only for the visiting scholar to show leadership by example, but also in acknowledging the leadership role of mediating actors in the host system. The learning must be two way. But this is by no means straightforward, where the transfer from a culture with a low power distance to one with a high power distance is involved. The Chinese terms laoshi and Japanese term sensei which might roughly be translated as ‘professor’, convey a

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much greater power distance than their English equivalent. It means that efforts in China for instance, to lead by example, confront not only the expectations of colleagues, but also of students, for whom a visiting academic may not be at all ‘approachable’.

Hosts and expectations and role effectiveness of visitors There are many obstacles to reaching a consensus about how an international co-operation will operate. Denman (2014: 10) states: The major question confronting internationalization is whether its normative approach and response can foster international university co-operation in an increasingly competitive and unstable environment. If indeed it can [foster this], what impact, if any, can international university co-operation make in the shaping of [national] institutional structures and decision-making procedures? The answer to both may be found in: 1) how internationalization is defined from within the university; and 2) the external conditions which impact it.

This makes issues of role effectiveness quite a problem. Several academics related anxieties about their accountability both to the receiving and to the sending institution on this area. Of course, by whom and how targets and outcomes are specified for the exchange or ‘placement’ in the first place can be highly particular to the given partnership. International partnerships, whatever the form, are generally structured to meet the needs of the community and culture to which they subscribe. Their potential to initiate further new opportunities well beyond the realm of whatever services they currently have to offer is also foreseen. International exchanges and partnerships in this sense may be viewed as invisible colleges, whereby the physical infrastructure of institutions has given way to the formalized networks established. These types of international university arrangements help higher education provide adequate quality and variety of instruction, monitor and remain current on worldwide trends, and further promote – or broker – a universal dissemination and advancement of new knowledge (Denman 2012; Dent, Lane and Strike 2017). Morrison (2016) looks at the need for first language speakers of English to relearn how to speak, in order to be able to communicate with non-native others. Such learning requires attention to, and removing, underlying cultural references that will not be shared with somebody who has not grown up in the same part of the world (Tress 2014). It is much harder to do than one would imagine, and even

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harder to maintain over an extended period of time. The same kind of sensitivity about what passes as ‘normal’ in one’s own culture is even harder. For those who work in the areas at the boundaries of cross-cultural co-operation, and who research this field as we do, the ‘clash of cultures’, even in the polite and constrained way that it is experienced in universities, is a source of enduring interest. We hope that a growing number of scholars and leaders will think it worthwhile to act as cultural interpreters for those who visit their systems, because all who experience academic life away from their home setting know how valuable they are. It is in the negotiation of these difficult areas that interpreters of the host culture are a key asset and resource. We have been extremely fortunate to have met, in these contexts, scholars who are able from the depth of their experience to act as interpreters of their own culture. These are invariably scholars who have themselves had a broad and deep experience of different cultures, and who are able to understand what it is about their own culture that causes difficulty for foreigners. Such expertise is rarer than one would hope, and takes years, probably decades, to develop and it is tacit. More importantly, it cannot be commanded. It involves a kind of empathy and care that can only arise from a particular personal nature and thus is never built into a programme as a matter of policy.

Interpreters as leaders Whatever the wider support infrastructure (or lack of it), the visiting academic is totally dependent upon her or his host colleagues. Their scope and effectiveness is in others’ hands, and this can be especially difficult for scholars familiar with university working environments which are built on individual achievement. The situation can also create additional burdens on host colleagues too, complicating work that is in process. Contributing to the international collaboration often requires an extensive workload and host academics also have to invest time and effort in managing their international colleague(s). No wonder that it can sometimes seem easier to leave the international scholar to his or her own devices and carry on with their other ‘business as usual’. Depending on the remit, this can be a wonderful boon for the visiting scholar, who unlike the pressures of ‘home’, may find ample time and space to develop the projects that have been pushed aside by other priorities at their employing institution. However, it creates distance, isolation, disconnectedness from the ‘partnering’ ethos and realities. In some cases, it may mean that the experience of internationalization has no practical impact on the host institution.

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Funding, at the level of national planning, tends to be allocated most generously for the most visible parts of projects. Few or no resources are provided for the necessary investment in their less tangible aspects. In international collaboration, the goal of bringing international students and scholars to join the institution is highly visible, but the necessary costs in time required by the host staff is rarely budgeted for. Visiting scholars can then find themselves in a situation where they wish to contribute to the activities of the institution, but local colleagues cannot find the time to sit down and discuss how collaboration can best be achieved. It can be the less ‘visible’ aspects of such visits and partnering that frustrate attempts to realize the serious objectives of exchanging knowledge and practice, developing new projects in research, teaching and organizational work. Indeed, the visiting scholar needs to be an anthropologist to understand how they might even begin to start! However, most do not realize this in time for it to yield results. But we remain enthusiastic and committed to cross-national collaborations in academic development and thank those leaders who have inspired partnerships into productive effect, not just strategically speaking, but especially culturally, on the ground. For it is others who help us to realize our goals and to achieve our effectiveness, and this is never more so than in some of the international contexts and unfamiliar situations we have described above.

References Boardman, C. A. and Frydenberg, J. (2008) Writing to Communicate. London: Longman/Pearson. Brown, R. (2013) Everything for Sale? The Marketization of UK Higher Education. Abingdon: Routledge/Society for Research in Higher Education. Carm, E. and Horntvedt, T. (2017) Internationalization of higher education: On whose terms? In S. Dent, L. Lane and T. Strike (eds), Collaboration, Communities and Competition, pp. 15–29, chapter 2. Rotterdam: Sense. Coates, H., Dobson, I., Edwards, D., Friedman, T., Goedegebuure, L. and Meek, L. (2009) Research Briefing: Changing Academic Profession. Australian Council for Educational Research (October 2009), http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1010&context=higher_education (accessed 11 June 2017). Denman, B. D. (2012) Invisible colleges and international consortia in higher education. In M. Kobayashi (ed.), Invisible Colleges and Perspectives of Higher Education Networks in Asia, Center for Research and Development of Higher Education, University of Tokyo, No 5 (June 2012), Tokyo.

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Denman, B. D. (2014) Paradox or parody? Globalization and internationalization of higher education. In K. H. Mok and K. M. Yu (eds), Internationalization of Higher Education in East Asia. Trends of Student Mobility and Impact on Education Governance, pp. 223–43. London and New York: Routledge. http://www.routledge. com/books/details/9780415705035/. Denman, B. D. (2015) Regionalising higher education in the Asia Pacific and a network capital paradigm for teaching and research in comparative education. In S. Higuchi and Mori (eds), Journal of Learning Science, no. 8, pp. 135–49. Hiroshima: Hiroshima University Graduate School of Education. Denman, B. D. and Higuchi, S. (2013) At a crossroads? Comparative and international education research in Asia and the Pacific. Asian Education and Development Studies, 2, (1), pp. 4–21. Emerald. Dent, S., Lane, S. and Strike, T. (eds) (2017) Collaboration, Communities and Competition: International Perspectives from the Academy. Rotterdam: Sense. De Wit, H. (2011) Globalisation and internationalisation of higher education. rusc, 8 (2), pp. 241–7. Gornall, L., Cook, C., Daunton, L., Salisbury, J. and Thomas, B. (eds) (2014) Academic Working Lives: Experience, Practice and Change. London: Bloomsbury. (Paperback 2015) Hada, Y. (2013) Governance in the UK Universities. Japan: Hiroshima University Research Institute for Higher Education. Hayhoe, R. (2007) Portraits of Influential Chinese Educators. Dordrecht: Springer. Knight, J. (2010) Higher education crossing borders. In International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd edn. Oxford: Elsevier. Liu, A. Y.-C. (1974) Syllabus of the Provincial Examination (hsiang-shih) under the Early Ch’ing (1644–1795). Modern Asian Studies, 8 (3), pp. 391–6. Available at http:// www.jstor.org/stable/311740 (accessed 29 March 2017). Morrison, L. (2016) You need to go back to school to relearn English. BBC News, published 16 December 2016. Available at http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161215you-need-to-go-back-to-school-to-relearn-english (accessed 29 March 2017). Streitwieser, B. and Ogden, A. C. (eds) (2016) International Higher Education’s ScholarPractitioners-bridging Research and Practice. Oxford: Symposium Books. Tress, M. B. (2014) Latin American academics coping with work in UK higher education. In L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton, J. Salisbury and B. Thomas (eds) Academic Working Lives: Experience, Practice and Change, pp. 180–9, chapter 19. London: Bloomsbury. Turner, D. (2008) World university rankings. In D. P. Baker and A. W. Wiseman (eds) The Worldwide Transformation of Higher Education, pp. 27–61. Bingley : JAI Press. van Ginkel, H. (1998) Networking alliances and consortia of universities: Focusing and strengthening international cooperation. In International Workshop on Academic Consortia (19–21 November 1998), pp. 35–47. Hong Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI).

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Valuing European Partnerships: Memories of Cross-National Leadership in UK Higher Education Projects Brychan Thomas, Lynne Gornall and Lyndon Murphy

Introduction Partnerships, as Roe (2007) remarks, can achieve what organizations acting on their own cannot. Through co-operation, universities can be seen publicly to be working together, engaging in joint initiatives and demonstrating that they are willing to act consensually in formal and associative arrangements (EC 2016). The projects that result are, at the least, mutually owned and operated, and delivered by the participants, with benefits shared. In practice, of course, levels of commitment vary, and some partners derive better advantages than others. Groups contribute differential efforts and resourcing, and these are not always positively reciprocated or correlated with rewards (Mauthner and Doucet 2008). These are issues that can lead to tensions or even explicit disagreements later. The same applies to individual staff, for whom personal development (or inputs) may or may not match opportunities. Matters can also shift quite significantly during the course of an association or project lifecycle, resetting the position of participants, even leaders. And while ‘consensus’ may be desirable at the starting point (and perhaps assumed at the outset) few partnerships will maintain such an equable or agreed ethic across all parties throughout. We do not take the view that everything has to be in place and in synchrony at the start for partnerships to work productively, since consensus may develop as trust and relationships become more established. Indeed, it is often what emerges from group co-working that is of more significance for professional learning or organizational development. Moreover, the problem-solving nature

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of ‘partnership’ itself may be what is valuable for the future, quite apart from its tangible ‘outputs’. Leadership is a crucial variable too, in setting the ethos of and for the relationship. This is because partnerships not only involve ‘mutual and equable relations’ and may be benevolently ‘led’, but may also be examples of what some colleagues describe as ‘forced’ collaboration (WL 2016). This is where universities, in simply responding to prescriptive measures, are not setting their own agenda. They are passing down pressures for partnering to staff and creating a negative ‘narrative’ that impacts across the whole organization. Hierarchically inspired partnership ventures can thus create, even embed, feelings of dissent and dissatisfaction, setting the scene for a dissensus around collaboration in these cases (see also Mauthner and Doucet 2008). More generally, academic-value considerations are ever-present factors in the organizational co-working landscape. These include issues such as autonomy, intellectual freedom, rights to publish, methods of working and ‘ownership’, as discussed by Boden and Epstein (2011) among others. The use of outputs in particular is one area that should be looked at during the early stages of the group formation, but rarely is. In one of our projects, Euronet, the international group developed an innovative training brokerage, but because no one owned it (or would keep it maintained after the project), it was not possible for it to be developed. Yet this resource could have been a useful, ‘marketable’ commodity and organizational benefit. By not collaborating after the funded work, the partners failed to capitalize on the investments made (see www.gov.uk for issues of Intellectual Property in collaborative projects/IP Office). The material in this chapter is based on the working experiences of the authors and their colleagues in five partnership projects. All were cross-national and/or European-inspired, and involved at least one university. Despite the challenges and struggles encountered, these were some of the most enjoyable, rewarding and productive learning experiences of our professional lives. In the sections below, we consider these our data, together with a base of knowledge from others’ work spanning several decades. Theoretically, the notion of ‘social capital’ is used to explore the role of partnering ‘assets’, not only for individuals but for inter-organizational working more widely.

