This rich book is a relevant book. Although it mainly seems to focus on crises in and around Nordic universities, the book covers more wide-ranging developments and debates, going beyond notions such as ‘crisis’, ‘Nordic’ and ‘universities.’ In fact, the book analyses a multitude of trends and transitions that (re)enact professional service work, also outside universities, and outside the Nordic countries.
It is relevant to study distinctive sites such as universities, not in the least because too many people think there is a ‘knowledge versus practice’ divide. They assume that universities generate knowledge on and for practice, which is situated ‘outside’ universities. This is misleading, not only because knowledge generation is societally distributed, as many societal actors generate knowledge and as universities are part of broader knowledge ecosystems. It is also misleading because universities are a practice themselves, which must be organized, steered, governed and managed. This means that using universities as empirical sites provides critical case material: we can study how we organize what is studied. At the same time, it is relevant to go beyond such sites and draw broader lessons, in this case on what hybridity means for organizing knowledge-intensive service delivery, in changing times.
Higher education institutions (HEI) such as universities contain knowledge-intensive work practices – most specifically education, research and impact – that are both highly professionalized as well as highly organized. The same goes for e.g., hospitals, the military, law courts, and the police. Although their work practices differ, these institutions all enable expert workers to treat clients and cases, to help or support (or punish) individuals and to serve society, to add societal value.
This is highly professionalized, in the sense that expert workers are part of professional fields that define, shape and protect professional work. They do so by selecting, schooling, socializing and supervising professional workers, by standardizing their work – both technically and ethically –, by spreading state-of-the-art knowledge, and by sanctioning workers if necessary. In a university, academics are trained, academic values are guarded, academic ways of working are established, and academic careers are well-defined. This is not only done to secure ‘high quality’ education and research, but also ‘high quality’ societal work, such as protecting independent advice and neutral judgement, in a democratic context.
This means that organized institutions such as universities are intrinsically ‘hybrid’, one of the key terms in this book. They are professional or academic and organizational, at the same time; they are treating clients/cases and societal needs, at the same time; they are independent and (societally) related, at the same time. March and Olsen described universities as ‘organized anarchies’, on the one hand fragmented, horizontal, disorderly, and on the other hand organized, vertical, orderly. Later, such hybridity became clear and pressing hybridity. We started to see distinctive professional and organizational ‘logics’, which were even more enlarged and exposed when organizational logics became managerial, market, consumer and commercial logics, and when professional logics were linked to collaborative, societal and citizen logics. This book shows how this multitude of logics are enacted and come together, how they generate conflicts, and how professionals (academics), managers and support staff must cope, deal and navigate.
The book also shows that these conflicts are exacerbated by politics and formal policies that fuel divides between public, private and civil spheres, all present in and around service work. Universities have formally remained public – especially in countries such as the Nordic countries – but they have also become private ‘firms’, and they must formally be connected to civil spheres, including societal partners. This, in turn, affects universities’ strategies, identities and loyalties. It is impossible to define ‘the essence’ of a university, or any comparable service institution, as multiple outlooks, longings, viewpoints, and requirements come together. The hybridity of service work such as higher education is both constitutive and changing.
When it comes to change, the book shows that universities – and comparable service institutions – are affected by trends and transitions, or to be more precise, turbulent trends and transitions. In this book, authors show how universities are not only changing due to well-known trends such as economization and commercialization, but also due to digitalization and (populist) politicization, as well as transitions such as crises (e.g., Covid-19) and geopolitical
All of this is relevant, as it enriches our views upon professional service work. First and foremost, this book implies that we must move beyond ‘the organization’. There will be service organizations, such as ‘the university’, with explicit organizational surroundings and – nowadays – explicit governance and management regimes. But organizational surroundings are spread, layered and nested, and they are part of wider organizational fields, which are interwoven with societal and civil fields. Digitalization, for example, is not only coming ‘from the outside’. It is also coming ‘from within’, through young students and scholars who are tech savvy, through meeting software, which means (transnational) interactive patterns are adapted, through generative AI, affecting how students and scholars wrote texts, through research projects, in which Big Tech is studied.
Secondly, the book shows we must move beyond ‘purity’. Against the background of multiple logics, it is impossible to expect clarity when it comes to modes of working and managing work. Multiplicity, juxtapositions, paradoxes, tensions, conflicts and clashes are normal. Notions such as ‘hybridity’ capture this, and they capture both professional and organizational consequences. In this book, some authors e.g., explore whether hybridity enable universities to remain ‘resilient’. Professional service work can never be ‘tightly controlled’. At the most, professional and organizational actions are ‘loosely coupled’ (after Weick). Such loose couplings enable professional service organizations to remain true to themselves and adapt.
Thirdly, the book shows that we must move beyond ‘stability’. Change is inevitable, well-organized professional work is continuously reconfigured. This is not only happening because ‘external’ demands at ‘macro’ or ‘meso’ levels are forcing universities to change. Academic work and academics are changing, as digital, political, economic and civil realities are changing, at ‘street levels’. This is not only happening slowly but might also happen suddenly, as indicated. Turbulence, full of surprises, shifts and sentiments, can abruptly alter professional work. In one of the chapters (11), the authors speak about ‘hybridity overload’, when it comes to leading academic work. This is important, as academic work and managing academic work might be highly
To conclude, a rich book like this draws conclusions, but can never be conclusive. It provides answers to pressing questions, and shows what is going on, what we can expect and how we can act. But it cannot give ‘the answer’, nor can it grasp ‘the essence’ of what is going on and what ‘must’ be done. To get a grip on professional service work, we must loosen our grip. Enjoy reading.
Professor of public management, head of department (and former vice dean for societal impact), Utrecht University School of Governance (USG), The Netherlands.
May 2025