University collaboration and organizational partnerships University collaboration and the partnering of institutions has been discussed by a number of writers (Bower 1993; Twente 2016). They identify a considerable

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increase in these in the United Kingdom in the 1990s (Duggan 1997; Powers 2003), in Europe (Caloghirou, Tsakanikas and Vonortas 2001) and in the United States (Baldwin and Link 1998; Mansfield 1998). Writers Bonarccorsi and Piccaluga (1994) saw early on that organizational involvement in co-operative alliances could progress from what they describe as ‘informal and formal personal relationships’, through to ‘focused structures with university-wide’ engagement. Partnerships have varying degrees of complexity and involvement (Geisler 1997). We find that many partner relationships are initiated in their key early stages through informal or individual contacts (Kreiner and Schulz 1993; Shaw 1993; Daly et al. 2010). More ‘contract-based’ relationships are likely to be instituted, according to Ring and van de Ven (1994), where formalization of arrangements is being applied to third parties, and many writers assume that the commitment of partners will be reinforced if there are legal contracts in place to back up the group agreements and activity (Kanter 1994; Burnham 1997; see also Ball 2007). This arguably cements commitment, envisages a programme and addresses obligations, which we agree distinguishes a ‘partnership’ from looser types of association involving collaboration.

Types of partner and partnership Compacts with companies were some of the first kinds of partnering by universities. The resulting ‘industry’ and ‘commercial’ groupings were rather isolated within institutions at the time, and cross-organizational working was generally limited to science, technology and emerging subject areas, where companies could more readily frame their ‘needs’. Today, this has increased dramatically in emphasis, with whole departments or centres set up for ‘knowledge-based’ and ‘enterprise’ work, involving multidisciplinary, crosssectoral programmes. This notion of ‘engagement’ itself is also part of an embedded ethos in all current UK higher education institutions, that the sector inherently has an ‘economic’ and social contribution to make; however some writers contest this (Clark 1998; Chapman 2014; Slaughter and Leslie 1997; McGettigan 2013; Shukaitis 2017). While much of the previous efforts of these industry‒higher education ‘pioneering’ teams lay in overcoming doubts and suspicions by businesses about universities, internal critics today question the status of the ‘economic’ role of higher education, arguing that universities were not set up to be industry responsive and ‘entrepreneurial’ or to take short-chain decisions that realize

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external commercial opportunities. Furthermore, while the ‘learning’ and benefit between commerce and higher education have been in both directions, some would argue that only one aspect, that of universities becoming more ‘business-like’, has been celebrated – while the metrics for ‘added value’ and ‘distance travelled’ in the company journey have indeed been much less well documented (Ball 2007). But organizations do not need to be constituted as long-term ‘partners’ to act together strategically. The Russell Group is an example of an association of UK research-focused universities that combine with each other to advocate for and maintain the profile of their market segment without being formal partners in more ways. Other institutions seeking out valuable others (Lopez-Martinez et al. 1994; Mora-Valentin 2000) may indeed often prefer ‘stranger’ alliances, where local, sectoral networks can include competitors. Some of our examples included strong local associations but these were not always in synchrony with higher education institution priorities. Also, senior leadership teams in our experience did not always appreciate the investment that went into building and sustaining local links, or how these could be used to realize operational opportunities. The same was true of wider affiliations. We have found a reluctance to build on associations other than policy-inspired or executive-led relationships. Partners need to feel valued and part of a worthwhile relationship, to have a role and a future. It is precisely joint and continuing work that gives life to co-partnering in our experience, rather than being ‘dropped’ after a project or programme has ended. The notion of ‘investment’ implied, while part of a capital-type analogy, is not inappropriate either. The external relationships made by staff beneath the executive levels in organizations may be precisely what works, in terms of their ‘leadership’ in alliancesbuilding and brokering activities. Thus, for us, ‘partnerships’ are relationships that are able to be developed, reinvested or revisited by combinations of members at different times. They are in movement, yet draw on relationships initiated, and perhaps later ‘realized’ but not in purely instrumental ways. As a highly diversified sector, today’s university staff will have experiences of many types of partnering links – consortia, networks, joint ventures (Kaiser and Kuhn 2012), alliances (Lee 2011), associations and also with different bodies such as charities, third sector and government agencies, social enterprises, trade unions, professional associations, voluntary groups, large and small companies and so on. With different structures and legal frameworks whose terms of operation may vary considerably (Munyoki, Kibera and Ogutu 2011), we can observe not just the fact of their formal features, but also the texture of these as they become part of partnership alliances. From a

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personnel point of view, this is all part of an experiential mix (Chiesa and Manzini 1998), one of partnering diversity, that offers outlets and channels, new possibilities for dissemination, where members bring resources and energy to the association (Bettis and Hitt 1995; Mora-Valentin 2000).

Partnership issues Partnering as a response to economic pressures or sociopolitical and environmental uncertainties inevitably entails risk. But partner working also spreads risk (Oliver 1990). It can make an alliance more attractive, and in troublesome times, it may be riskier not to reach outwards. Perception of risk affects compacts of course – sometimes through their avoidance but there may be other issues too (Dean 1981; Azaroff 1982; Fowler 1984; Mauthner and Doucet 2008): ‘collaborative’ policy or organizational history may suggest whom an organization can or will not partner with. Sometimes partnerships are actively excluded, incentivized or indeed profiled from time to time: our university was once a partner of choice when EU funding rounds prioritized declining industrial areas. On the other hand, the collaborative, ‘sharing’ environment of partnership also raises questions about technology and organizational rights to or uses of intellectual property. These are more often debated ‘after the fact’, and the timing of discussions is a difficult matter, either too abstract and not understood, or too late and already in contention; there are also considerations about what aligns with prevailing corporate or governing policies (Ankrah 2007; Barnes, Pashby and Gibbons 2002). At an international level, global alliances and partnerships can be hard to break into or access for some actors/nations/players. And in any contexts, issues can arise, since partnership working often blurs reporting and supervision lines, as well as organizational borders. Formalization may help to guard against disagreements or the loss of trust, but when initiated too early (or too quickly) in our experience, can actually evoke this. Thus, organizational pressures for ‘due diligence’ and administrative clarity, while important, may interfere with rather than promote the early collaborative spirit of the work. So there can be tensions between the structural, functional and operational agendas of an organization and those connected with the textural, cultural and exploratory dynamics of partnerships development (see also Ball and Junemann 2012; Strike 2017).

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A key player in many of these inter-organizational initiatives and group projects has been the role of the ‘meso’ (Sharpe 1993; Dent et al. 2017) or supra-level directorate that has effectively created and promoted policy programmes. These have frequently been around innovation or regional development (Chapman 2014; Rhisiart, Roberts and Thomas 2000). The European Union, nation states and state agencies, for example (in the UK), higher education funding councils (HEFCE/W), quality assurance agencies are all part of a more ‘interventionist’ modern environment, whose programmes may indicate preferred groupings. Policy agendas are not neutral, and individual organizational goals may become secondary (Harman and Sherwell 2002; Ball 2005). Innovation and partnership also need resource, and the challenge is how to be ‘a good partner’, while retaining the distinctive markers that make the organization ‘attractive’ in the first place, as a potential (or future) partner, and in wider markets.

Partner-making and ‘capital’ We have chosen five projects to illustrate some of the points and features about partner-making that were introduced above. The chapter authors, in various combinations, were all personally involved in these, and they were all partnership experiences that stretched not only the boundaries of our organizations but also their resources, workings and decision chains. In discussing them, we use the notion of ‘capital’ to highlight not only that in higher education these are ‘market-like’ behaviours underlying the relationships between persons, resources and networks (Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Ball 2007), but also that these actions are about ‘value’ and (products) ‘goods’ in a positive sense. The five projects were as follows: ● ● ● ● ●

Global activities of university enterprises – Global Start ‘Memory’ institutions and technology transfer – Memoria Innovation partnerships in Wales – Inpart ‘E-commerce and small businesses – Ecosme (e-commerce for SMEs) Flexible desktop learning for organizations in Europe – Euronet

Beginnings, entry points and access: Global Start and Memoria The motivation for collaboration in the Global Start group arose through a mutual interest in higher education enterprise and start-up companies. An

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existing relationship with a university spin-out managers’ network led to an opportunity to participate, when one of the original parties withdrew. This latter was a regional development agency that left the group due to not being a higher education institution, when all the other partners were HEIs. As an academic institution, and already involved in the network and its membership, the university was relatively easy to invite. In turn, it was readily able to accept this. So prior relationships established the context for the joining institution to extend and develop its interests in the area. The individual manager who participated in the original network, and brought the project to the university, then acted for it as a member of the partnership. We call this the use of ‘bridging social capital’ after the work of Woodhouse (2006), showing how relationships and networks can build on each other helping to create virtuous circles of activity (Putnam 2000). In another example, the work and partnership called Memoria, the context for initial collaboration was due to personal contacts. The opportunity for the institution (university) to participate arose again when one of the original partners withdrew. It created an opportunity to gain access to a very highvalue collaboration. Because of the local relationship to the project and the institution’s own interest in technology transfer, connection to a new regional and international consortium and its networks was made possible. A total of eight partners were involved. These included small- and medium-sized museums in Europe, the National Museum in Wales, two technology recipients and users, represented through the participation of regional networks of museums in Italy (Tuscany Region) and Wales (National Association of Museums and Galleries and the Monmouthshire Museums network). There were also three technology providers (two SMEs, SPACE and SSL and the ROBOTIKER Foundation) and three facilitators or ‘bridge’ institutions: the Centre for Socio-Economic Engineering in Italy, the Regional Development Agency of Wales and the Museon Foundation in the Netherlands. It was a substantial network with a high level of expertise, resource pool and potential for future contacts. Memoria and Global Start may indicate that our organization might not have been a first choice partner for these alliances, but shows that it could be adaptive and agile in taking up opportunities once invited, and then delivering. The partnerships had faltered, a member had exited, creating risk and jeopardy. The ‘rescue’ thus put the new partner in a good position, while creating membership of prestigious associations that might not otherwise have been available.

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Trust and reciprocity: Inpart Inpart was a regional partnership for innovation whose members were not the most senior decision-makers in their organizations, but they held responsible roles and were active with service users and clients. They participated in the group as knowledgeable individuals – expert in their area – who worked as employees as well as Inpart members. But these ‘middle-out’ agents of development nevertheless had challenges in being ‘heard’ by their own organizations. So partnership activity and its networking gave them access to greater resources for doing their own job, more job satisfaction and opportunities for fulfilling their targets. Inpart was also an important informing medium for them. Their skills and knowledge were kept ‘topped up’ by monthly in-depth briefings from high-level actors, on key research, policy and business topics. Informal networking sessions also built confidence, while promoting contacts, interaction and exchange (Murphy, Huggins and Thompson 2015). Interpersonal trust developed through an ethos of ‘collegiality’, and as one participant remarked, ‘I’m treated and feel like an equal at Inpart even though I’m comparatively low down in my organization’ (Murphy, Huggins and Thompson 2015). The role of leadership in Inpart was to facilitate this creative environment and also to establish the conditions for confidence-building, trust and onward partner-making. ‘Round-table’ reportings, where everyone had a voice (turn) with opportunities for all members to present, were openly offered and rotated. This, together with a welcoming atmosphere and mutual respect, helped to create equity and inclusion. Sources of tension between partners and sectors had to be acknowledged however, and managed. Thus, all four universities from the region attended as virtual competitors: they had a corporate history of uneasy relationships and fending off unwanted mergers. The business and skills-sector bodies too were in rivalrous co-attendance, this time with further education colleges. And local authorities were also feeling the winds of change (and encroachment) from new private development providers out for their regeneration and procurement work. All had to accept that everyone in the network had a valued place. Through getting to know each other better, it was possible to work out consensually where the areas for co-operation might be (and also where the gaps in provision lay). This in turn suggested the opportunities for co-working, which were then the points for action about future collaborations and partnerships. The groups attended peaceably and positively together. Members reported to an evaluator that they felt ‘safe’ in the ‘neutral ground’ of Inpart, able to co-operate there without being ‘attacked’ (criticized). This approach, of creating

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an impartial and equitable space, acknowledging difference and of finding a way forward as diverse co-operating organizations, was an example of higher education leading and setting the agenda. Businesses were learning from the inclusive leadership and consensus-seeking ‘culture’ of education, which provided staff from other sectors with the tools and resources to rehearse a practice. In other words, they were able to engage in co-operation and learning for partnership. It involved their reaching across their own corporate boundaries to understand the territory of the ‘other’, especially the competitor’ we have described this elsewhere as intercollegiality (Cook and Gornall 2014). In this way, Inpart provided a catalyst for the development and growth of human and professional ‘capital’ and bridging social capital, building up the capacity of the region and as a seedbed for new networks and projects through its members. European-level policy and funding incentives had helped create this context and rewarded organizations that were working together who otherwise might not (EC 2016). But sustaining the ethos and environment meant resisting pressures that could damage it at every turn. While Sweeney (2001) and Bachmann (2003) consider ‘trust’ to be a basic unit of co-operation, and Rutten (2003) argues that organizations are more likely to co-operate with each other if they are in a high-trust relationship, our experience in Inpart and other projects was that trust could be developed through co-operation, could thus be its product. Indeed, Inpart acted as an enabler that facilitated brokerage across structural gaps (Granovetter 1973; Burt 2001) bridging social capital, and making a contribution to levels of innovative activity in the region (Murphy, Huggins and Thompson 2015) at that time.

Building partner capital: Ecosme Ecosme was a much smaller initiative than the others, and initially involved only two partners. Both were universities, in Cornwall and Devon, and in Brittany. There were no barriers or obvious difficulties to collaboration in the beginning, and only a few operational problems as the work got underway. The participants put this down to being a ‘smaller’ group. There were productive debates among the members, but with a working consensus around issues such as the progress of the work to achieve, and the deadlines to be realized. Over time however, a number of problems arose, and this is where the small partnership was then seen as a limitation. More partners had to be found to fully operationalize the outcomes to support and evidence the results; there was also a need for further funding to do this.

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In order to try to resolve these issues, one university sought to bring on board additional partners but was unable to secure funds. Thus, the original project partners had to rethink, and in agreement with the lead body, decided to present their findings at an international conference. The aim was to increase the visibility of the work of Ecosme and use the conference as a platform to try and attract further contributors. Each partner delivered a paper in an attempt to generate interest in the study and its potential. An element of the challenge faced by Ecosme was to create ‘bridging social capital’ outside of the network. Consequently, the conference was considered as a mechanism to help create networks with potential contributors. This latter utilized the wider higher education sector to seek sustainability and resolve the dissemination problems, and to enable others to become enrolled in the programme. The encounter with this newly found ‘resource’, through bridging, took the group forward (Woodhouse 2006). Such ‘capital’ according to Putnam (2004) is more likely to produce positive outcomes, and this was the case here.

Learning and co-learning for diversity – Euronet Prior experiences will often inform partner co-working. Euronet was a large consortium – of education, media and training organizations – that crossed several nations and types of public and private body. One, a commercial business, constantly required ‘contract’ type backing for agreements, which may have been informed by their ‘good practice’ experience in other partnerships (i.e. the ‘safeguarding’ needs for early documentation and commitment). Or it may have arisen from previous experience of problems, such as a breakdown of trust, noncompliance and ‘delivery’ issues. The group had to judge how to deal with these uneven backgrounds, and also how to grow ‘in concert’: the partners did not want to absorb dysfunctional legacies, but to learn organizationally and respectfully from one another. However, it was a constant challenge to maintain cohesion and the focus on what was to be achieved together. The Euronet members generally shared many common values and were full of interest in the others’ work. They were also guided by some careful leadership. An experienced but not controlling leader co-ordinated the activity, providing vision but also adapting to the creative ideas and the contribution of members, always propelling the dynamic forward. Within Euronet, co-operation was also bred in the early stages by ‘getting to know you’ as partner groups and individuals. It was much more ‘European’ than we had expected from other contexts. While some partners could see so much

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Figure 12.1 Photograph, UK visit of Euronet partners

‘hugging and kissing’ as completely time-wasting (particularly when there were some thirteen or more people to be greeted at any new point! see photo), we learnt that it created interpersonal bonds from the very outset, which felt like a form of professional ‘friendship’. The ‘European’ model also overrode more conservative barriers of reserve and judgements, time and focus, to establish an immediate and truly welcoming atmosphere. It later also helped in appreciating the perspectives behind other differences. As Doz (1996), Ritter and Gemünden (2003) suggest, maintaining the relationship as well as the goals is a key part of the effort that takes place. These affective aspects of relationship, and the effort ‘without obvious output’, are something too readily overlooked in more functionalist paradigms about organizational working (Salisbury 2014). A further facet of cultural and group learning in Euronet occurred, this time over language. The Wales-based partners (four bodies in all) were quite a large group and all were familiar with working positively in a bilingual environment. Two of the organizations were also Welsh speaking as their first language. The wider national partnership rotated locations for its meetings, so when arriving in West Wales, some UK colleagues were somewhat alarmed to know that they would be wearing headphones throughout the meeting. No one had thought to alert them that the first language of the session would be Welsh, so if they didn’t use the headsets, they wouldn’t be able to participate at all. It was quite an abrupt lesson, but also a learning point about diversity in the UK. When in Europe by contrast, the members from France,

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Holland, Germany and Italy were quite comfortable with the addition of Welsh although they had not seen it before, and were able to advise on multilanguage design. For them, it was just another language to take account of. Equally, when it came to discussing the languages of the partnership as a whole, while there was some discussion of options, neither the EU nor the Welsh-speaking partners had any problem at all with the decision that English would be the first language of the international group. So Euronet was as much about the negotiation of cultural learning for all as about fulfilling regeneration targets.

Discussion Leadership at many levels The projects and partnerships we have been discussing above typically build capacity at middle and lower levels of the organization. They create alliances that illustrate what we call the ‘textural’ aspects of partnership, that is, the matrix of cross-cutting relationships over organizational borders (and at similar levels), exemplifying what Kogan (2001) has called ‘interfacial’ work. What those involved are experiencing in the best cases is a kind of working in parallel, exercising ‘leadership’ externally, while being part of a more conventional management structure internally. In Memoria and Euronet, this involved complex negotiation of own organization, UK and EU partnerships, all at once. Opportunities for organisational members to access external networks and to develop professional and organizational expertise in ‘outward-facing’ crossborder partnership-making, and ‘leadership’ are thus important. Experiencing at close hand new structures, conventions and work methodologies can lead to knowledge of different order possibilities too. Of course, these may or may not be welcome at home, as they illustrate alternative kinds of leadership, even governance and management structures in relevant settings. Partner working may also be resented by other colleagues at the ‘home’ base, as priorities and goals are reset externally, and the employer becomes a sort of ‘host’ organization in a more complicated management-structural relationship. Thus, ‘leadership’ is not only in the initiation or development of partnership collaboration, but also in their support and maintenance. Middle-out agents of change also have limited working scope and affordance to take risks, and are motivated as part of their working lives to add value to services, enhancing what their organization provides. In a situation where they

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may command few resources (including agency over their own time and efforts), they may utilize networking and exchanging with others as a way to create a context and develop pathways for improvement. As agile if ‘small-scale’ leaders (at the interface if not within), they must navigate and work their parallel lines of reporting (including competitive ones) while managing the organizational superstructures around them and any issues inherent.

Building and wasting human and social capital But what happens to this upskilling? Funding mechanisms often prioritize the ‘new’, and rarely support onward development or building on what has been achieved, as occurred in Inpart or Ecosme. Without taking ‘value’ forward – and we are still in a capitalist and economically underwritten analogy – there is little enhancement, and learning is not embedded, or incorporated as part of the fabric of the institutional body. But capacity ‘built’ in the ‘middle’ may or may not reproduce itself in new projects. There is a role here for careful leadership as well as co-operative thinking. Many universities, however, seem to have over-internalized the ethos of the ‘market’ and its competitiveness (McGettigan 2011). So ‘partnership’ for them is quite transactional – about ‘trade’ and access, what they can ‘get’ rather than what they will ‘give’ – a perennial issue for us in many collaborative projects throughout the 1990s and 2000s. But it is also why cross-region and international projects are highly relevant for knowledgebased organizations such as universities, third sector bodies and innovative companies – they are productive and generative. This is linked to another problem, and we suggest that the failure to capitalize, literally, on the ‘goods’ delivered through ‘partnership’ in higher education, is also part of the problem of innovation in the UK more widely (Thomas and Rhisiart 2000; Rhisiart 2013). Because the development of innovative capacity is often at the middle of an organization, the lack of enhancement is even starker. It emerges as a problem of leadership as well as one of wasted opportunities, such that, as ‘partnership’ builds ‘capacity’ laterally – across the organization, and with related groups in other sectors – host organizations are squandering this investment. The individuals are learning, their employing bodies are not.

Conflict and consensus, dissent The work of consensus-building, even for a partnership that has come together voluntarily, is not a given, and while internal staff who are not involved

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in initiatives can feel ‘left behind’ and managers ‘out of the loop’, for those in the ‘cross-boundary’ areas, it is rather easy to be picked off too. Indeed, ‘collaboration’ may be achieved more in the context of resistance than one of support! With few management procedures for resolving issues when they arise (Harman and Sherwell 2002), working at inter-organizational interfaces may more readily lead to tensions internally than not. Senior teams in higher education institutions may be building their own organizational capacity and knowledge/human potential in other directions. The outcome can be frustration and dissatisfaction for staff and management (Thomas 2015). So project teams are discontinued, or their expertise left unincorporated while established staff with collaborative experience leave or do not see the benefits of the efforts realized. It is what we call a ‘year zero’ policy, where the work of the previous partnership is effectively disinherited. It dispenses with one group in order to ‘afford’ resources to a different one, and this is especially an outcome of funding practices and policies that preclude ‘repeat’ or ‘continuation’ finance to groups and consortia. Such policy directives as these do not build on a legacy, but aim to share resources out to new groups. However, there is little compulsion on an organization either, to demonstrate that they have developed from or even incorporated any new ‘capital’, skills or goods. Team, group and organizational learning, and the capacity for innovation that can go with it, can quickly melt away. Skillsets need to be adapted and refreshed, and partner pathways kept open, but instead, every ‘new’ initiative requires new people to start again! We also want to argue strongly for the value of ‘difference’ even dissent and some measures of conflict – conducted in an atmosphere of respect and trust in organizational working – as an aspect of good partnership. It needs to take place within a framework, and ‘competitiveness’ itself may provide a more harmful than helpful milieu. ‘Collegiality’ was formerly in effect in higher education, as we learnt from each other that ‘debate’, and working through differences, was a way forward, and not something to be avoided. Fast time (Ylijoki et al. 2014), as well as a persistent managerialism that involves a separation of management from professional workers, has squeezed out discussion, and often with it, consent. There is thus a wider absence of looking at options, and open analysis of a proposal. ‘Assent’, an unspoken, sometimes assumed agreement, is taken for granted – where to open up could be to find otherwise – while the active, knowledgeable, selfpossessed agency of ‘consent’ is equally typically avoided (WL 2016).

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Working in parallel The notion of ‘capital’ is a tricky one to use in this chapter because it has some very negative associations in the analysis of modern higher education development and the role of global neoliberal market suffusion of education (Rhoades and Slaughter 1997). Yet we have done so as an exploration of what is given and what is gained, lost or achieved, within a number of collaborative scenarios, recognizing that the importance of ‘reciprocity’ in co-operation and partnership also implies a transactional aspect to the relation. As higher education institutions today frequently repeat the importance of ‘human’ and other ‘resources’, it is not an inapt analogy to apply. Following Brexit, the opportunities in the UK for European Union partnerships are an unknown as yet. Universities will have a high level of uncertainty, and perhaps fewer opportunities. Or at least these will need to be developed. Against these gloomy assessments however, the practices of parallel working and co-leadership development, along with progressively enlarging and open networks, are useful assets to have. And as we began, those ventures and conversations can and have led to new partnerships themselves. There is thus something to be said for ‘middle-out’ leadership and development which suggests an ‘organic’ model for future innovation and development.

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Munyoki, J., Kibera, F. and Ogutu, M. (2011) Extent to which university-industry linkage exists in Kenya: A study of medium and large manufacturing firms in selected industries in Kenya. Business Administration and Management, 1 (4), pp. 163–9. Murphy, L., Huggins, R. and Thompson, P. (2015) Social capital and innovation: A comparative analysis of regional policies. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 34 (6), pp. 1025–57. p.0263774X15597448. Oliver, C. (1990) Determinants of interorganisational relationships: Integration and future directions. Academy of Management Review, 15 (2), pp. 241–65. Powers, J. B. (2003) Commercialising academic research: Resource effects on performance of technology transfer. The Journal of Higher Education, 74 (1), pp. 26–47. Putnam, R. D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D. (2004) Introduction. In R. D. Putnam (ed.), Democracies in Flux : The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rhisiart, M. (2013) ‘Foresight’ and ‘grand challenges’ within research and innovation policies. Foresight, 15 (1), pp. 29–39. February 2013. Rhisiart, M., Roberts, G. and Thomas, M. (2000) Technology Clinics. Report Produced for the EC Funded Project INNOREGIO: Dissemination of Innovation and Knowledge Management Techniques Technical Report January 2000. Rhoades, G. and Slaughter, S. (1997) Academic capitalism, managed professionals, and supply-side higher education. Social Text, 51, pp. 9–38. Ring, P. S. and van de Ven, A. H. (1994) Developmental processes of cooperative interorganisational relationships. The Academy of Management Review, 19 (1), pp. 90–110. Ritter, T. and Gemünden, H. G. (2003) Inter-organisational relationships and networks: An overview. Journal of Business Research, 56, pp. 691–7. Roe, P. (2007) A phenomenology of collaboration in contemporary composition and performance. PhD dissertation, University of York, UK. Rutten, R. (2003) Knowledge and Innovation in Regional Industry: An Entrepreneurial Coalition. London: Routledge. Salisbury, J. (2014) Emotional labour and ethics of care in further education teaching. In L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton, J. Salisbury and B. Thomas (eds), Academic Working Lives: Experience, Practice and Change, pp. 47–56. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Sharpe, L. I. (ed.) (1993) Rise of Meso Government in Europe. London: Sage. Shaw, B. (1993) Formal and informal networks in the UK medical equipment industry. Technovation, 13 (6), pp. 349–65. Shukaitis, S. (2017) Pedagogical labour in an age of devalued reproduction. In R. Hall and J. Winn (eds), Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education, chapter 2, pp. 17–19. London: Bloomsbury.

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Slaughter, S. and Leslie, L. (1997) Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies & the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Strike, T. (2017) Introduction: Macro-level competition and collaboration. In S. Dent, L. Lane and T. Strike (eds), Collaboration, Communities and Competition: International Perspectives from the Academy, pp. 3–15. Rotterdam: Sense. Sweeney, G. P. (2001) Social capital: The core factor in economic resurgence. In G. P. Sweeney (ed.), Innovation, Economic Progress and the Quality of Life. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Thomas, M. and Rhisiart, M. (2000) Innovative wales. In J. Bryan and C. Jones (eds) Wales in the 21st Century: An Economic Future (Macmillan Business), London: Palgrave Macmillan, May 2000. Thomas, P. T. (2015) Reinventing Leadership. Wales: Cambria. University of Twente (2016) Partners and Collaboration, Twente: University of Twente. WL (2016) Interview data (unpublished) from the Working Lives research on UK academic staff: Wales. Woodhouse, A. (2006) Social capital and economic development in regional Australia: A case study. Journal of Rural Studies, 22 (1), pp. 83–94. Ylijoki, O.-H., Henriksson, L., Kallioniemi-Chambers, V. and Hokka, J. (2014) Balancing working time and academic work in Finland. In L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton, J. Salisbury and B. Thomas (eds), Academic Working Lives: Experience, Practice and Change, pp. 207–14. London and New York: Bloomsbury.

Summary

The international perspectives permeating the discussions on partnerships in this book include examples from Asia and China, Europe, South America and the UK. These indicate how issues of leadership styles, organizational structures and cultural contexts have their impact on individual experiences as well as on associative relationships too. We have seen cases, examples and experiences that point to some of the limits to collaboration and working together, partnership and consensual leadership. They also point to the potential for further ‘leadership’ studies in our understanding of emergent and participatory work. Some of the lessons from the discussion in the three sections help us to realize the value of academic work itself and the relations of research, creative leadership and pedagogy within this. We see from the everyday adaptations of staff, of turntaking, the sharing of leadership, its service role and in developing others, forms of slow leadership where this can emerge and is sometimes merely practical, doing a job, and at other times about doing something exceptional. In the context of cultures of ‘compliance’ and sanctions against ‘difference’ in public and in business life, we also argue for the importance of having space for rehearsal, improvisation and discussion of points of view. That is to say, for remaking projects and interactions, where dissensus and consensus and engagement can arrive and be part of a new mainstream of decision-making processes and widely accepted. It is after all how we learn and this is at the heart of education and citizenship.

13

Playing Together: What Can Academics in Higher Education Learn from Musicians about Creative Leadership and Collaboration? Lynne Gornall and Daniel Bickerton

Collaboration is the only way. I always trust in the new things that can come Arturo Serra, vibraphone player

Liquid leadership The idea that jazz can teach us about collaboration and groups working together creatively in an ensemble is not new (Cho 2010; Gilbert 2013). But leadership! – what do hard-to-manage jazz musicians and their loosely knit collectivist bands have to teach academics about this? And who could possibly see analogies with the culture of educationists and the academy? We may not be the first to notice similarities between aspects of scholarly work and improvising musicianship (see Sennett 2012: 16; Sorensen 2013: 7). Each involves lengthy credentialist training and even longer lonely hours developing the craft. Both cultures have a focus on adaptation and improvement, on collective work built around some strong individual identities – sometimes ‘heroic’ figures or ‘names’ – as well as the understated insistence on creative autonomy and judgement. There is the respect and recognition for others’ work, an ethos of building uncompetitively on the contributions others have made, the talents they bring in the moment, a generosity of sharing ideas and practice, in co-learning. And these effects in performance are often experienced as emancipatory, risk-taking, part of a liberating progressive practice (Robertson 2016). It is one that, as realized in the reworking and imagining of well-rehearsed themes and musical or educational

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‘riffs’ whether written, spoken or played, may lead to innovation. The formation of new ideas or groups may well be an outcome. This is why some flexibility and permissive bandwidth is important and that articulators perform, teach or study without asking what is allowed or ‘given’. So the sense of work that can traverse boundaries, open up as well as challenge, is already present in both spheres of jazz musicianship and academic collegiality. This chapter explores from their point of view what collaboration means for a number of jazz musicians and academics and what ‘leadership’ is and implies in the context of their creative work on and off ‘stage’. A cultural studies perspective underlines the discussion, which emphasizes shifts, liminalities and transformations (Lehman 2012) in ‘background’ and ‘emergent’ leadership models, as well as more formal aspects of initiatory or shared performance roles. Not all music or artistic endeavours or scholarship practices take these forms of course, or all of the time. But we want to explore how far a pursuit of these comparisons can go. To be frank, it is also because we are fed up in HE with the exhortations to look to ‘burger’ outlets and retail stores the better to do our educational work. The intimations of leadership implied thus are often in practice only tacit schemes designed to manage us better, to coach us on how we may be ‘led’, our teams function, to ‘deliver’ knowledge products and services to ‘paying customers’. We need some alternatives, a different discourse. The purpose here is thus to canvass for different styles and tenors of leadership … both braver and more mundane, ones that are respectful of co-participants, more nuanced and sensitive than those experiences of workplace managerialism to date have led us to know.

Improvisation and co-working in music and education The authors have worked for many years with and among musicians, both professionally and informally. Daniel is a lecturer in higher education in a university department of music and a composer. He wants to pose questions about leadership to show that it can be participative, co-led, and contrasts ‘jazz’ with classical mores. Daniel: For me, starting off as a classically trained musician and only later developing an interest in jazz, I grew up founded in the ‘authority’ given to an orchestral conductor. They could shape a performance. It is a, well yes, it is a very, directive approach. But moving into jazz performance enabled me to work

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with and experience some very different leadership forms ‒ truly innovative ones. I’m a composer, and when someone approaches you to write a piece, in my world, ‘commissioning’ means ultimately that they are leading. But I see it as a collaboration too. For example, Even though it’s breaking, imagine! is something I composed in 2016 for alto saxophone and piano. I am the composer of the work, but retrospectively, I see this piece as co-led; it was a project between myself and the commissioner. The commissioners are collaborating with a writer [composer]. But my writing also included elements of improvisation for the performer. So they can be leading too and have ownership. The musicians are articulating the materials in performance. They are deciding how it will sound. So in this case, there was a sense of equal, collaborative partnership and also leadership shared between the three parties. In this excerpt below, the music is fully scored with all required elements, yet it features a form of graphic notation (in a box) alerting the performer to actively but freely improvise using the given material. The freedom comes in the form of order, rhythm (duration) and range. Aleatoric notation (‘chance music’) is generally scored in this manner in classical improvisation; in jazz notation, chord symbols are often preferred. In this instance, even though the music is inspired by jazz, the improvisation element is notated conventionally for a contemporary classical performer .

Figure 13.1 Music Improvisation (ad libitum). Copyright of composer and chapter co-author Dr Daniel Bickerton Source: Bickerton (2016)

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Lynne worked in a higher education environment of interdisciplinary teaching and research, and learning and development. She is interested in the nature of working life. Helping to run a jazz club since 2006 has provided opportunities for collecting data in a different area from higher education. The excerpts from interviews that are ‘voiced’ below are not marked out as ‘quoted’ material because we view them as participants in this work and active contributors rather than as ‘data informants’. Daniel was also an interviewee and appears as himself; other names are pseudonyms. Lynne speaks here about talking of and to musicians as well as academics about the way(s) they work. Lynne: Observing musicians in performance and having interviewed many, their practice seems like a form of flexible and liquid leadership. Bauman (2005) has written about liquid lives, and we can include in this the work of Elliott and Urry (2010) (geographers) on mobility, geographical and temporal. So modern ‘liquid life’ seen as improvised, shifting, egalitarian and mobile, with co-leading and co-operative agile behaviour as the norm, once leading then supporting or following. I think it is also how we work in education, creating partnership through mutual respect, trust, play, experiment, sometimes disagreement then discourse. These are areas discussed in interviews below with a higher education active researcher and with a creative, practical higher education leader. But ‘leadership’ language is elusive in musicians’ discourse too, unlike in higher education. It sounds mundane and not related to artistic work as such. In my interviews with jazz musicians, it is very difficult to pin down the notion of ‘leadership’. They don’t speak of it as celebratory or even artistic and keep coming back to – ‘that’s the person who takes the booking’; ‘they phone around to put the band together’; ‘it’s the person who decides the set list’. It doesn’t sound very high level. In academic books, ‘leadership’ is something important. It counts for something; in jazz work, it is just about doing a certain job, administrative, organizational, liaising about an event, and not a very important one artistically … all agree. But it is an important role because it gets the work and agrees (negotiates) the fee. Within a performance, yes, the leader ‘gives the nod’ too, about who solos, and when these begin and end. But it’s often something discussed and worked out beforehand, and fairly consensually, anyway, taken in performance. In their discourse, musicians typically make the ‘mystery’ of their skill look easy and natural. Leadership is sketching it out then responding to each other in play and applying their experience together in the moment. All interviewee names below are pseudonyms.

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Taking a risk, being open to the new – and mystery Rob was the ‘leading’ player, well established and a ‘famous name’ in a trio where he trusted the organizers to book the two people playing with him at a major UK concert. He is a renowned jazz pianist and one of the people Lynne interviewed about collaboration: Rob: I think from the moment we had the rehearsal, I knew it was going to be a good show. I knew that they were, you know, very responsive and very good, very good, excellent proponents. Beforehand, I maybe sketched out an arrangement, a rough guide really, not a specific arrangement, not like a Count Basie arrangement or something ‒ it’s just a sketch with the chords and maybe some of the tunes more familiar … . And they did do their homework, because (in the rehearsal) they played really well even checking and playing things on the mobile phone. Yes, there was a slight anticipation before, a feeling of excitement. In a jazz situation you can be very fluid and very relaxed … but we had about an hour or so to meet up and rehearse together … . And this is the mystery of jazz, cos a lot of people at gigs come up and say ‘how long have you been working together?’ and I say ‘Never, it’s the first time I’ve met these people!’ ... . They look gobsmacked because they can’t imagine that it could all come together and the performance seem very polished, in the pocket, very precise ... . That’s the mystery. You just do it, as long as you get the right people, you don’t think about it. It’s not like classical music, where you have to rehearse and rehearse. Lynne: In Rob’s interview, he is expected to lead. He could have exercised this autocratically, telling the others what to do. But he knew that they would play better, and so would the trio (with him leading), if he worked in a different way. His approach is open-minded, he takes a risk but relies on his judgment, own expertise – and trust in others – to see him through. And then he finds reward from the collaboration. Actually, it is not really magic and mystery, rather the exercise in real time of some very high level skills and years of experience. Perhaps in addition, there was the stimulus of new inputs, personnel, space and audience, listening and learning on the job. Rob reminds us that even ‘leading’ figures can still learn and gain from new ensembles: Rob: It was good to have the difference in age as well. [She] only 21, and what am I – in my mid 60s, then the bassist, a bit younger than me … . So nice to have an age spread from 21 to 65.

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Applying high-level skills and experiences is something academics are good at too. And they are quite used to talking about, describing and analysing situations, even relatively ‘unscripted’ or unprepared ones. They are agile verbal improvisers. Wendy is an academic and pedagogic specialist. She is highly regarded by peers and well established in her role. She describes in a ‘working lives’ interview a long-standing research relationship of interpersonal collaboration.

Mutual respect, co-knowledge – and working over the long term Wendy: We began working together, creating a teaching unit, as a kind of dialogue, and taught it together. We are developing our thinking as we were teaching. A wonderful experience: what we were doing was taking our individual understandings and producing a new common understanding. We had quite different ideas but we also had a respect for each other’s standpoint, wanted to do justice to each other … . The research collaboration grew organically … discussing ideas, negotiating the university hierarchy together … the more time we spent, the more our ideas converged. When we started writing together, I would write a couple of pages on this, and [Joanne] would write a couple of pages on that, and we’d try and make it look like something that had been written together. It was a bit like a tutorial but with two tutors acting like tutors to each other, making the other say more about where an idea was taking them. When you are writing something by yourself hmmm sometimes it can be very difficult to see what it is that you still need to do to get [it] across, or what are the problems with what you have written. We took it in turns at first, well ‘you lead on this, so you do it’ ‒ it’s never been an issue. I think it is very difficult for us now, it would be impossible for us to say ‘that was my work, that is your work’ cause it wasn’t, it was all our work. Lynne: It is noticeable in Wendy’s discussion, how the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ constantly recurred. So who was leading was never a contest; they co-wrote but gave each other the ‘lead’ order of names in turn. They faced some common hurdles but were later in different institutions, jobs, roles, levels of seniority and different home situations. But the partnership endured and so did the writing. It was as she says, generative, the combination produced the work; leadership is there but in the background, a resource to be drawn on and swapped around. Let’s hear from some musicians again.

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Taking turns, listening and knowing when to stop – it’s ‘telepathy’ Jazz Club Swing are a group of musicians from France visiting to play some concerts, often with at least one UK guest in the band. They speak about their responses onstage, their responsibilities in performance and connection to an audience, the structure behind their spontaneity. Here Paul, Eve and JeanPhilippe are discussing taking, missing and handing on solos during playing. Paul: If we’re playing original compositions, everything is decided before, for the mood we want to give. But in jazz ‘standards’, it’s decided while the music is being played. For the concert, we decided on not to play every solo, we just took one solo every number. It was important to keep in mind that we are not here only just to have fun, but we have to make something that had uh … sense. Eve: We had to make music. Paul: Good music for the audience. Eve: Playing together, sometimes something really good and unexpected can happen. But sometimes, it doesn’t work out as we would have wanted. Because [if] no one takes the lead, then there is like an empty feel. How it happens could depend on how one solo finishes … or when the [person soloing] is looking at someone … then it means ‘its your turn’ (i.e. passing it on). When it’s like undecided and no one decides or takes up the solo, we feel it [but] the music goes on, or the chords go on. Then maybe it’s too late to begin something (solo). Especially when it is a song – the lyrics are already passed and you were supposed to have things all ready! So, uh if nothing happens [no solo] then it’s like part of the game; we have to decide quickly. Jean-Philippe: It’s like what you lived like before, out of the stage with some persons, it will make things happen differently (onstage). If you made a few laughs with someone, or had discovered the same interest for things or music – or even movies or anything – then you will look at the person on stage and have confidence in knowing that you would be listened [to]. If it’s not the case, you may maybe not look at the person particularly, and the music will ‒ the current of music will ‒ go somewhere else. Paul: And when the solo lasts long, like when you’re talking, you must (connect) between the beginning and the end. There must be a way to have a sense of the whole thing, the whole tune. Eve: It’s mostly telepathic. Paul: Yes, you have to feel when it’s lasted long enough.

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Eve: It’s a mix of body languages and a common knowledge of music in general, you know? Because in a sense of construction, the solo doesn’t have to be too long. The culture of things is to hand over the solos. Paul: When you’re used to jamming, you know when you shouldn’t take your solo or when it’s time to finish. All the [band] looks at me, when I sang the tune. When everyone looks at me I know it’s my time to sing and I should know it. The most important thing has been said … . So no need for someone to take another solo. Eve: It’s telepathic. Eve: There is not that much difference between us and the audience. If we’re bored they are … [we] are listening on stage to each other’s music too, during the concert … . We need to think about how not to make it too long. Of course, we consider the audience as listeners. But we count each other too at the same time. You have to listen on stage to others playing. So yeah, it’s quite a balance. Lynne: Much of the work of consensus and collaboration here is non-verbal, ‘telepathic’ as Eve says. Leadership as a kind of embedded working, listening, connecting, turn-taking, ‘our and we’ and having responsibility for how things go too, in a product or performance. It is similar to the comments made by Wendy, in working collaboratively and with Rob in playing musically together. Both musicians and academics as performers are also very aware of their ‘engaged audience(s)’ and who is listening, how these modes of presence and participation affect play and its adaptations, interpretation, mutal responses (see for example Pitts and colleagues, (2013)). One difference of course is that while research and writing can be a highly deliberative process, the musicians’ output is rapid – as Eve and Paul say, having to think quickly on their feet – and after it is played, dissolved, vanishing. Retained in memories, yes, and sometimes in personal recordings. Academics are more used to inscribing their thoughts in durable form, and also supervising and editing this, curating their work (Salisbury and Gornall 2011).

Reflections on leadership Making a difference, promoting others – taking on the responsibility Freya is a creative leader in a UK university and media sector of some twenty years. She has some equally interesting things to say on responsibility in leadership and reciprocity, and promoting ‘leadership’ in others. Freya: Sometimes, people see leadership more as administration or management. And then the person who is leading the project is left holding all

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the bits of the project that other people don’t want to do! That can be a challenge. So, having that balance between giving people in the team the autonomy, which they are always very happy to take, but then also the responsibility, is important too. If you get a shared leadership, or a distributed leadership amongst the group, which is something I ideally want to work with, then that needs to go both ways, both in terms of the ‘fun’ side of leadership and the administrative side of leadership too. I’m interested in making things happen. I’m interested in making things better [and] creating wonderful things that people haven’t seen before. Yes, I like to have control over my environment, and my own choices … But I also really respect other people’s needs … . It’s a real human need to like to have control and power over your own choices, [and] the kind of people I work with demand that, the freedom to have their own choices. To me, leadership is about bringing out the best in other people: setting a direction and a tone. In the projects I’m working on, ultimately I am trying to get people to work together and collaborate to develop. Working with groups of people to bring out the best in them, the individuals themselves or in the group, or even better still, something that might be passed on and spread throughout a wider culture or society. For Freya, she accepts being in a leading role but wants others to share it; it has burdens as well as opportunities. She uses her leadership to create possibilities for others, as a shared resource and access to it. For Daniel, the emphasis on creative leadership inspires people to reflect on ways in which things can be done differently, not for difference sake, but to make a real difference and success of the intended objectives. He uses an illustration next of the musical leader as composer, what they must do to realize the objective, a performance.

Giving up control, shifting roles – with time for rehearsal and experiment Daniel: The ‘composer as initiator’ has to surrender their sense of leadership, creative control, and allow the performer to take this up. They need to accept the shift of role and there is then a shift in balance regarding leadership. Control passes from composer to performer to lead on issues relating to content. Paul Roe (2007: 43) considers these issues of leadership and collaborative integration in jazz performance and calls it ‘interactional synchrony’, as opposed to a singular vision of one leader. Innovative practice is what is achieved as a direct result. In his study of collaborative leadership in jazz bands, Patrick Furu (2012) describes this type of engaging leadership as an art: in case studies involving jazz

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workshops, where musicians of different nationalities and backgrounds that had never played before worked together (which is actually fairly common in the world of jazz), he concluded that although there is usually one ensemble leader at any given time, making a success of collaborative art meant ‘responsibility for the leadership function was carried by all members of the band, but at different points in time’. In the end, all members of a group need to work for a common goal. The types of approach to leadership in an ensemble of this kind ensures that the varied and original interpretations of a score (something any musician will have been taught to foster from an early age) can be coalesced, or at least trialled in rehearsal to find a suitable collective sound for the ensemble. The problem of producing a score that is both faithful to the composer’s intentions and helpful to the performer’s understanding of them is time-consuming, and often only attainable after consultation between the parties. But the reward for a composer is for it to provide an alternative perspective that they never thought possible. And in the end, live performance is live performance, and no matter how directive the composer, on the stage, the performer is playing it, and in jazz, improvising on it, creating something else perhaps!

Interpretation: Something disruptive, restless and mutual Lynne: So what about difficulties? Academics are more used than musicians to talking about the nature of what they do, I found. Thus, when I asked academic interviewees about ‘what about when things are different, go wrong or not according to plan’, the higher education interviewees were quick and full with their responses. Wendy: In the research partnership, we could have had issues about authorship but we never did. Neither of us wanted to exploit the other. We were very keen that we should share whatever. I think my colleague would give similar answers to your questions – it’s something we’ve actually talked about. We like each other … have shared things. Don’t meet much, and are not in the same HEI, but have supported each other through various incidents of one kind or another. Essentially, our ideas converged. But where someone has been put in charge, experiences have not been brilliant [gives some full and vivid examples] because they tend to end up as a contest of one kind or another. I’m happy to get engaged in a contest of ideas, but not a contest for supremacy: it’s a question of what’s a good way of using energy. Freya: There is a problem with the more ‘inspirational’ type of leadership, because the important thing about the ‘management’ books is that they do have

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a more realistic sense … of the materialistic base of anything that you do, that there are limited time and limited resources. I think to be a good leader, you have to be aware of those things. I’ve never been interested in power … never had any interest in power whatsoever, and that’s not a part of leadership that draws me. [But] people also seem to respond better … sometimes, to leaders that seem to be exerting what might be a classical sense of power [wry smile]. Daniel: A consensus between ‘composer as leader’ and ‘performer as leader’ is often the outcome of ordinary conversation in rehearsal or workshop contexts. If composer and performer experience artistic differences, there is often flexibility within the work for both to have expressive form but in the end, why allow improvisation if there are too many pre-conceived ideas? In improvised work, too many directives … mean that the eventual music heard in performance loses its spontaneity. Lynne: Yes, we’ve noted that there are rewards for not letting ‘leadership’ and control issues dominate. As Cho (2010) says, collaboration is ‘producing a song that none of us by ourselves could play’, this is the big dividend, the ‘incentive’ that drives people on, very important in teaching/learning, scholarly work and in improvising jazz in particular. Daniel: And musicians’ decisions are [often] arrived at because of a mild form of dissensus. A sort of community trial and error. Because ultimately, success in music as a sphere is measured in responses made by the composer and performer(s) post performance. If one is not entirely happy, a subsequent performance may resolve some of these issues. Lynne: Interesting, second chances – it sounds like a theme. Furthermore, as Wendy reminds us here: It is untidy, but it is a productive way to do things, more productive than when somebody tries to be in charge though. It was generative, that was the important thing. What it did was it generated for us questions that we wanted to answer, and that’s where the research came from.

For Daniel, most of the jazz ensembles that he has worked with have come together to play jazz and there seems to be a genuine sense of collegiality that each person shares their own interpretation of what the music should be, sound like, or feel (particularly when considering issues such as groove or tempo). Does this have potential for conflict? Jazz culture is often seen as a social environment, where arises a more social leadership, founded upon reputation and experience, rather than rooted in hierarchical authority. Daniel suggests that in one of Lynne’s interviews, the musician [‘Rob’] offers some interesting thoughts relating to this cultural context and leadership style.

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Rob: It’s not a case of me being the leader; it’s not that at all. I believe in the democratic approach. Listening is so important we really have to listen to each other. [Q: So leadership is setting a kind of framework?]. Yes, deciding what tune to do, counting in, maybe a rough structure of two or three sections of bass. Actually it’s very loose, because you want to allow your players to sort of tell their story. You don’t want to say after sixteen bars – ‘cut off your story’! (emphasis added) Daniel: Mixing new jazz work (composition) and improvisation, a distinguished practitioner is the renowned British composer Anthony Turnage, Research Fellow in Composition at the Royal College of Music. He is someone who seeks out and engages in collaborations with other ‘interesting’ musicians. I’d call these ‘partnerships’, because they have some particular goals in mind and there is commitment to each other plus a sense of an ongoing relationship. Turnage’s composition/work, Blood on the Floor (1993–96) (see Morton 2015) raises interesting questions about the role of leadership; he was often working with musicians who perform the work and have their own distinctive voice. There could thus often be anxiety that an idiosyncratic or a contra-interpretative approach could emerge. Lynne: These were famous performers, so their interpretation could have been quite authoritative, even definitive! Not so much the polite and usual ‘is this how you [or they] intended it to sound?’ but something very different. In academic work, we write the revisionist text – or critique. Daniel: Yes! From the outset, Turnage’s Blood on the Floor for jazz quartet and large ensemble began as a collaborative venture with renowned jazz musicians. They included electric guitarist John Scofield … . Each of these are leaders in their own right … . with Turnage in a hyperordinate role as leader/ creator. But in the performance and realization of the work on stage and in rehearsal … for Turnage, who as Morton (2015) notes, had always written heavily notated and meticulous scores, this was encountering the experience of partially losing ‘creative control’ as creator of this new work!1 Naturally … he needed to compromise with these jazz musicians who were freely improvising in parts of this nine-movement work. Pre knowledge helped. Turnage commented, I’d known John Scofield’s music since he played with Miles Davis between 1983 and 1986. He was my favourite guitarist; he plays fascinating notes ... . Every solo is shaped beautifully, but they are quite angular, and I thought that chimed in with what I did. (Morton 2015)

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Lynne: Of course, a living composer (or author), unlike many of the writers or composers that academics and musicians frequently quote from, has the potential to interact – pop up and attend a concert or talk in person! Interpretations of contemporary work are thus undertaken with this awareness in mind, and for the musician, a composer and performer are in an unseen relationship in this respect. Johansen (2013) has done interesting work in Norway with her jazz students and their ‘copying’ of ‘musicians better than me’ practices. Daniel: This is consensual leadership in action, and students in higher education are experiencing this type of leadership regularly. For jazz musicians, it appears as the expected form, because there’s a generally accepted level of flexibility and freedom within the genre.

Learning for leadership Issues of collaboration and leadership are a constant and long-standing topic in music and music education, Daniel confirms. Lynne asks him about this in relation to his own academic role as a member of a university staff. Her experience is of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies groupings, which can be rather factional. The two authors are at different ends of the early/late career spectrum: Does this make a difference to our thinking? Context and subject fields are different but this does not necessarily make the difference: the arts and music are still reproducing gender, class and race asymmetries in young professionals and the occupational/career systems. But it is interesting to reflect that many of the authors with chapters in this volume assume that the depressing hierarchical and corporatized environment of the higher education meso and meta levels have the same effects and impacts in all areas. Perhaps this is not the case. So we should look for the ‘smaller picture’ here perhaps. Daniel: One of the reasons the School of Music that I work for is so successful is that, as individuals, we have learned valuable lessons about working together from music-making ensemble experiences. So, as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music, I see myself as a consultative leader: that is, not making decisions based solely on my ideas, but rather making decisions based on our ideas. Shared ideas and experiences enable us as a team of independent, innovative leaders in our disciplines – composition, performance, education, musicology and ethnomusicology – to benefit from the policy of light-touch management. Although I may be the ‘lead’, I lead having already participated in

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a forum where all ‘leads’ share knowledge, experience and good practice, so that there is a broader sense of collective ownership on policy across the department. The ‘leadership’ is based on prior sharing. Young musicians are learning by experience and perhaps adopt characteristics of their teachers. Yet some of the most creative leadership examples in studentled ensembles that I have seen show that collaborative leadership does not necessarily have to be ‘proven’ in advance. It emerges. A figurehead (or more than one) can come forward as a result of exciting, interactive rehearsals, and workshops for example. For jazz, which is a perceivably more relaxed tradition to an external view, this is where a lack of directive leadership can be fruitful. Some aspects of this are just what is visible; in jazz, most musicians are highly skilled (trained, experienced) and can co-operate musically in situ. But some planning will have taken place, and the musicians signal to each other in performance when one or other is to take a lead. The ‘lead’ player will do this. The leader is the person the others follow, literally. Daniel and Lynne discuss a number of young jazz performers they know in common – he as their teacher, she as a promoter, who books them. The interest is in how they have incorporated, or changed, ‘received’ leadership styles of musicianship.

Watching the band There were three student musicians who were band leaders at different times. The public have expectations of a ‘band leader’, and are used to having them up front – typically with their back to the audience, facing the assembled players, but highly directive, like an orchestral conductor. Each of these young musicians had a different style of leading. Richard was actually a percussionist (so usually playing at the back when in the line-up). But as a conductor, he led from the front, vividly conducting, and was hugely popular and liked, except when having to manage dissent if he laid down too many rules or took straight executive decisions about artistic matters! He stood at the front, mostly facing the band, but aware of the audience and drawing back to the side or turning to face them to announce and ‘compere’ the show. He was very aware of his ‘leadership’ as shaping the band/performance and his responsibility in mediating between the musicians and the audience. David was a saxophonist, quiet and reflective, highly respected by the group, who led from the side. His announcements were few and without show. Leading

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from the side, quite literally, it was odd to look at from an audience/spectator point of view. David rarely left his place on the far right-hand side of the band, where he played along with the other wind players. For some numbers, he nipped to the front/middle for a few quick signs to the band, but generally was even counting them in laterally one might say, alongside the front line. Tom was a different figure. A trumpet player, robust and charismatic, he uttered few words. Tom even more strangely, led from the back! He stayed on the back row where the trumpets normally reside, so the others turned their heads to look at him as he directed and counted them in. After that, they had to do much of the work by listening hard for cues rather than seeing them. Again, an innovative experience for the audience. Tom was famous for his few softly spoken announcements from the back row (hard to microphone for this) which had the band laughing and the audience mystified, but he made up for it through charm and confidence. Tom played trumpet as part of the band, soloing as necessary, but allowing the other instrumentalists most of the solos and leads. Richard, who led from the front, did not play, he was a full-time leader. His work was prior to the event, behind the scenes, planning, researching and selecting the numbers, liaising with the promoters. On the night, he would be motivating and bringing out the best in the band, cueing the soloists and keeping the audience on board. David, conducting from the side, was an understated figure, quite slight, but an excellent soloist. He pulled his weight in the ensemble as an instrumentalist and there were no noticeable lapses (for the audience) from this oddly positioned leadership. Watching him confirmed the idea for this book: that things could be done differently – the three styles were very different visually. They could be effective; they didn’t need to be ‘heroic’ and ego driven. They didn’t even need to be that noticeable … the band were good and David’s approach was quite minimalist. Tom’s approach was bit like working blindfold and winging it with comrades in a fun session. He rehearsed the band well, just had to turn up and play. All three student band ‘leaders’ produced excellent concerts judged by audience and musician satisfaction. We could not choose between them. David however was a little special. Here is what Daniel his tutor said: The majority of musical directors will lead from the position of a traditional conductor. One leader broke this mould, and led the band for three years in a participative leadership way. He was a vibrant, gifted student director and his peers clearly valued his unique and original style by electing him as bandleader for three consecutive years, involving very successful international jazz tours

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and performances. It was very rare and refreshing to see an emerging student leader lead from within the band in this way. The whole band responded very positively to this more relaxed style; it allowed a more interactive approach for demonstration, but mainly stressed the importance of listening to others. David would regularly encourage players to talk about what they were listening to while performing. For instance, having the second trombone thinking about what the pianist is doing and reflecting on their own part, in conjunction with the sense of ‘the ensemble elsewhere’.

‘Loose leadership’: Learning, consultation, collegiality Daniel: David’s approach as musical director was fostering leadership qualities in all of the other players. He was also able to adapt his style to suit the varying abilities of the other players in the ensemble. In the interviews, Rob (musician) as well as Freya (academic) see that ‘creating leaders’ is what good leaders should do. And the strength of emergent leadership in this context, as Daniel observes, finds its confirmation through the consent from the other players. There is also the issue, Lynne sees, about relinquishing control, of not trying to be ‘first named’ each time (Wendy) or soloing (Eve/Paul) – not seeing it as significant (Rob) – a sort of leadership ‘in the background’. Speaking of the mutual respect and the changing and shifting of ‘who leads’ context by context, Wendy describes it as generative, producing, making more. Rob too, interpreting for and supporting each other – a ‘co-hermeneutics’ of meaning-making, we might say, and to learn that leading is also listening. Jazz Club Swing reminds us of the everyday ‘co-production/creation’ of working with others, of equality and turn-taking. Missing out on some and the tune goes on, but we learn. It is OK not to solo, to miss a cue or not get something right. As Daniel says, we can do it again at the next performance. However, there is also the need to create space (and time) for these moments and emergences (Paton 2012) – ‘leading’ for paced, slower growth – and to encourage a dialogue around consent and dissensus too. In higher education today, while retaining values of critique, debate and analysis, the wider culture has nurtured an ideological practice of assent – the assumed unspoken, unasked for agreement of compliance. It is a ‘factory-like higher education’, conforming instead of remaking ourselves, colleagues and students – the citizens of the academy – not its subjects, clients or simply service users (Hall and Winn 2017: 98). As well as more consultative, participatory work, there is still the need to

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value ‘restlessness, mobile, searching’ kinds of endeavour, risky, improvised and adaptive responses and approaches. We don’t know how it will turn out: Anything can happen and when you go to the jam, you’re ready for any surprises. Actually, we are ready for meeting someone who plays better than you! — Eve, member of Jazz Club Swing (2015). [A ‘jam’ is an informal free-for-all where anyone can join in]. So I think you have to be bold and not be afraid to work with new people, you know, rather than the tried and tested – that can be quite exciting. It’s the magic’ — Rob, jazz musician (2017) Is it a partnership? – sort of, well we’re not married to each other [laughs]! It started off as a collaboration and I think it became a partnership … I mean more than collaboration, because it suggests … ‘collaboration’ is just something that you do, to get this thing done and then you get it (done), and then when it’s done you can in fact, you can go your separate ways. Whereas a partnership would be something more enduring I think … and it’s in itself generative of joint activity. — Wendy, researcher (2015)

We also acknowledge that many of these illustrations and settings involved non-verbal responses. It reminds us that areas such as notions of ‘legitimacy’ in leadership and perceptions of ‘consensus’ may as often be ‘felt’ as analysed, and that a more ‘emotional’ language about working relationships, hierarchies and impact of change may be needed. Leadership, collaboration and style may be as much a matter of ‘ethos’ and atmosphere as the situational details. There is also the matter of ‘the new’, that the working together produces something more and beyond the individuals involved.

Originality and innovation is celebrated in music and scholarship The musician, like the researcher … is always looking for new places to play

This aspect of mobile restlessness mentioned earlier is intuitively compared by the musician as interviewee (Juan Galiardo) with the work of the academic. This is not about hyperactive persons but about the attention that must be given to important work, whether improvising in live performance, composing, reviewing, teaching dialogically or engaging in research processes. It is seeking the new place. But Wyndham Lewis raises a series of questions that effectively summarize some of the issues and concerns arising from one side of the creative processes in collaborative leadership. He points out:

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In concert, the composer(s) is applauded for writing the music that the performers are applauded for performing. Originality is evident from the composer, for writing something new [and] for the performer to interpret imaginatively in live performance. But what is originality? Something inspires the author/composer [in the first place]. Is this credited? (Wyndham Lewis 1998: xvii)

He has a good point. It is also one about learning and sharing, co-working. Should we be worried about ‘property’ and ‘ownership’ of ideas and productions? Wendy reminded us that working together produces – it is a creative process that makes things, never mind the content. If we want to innovate, we probably need fewer boundaries, personal, role or organizational. Rigidity in systems and micromanagement are likely to be inimical to the very things we are trying to achieve – depth, development, understanding, reaching beyond the known. There are some lessons from music on ‘improvisational magic’ for higher education. If as a sector we want to nurture creative work and innovation – the special aspects of the relationships of learning, teaching, inquiring, which have been so distinctive and rewarding (in all senses) in our sector’s history to date – maybe we could learn by simply watching the band.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the Cardiff University School of Music, who supported the collaborative work and also some of the qualitative data gathering for this chapter. We would also like to acknowledge the many musicians and academics, interviewees and colleagues, who have contributed their experiences to the development of this work, as well as those who supported us in bringing this co-operative piece of writing to fruition.

Note 1 We have smoothed out the transcriptions of recorded conversations and interviews, which are verbally fluent and full of engagement and ideas. Thus, hopefully the sense of direct speech comes across to the reader, while remaining faithful to the text. Some speech and transcription markers are left in, to remind the reader of the difference in ‘voice’ being represented, and their mode of participation in this chapter. Names of interviewees, musicians and researchers are all fictitious.

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References Bauman, Z. (2005) Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bickerton, D. (2016) Even Though It’s Breaking, Imagine! Composition for alto saxophone and piano. Cardiff, UK. Cho, A. (2010) The Jazz Process: Innovation Collaboration, Agility. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley Professional. Elliott, A. and Urry, J. (2010) Mobile Lives. London: Routledge. Furu, P. (2012) The art of collaborative leadership in jazz bands. In J. Caust (ed.), Arts Leadership: International Case Studies, 30 August, pp. 221–2. Ashwood, Australia: Tilde University Press. Gilbert, D. (2013) Get in the Flow State: What Jazz Can Teach You About Collaboration, 13 December, on website http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkFn1eCFDyg (accessed 5 November 2014). Gornall, L. (2014) Becoming ‘Indigenous’ as ‘New Teaching and Learning Staff ’ – and a reflexive review. Chapter 29 in L. Gornall, C. Cook, L. Daunton and J. Salisbury, (eds), Academic Working Lives, pp. 249–56, London: Bloomsbury. Hall, R. and Winn, J. (eds) (2017) Mass Intellectuality and Democratic Leadership in Higher Education. London: Bloomsbury. Johansen, G. (2013) Learning from musicians better than me: The practice of copying from recordings in jazz students’ instrumental practice. In I. E. Reitan, A. K. Bergby, V. C. Jakhelln, G. Shetelig and I. F. Øye (eds), Aural Perspectives: On Musical Learning and Practice in Higher Music Education, pp. 75–97, Oslo: Norges musikkhøgskole. Lehman, S. H. (2012) Liminality as a Framework for Composition: Rhythmic Thresholds, Spectral Harmonies and Afrological Improvisation. Doctoral diss., Colombia University, October 2012. MJQ / Modern Jazz Quartet (1964) Collaboration. Album of jazz recorded 21 July 1964 US: Almeida. Line-up: John Lewis (piano and musical director), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass), Connie Kay (drums). Established in 1952, musicians changed over time. Morton, B. (2015) Turnage: https://en.schott-music.com/work-of-the-week-markanthony-turnage-blood-on-the-floor/) (accessed March 2017 Brian Morton notes 7 June 2015). Paton, R. (2012) Lifemusic: connecting people to time. Dorset: Archive Publishing. Pitts, S. E., Dobson, M. C., Gee, K. and Spencer, C. P. (2013) Views of an audience: Understanding the orchestral concert experience from player and listener perspectives. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 10(2), pp. 65–95. Robertson, P. (2016) Soundscapes: A Musician’s Journey Through Life and Death. London: Faber & Faber.

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Roe, P. (2007) A Phenomenology of Collaboration in Contemporary Composition and Performance. PhD dissertation, University of York, UK. Salisbury, J. and Gornall, L. (2011) Power, voice and narrative: A reflective commentary on the affordances of academic work and services. Paper to the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CETL) Conference, University of Oxford, Oxford, 2011. Sennett, R. (2012) Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation. London: Allen Lane. Sorensen, N. (2013) The metaphor of ‘The Jazz Band’: Ethical issues for leadership. In Critical Studies in Improvisation, 9 (1), pp. 1–13. Canada: University of Guelph. Wyndham Lewis, P. (ed.) (1998) Composition, Performance, Reception – Studies in the Creative Process in Music. Aldership: Ashgate.

Index academic/s 3–4, 7, 10–11 early career 17–18, 36–7, 39, 42–50, 89, 128 as managers 18, 53–4, 57, 60, 63, 65, 67, 111, 115, 146 visiting/exchanges 208, 211–13, 215–16, 219 academy 1–2, 4, 9, 11, 73, 97, 103, 123, 174, 184, 243, 258 academia 36, 38, 42, 47, 50–1, 102, 104, 108, 179, 180, 182, 184–5, 187 Africa/n 21, 23, 81, 84 America/n 65 north/United States/US 11, 22, 83, 115–16, 126, 151, 173, 178–9, 181, 215–16 south 151, 167, 242 Asia/n/Pacific 11, 167, 196, 208, 215, 217, 242 inc. Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and Thailand 218 Australia/n 22, 151, 169, 208–9, 211, 215 ‘Brexit’ capital

170, 237. See also EU/Europe

18, 32, 131, 134, 138, 141, 169, 173, 175, 184, 208, 228–9, 231–2, 235–7 academic capital/ism 18, 130, 240 ‘bridging social capital’ 229, 231 human capital 179, 231, 235 case studies 97, 124, 162–3, 167, 191, 193–4, 202, 242, 251. See also ‘projects’ Canada 113 (see also Canada) Chile 171 (see also Chile/Latin America)

China 207 (see also China) Finland 36 (see also Finland) Nigeria 20 (see also Nigeria) Spain 53 (see also Spain) change 29, 53, 58–9, 67, 71–2, 78, 80, 83–5, 96–7, 109, 130–1, 168, 182–3, 190, 195, 197–203 agents of 234 DNA 192 impact 259 language 182–3 leadership 44, 191, 256 organizational 150, 216 social 123 China 6, 167, 169, 200, 202, 207–8, 210, 214–17, 219, 242 Chinese 209–10, 214, 216–18, 222 collaboration 1–3, 6–11, 22, 24, 26–30, 36, 44, 61, 77, 84, 91, 93–5, 116, 120, 125, 129–31, 133–6, 145, 162, 167, 170, 174, 197, 204, 214, 214, 236, 242, 243–5, 247–8, 254 in higher education 32–3, 89, 208, 224 institutional 46–7, 212–13 international 211, 220–1 leader/ship 24, 27, 96, 115, 118, 190, 234, 255 motivation/context 228–9, 230–1 networks of 163 non-verbal 250, 253 partnerships/and nonpartnerships 225, 229 projects 45, 140, 150, 155, 158, 208, 212 research 40–2, 171, 175–9, 181–5 collegiality 1–2, 4–5, 6–9, 17–19, 94, 107, 146, 158, 162, 190, 236, 258 ‘intercollegiality’ 231

264 consensus 1–2, 4, 10, 17, 23, 32, 93–4, 150, 155, 169–70, 214, 223, 235, 242, 250, 253, 259. See also Dissensus higher education in 89, 231 international 219 relationships 24–6, 28 consent 1–2, 4–5, 6–9, 17–19, 94, 107, 146, 158, 162, 190, 236, 258 contracts 5, 37, 99, 225 co-operation 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 17–19, 20–2, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 37–8, 54, 57, 84, 89, 150, 167, 171, 176–7, 230, 232, 237. See also ‘intercollegiality’ academics 39, 43–6, 63 cognitive dimension 40 co-operatives 75–6, 82 entrepreneurial 48–9 institutional dimension 47 moral dimension 42 social dimension 41 as strategy/ies 39, 61–2, 64–7 university/HE 50, 81–3 colonialism 81, 167, 171–4 neo-colonialism 171–2 culture 2, 3, 18, 44–5, 50, 74, 80, 99, 104, 108, 111, 113, 132, 137–8, 169, 251 departmental/faculty 62, 100 education sector 168, 209–10, 213, 215–16, 218–20, 258 European 167 music/jazz 243, 250–3 organizational/business 27, 55, 60, 192, 194, 196–7, 199–201, 203, 231 242 democracy 55, 57, 74–9 Lack of 74 dissensus 169, 185, 224, 242, 253, 258 education. See Higher Education epistemology/ies 167, 174, 185 epistemicide 179 epistemological/ly 179–80 Europe/European 75, 82, 97, 151, 167, 169, 174, 216, 223–4, 232–3, 237

Index Finland

6, 17, 36–7, 49, 52, 89, 241. See also case studies: Finland

global/ization/ed/ize 4, 19, 60, 71–2, 82, 96, 98, 145–6, 167, 169, 172–3, 175, 179, 194, 199, 201, 208–9, 222, 228–9, 237 asymmetries 7 global north/ south/west 11, 171, 173, 179–80 North/ern theory/ists 173–4, 180, 185 South/ern theory 171, 173 West/ern 80, 167, 171, 172–3, 176, 181, 183 non-western 174 north west 171, 179–80, 182, 185 higher education academic grammars 172 (see new grammar/s) actions of translation 145, 150 careers 110, 178 communication 30, 32, 61, 105–6, 108, 110, 121, 136–7, 152, 182, 192, 195, 200, 202 communication strategies 18 consensus (see consensus, higher education) contemporary corporatized university 114, 116 co-operative university 19, 71, 64–5, 77, 79–82, 84, 225 cross-national 1, 11, 158, 211, 214 dialogue 40, 49, 61, 93, 98, 100, 110–11, 181, 193, 248, 258 dilemmas in educational management 5, 18, 53–61, 63–4, 67, 79, 89, 131, 217 engagement 6, 10, 17, 18, 25, 27–8, 30–1, 83, 94, 102, 145, 225, 242, 260 dis/engagement 169 enrolment 94, 145, 151, 154 international partnerships 171, 207, 212, 214, 219, 221, 227, 229, 242 internationalization of universities 169, 171, 173,

Index 175–6, 178–9, 182, 184, 209, 211, 218–20 managerialism 1–3, 116–17, 131, 190, 192, 203, 236, 244 managerialist 3, 4, 18, 195 ‘new managerialism’ 117, 141 mass participation 74 new grammar/s 7, 168, 171, 181, 185 new professionals 5 privatization/marketisation 2, 7, 71, 72–3, 131, 167, 172–3 project sharing 45–6, 49, 61, 89 (see also collaboration, projects) research dependency/ interdependencies 94, 172 research intensive 37, 96–7, 117, 126, 141 research leaders 108, 110, 113–16, 118, 125, 132, 162, 171, 179, 182–3 researcher-entrepreneur 130–1 respect/ed/ful/ly 42, 58, 98, 101, 105, 107, 109, 133–4, 138–9, 170, 177, 230, 232, 236, 243–4, 246, 248, 251 tensions 1, 5, 19, 56, 59, 102, 110, 115, 119, 124, 131, 134, 162, 198, 223, 227, 236 avoiding tensions 62 creating/influencing 58, 63, 132, 139, 196 utopian 71, 75, 78 values as a source of dilemmas 58–9 world class 82, 208, 217–18 history 66, 73, 81, 83, 118, 132, 167–8, 181, 184, 193, 227, 230, 260 imperial/ism 172, 185, 216 individualistic/ism 2, 18, 45 innovation 5, 10, 29–30, 71, 82–3, 108, 145, 148, 155, 158, 169, 194, 228, 235–7, 244, 260. See also case studies: Chile; Inpart; music internationalization 169, 171, 173, 175–6, 178–9, 182, 184, 186–7, 206, 209, 211, 218–20 isolation 22, 131, 215, 220 Japan/ese

169, 209, 215, 217, 222

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knowledge/able 2, 3, 7, 9–10, 24, 26, 28, 32, 42, 47, 53, 54, 61, 66, 71, 73–5, 85, 93–4, 96, 98, 113, 116, 124, 129–30, 132, 135–6, 138–9, 149, 167–9, 171, 173–5, 178–82, 184–6, 194, 200, 202, 212, 216, 219, 221, 224–5, 230, 234–6, 244, 248, 250, 254, 256, 259, 260. See also epistemology social production of 7, 42, 113 leadership 3, 6, 7 academic 107 collaborative/consensual 5–8, 18, 20, 54, 59, 162, 167, 171, 203, 242, 255 collegial 49 context 5, 18, 37–8, 43, 45, 49, 54, 167 co-operation 1, 7, 18, 20–1, 30, 46, 62–3, 90, 171 creative/leader 230, 232, 242–3, 246, 250, 251, 256, 259 democratic 23, 24, 28, 115, 191–3, 254 development 111, 237 devolved 163 dilemmas 54–5 distributed 93–4, 96–8, 109–11, 115, 138, 140, 158, 162, 163, 251 emergent 120, 145, 244, 258 facilitative 192 flexible leadership models 96 governance 1, 18, 54, 67, 76, 114, 234 hybridization 139 intellectual 134, 138, 140 lack of 31 learner-collaborators 162 network 18, 140, 145 ‘networks of collaboration’ 163 participative 89, 115, 257 partnership 1, 7, 27 research 118 self-leadership 48 shift in traditional leadership power 244 ‘slow leadership’ 242 symbolic 139 team 168 transformational 17, 24, 27–8 university 104

266 leadership styles democratic 24, 191, 193 model 96 style/s 94, 102, 116, 163, 192 transactional 11 transformational 17, 23–4, 27–8 management challenge 53 interlocking 146 model 56, 67, 89, 190 participative 67 theory 202 marketisation 2, 7, 71–2, 131, 167, 172–3, 221 Middle East 22 multi-faceted discussion 179 organization 101 musicians 8, 170, 243–6, 248, 250, 252–6, 260 in HE 243 networks

1, 4, 7, 11, 28, 47, 73, 82, 93–4, 117, 140, 146, 148–50, 154–5, 157–8, 163, 183, 213, 216, 219, 224, 228–9, 231–2, 237 ‘networks of collaboration’ 145 Nigeria/n 6, 17, 22, 30–2, 89. See also case studies: Nigeria organisations/groups 124, 203, 227 dynamics institutional 130 social 94, 124, 129, 132, 204 matrix 6, 60, 234 professional/personal development 10, 63, 93–4, 223, 231 ‘simplexity’ 190, 193, 198–9 structures 1, 4–6, 17, 19, 25, 48, 54, 67, 84, 96, 98, 101, 219, 235, 242 trust/ed/ful/worthy 3, 17, 20, 22, 25–32, 42, 44, 89, 117, 169, 192, 202, 223, 236, 243, 246–7 absence/loss of 169, 227, 232 co-operative trust school/ university 19, 76, 78

Index partnerships 11, 81, 167–8, 170, 174, 184, 204, 207, 209, 211, 221, 223–4, 237, 242, 254 academic/scholarly 171–2, 175, 214, 218 business 24, 27, 232 international 219 operational 30 strategic 36, 49, 89 policies 22, 25, 55, 58, 60, 63, 107, 111, 131, 154, 172–3, 176, 178, 182–5, 191, 2017, 209, 236 professional bodies 17, 20–3, 28, 30–2, 89 HE links (see case studies: Nigeria) programmes 21–3, 31, 64, 94, 113, 116, 145, 158, 175–6, 191, 208, 211, 215, 217, 225, 228 projects 5, 8–10, 45, 48, 61, 94, 108, 113–16, 118–19, 122–6, 131–6, 138, 140, 146, 154, 176, 194, 207–8, 211–12, 220–1, 223–4, 228, 231, 234–5, 238, 242, 251 Ecosme (e-commerce for SMEs) 228, 231–2, 235 e-projects 156 Euronet 224, 228, 232–4 Global Start 228 Inpart 228, 230–1, 235 Memoria 228–9, 234 research 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 17–18 collaboration 11 groups 21, 46, 84, 94, 129–30, 132, 136, 138, 140–1, 143, 147 scientific 162 social justice 117 students as researchers/research assistants 25, 94, 113–14, 115, 118, 122, 124–5, 162, 213, 215 South America/n 167, 172, 242 Spain 6, 53, 64, 79, 80, 89, 93, 129, 178. See also case studies: Spain Spanish 18, 35, 53, 56–7, 59–60, 65–8, 79, 89, 94, 129, 143, 172 stakeholders 17, 20, 22, 24, 36, 46, 71, 74, 149, 154

Index students 9, 10, 17, 20, 22, 25, 31–2, 37–8, 40–2, 47, 55–7, 64–5, 71–3, 78–83, 93–4, 98, 108, 113–26, 134, 14–17, 150–2, 157, 162, 169, 175, 185, 208, 211, 213, 215–17, 219, 221, 255, 258 United Kingdom/UK 22–3, 30–1, 71–2, 74, 77, 79, 81, 83, 89, 93, 95–8, 103, 114, 145, 158, 163, 168–9, 178, 190–6, 200–2, 209–17, 223, 225–6, 228, 234–5, 237, 242, 247, 249–50 university/ies 74, 93, 96–7, 98. See also HE/higher education competitive/ness 2, 4, 7, 18, 50, 74, 93, 96, 103, 123, 135, 141, 167, 208, 211, 219, 235–6 uncompetitively 243 co-operation 219 co-operative 71, 77, 82

267 corporate 2, 20, 167, 227, 230–1 enterprise 228 environment/working 20, 214, 220 e-university 155 international/ism/ist/ization 1, 2, 6, 9, 45, 47, 64, 72, 76–7, 83, 84, 96, 124, 130, 158, 168–9, 171, 173, 175–9, 182–5, 190, 195, 202, 207–21, 224, 227, 229, 232, 234–5, 242, 257 management 17, 56, 63, 67 managerialist 18 partnerships 207 privatization 73 rankings 130 research-intensive 37 researcher-entrepreneur 131 trust 78

West Wales 233