The ‘managerial turn’ (Krücken et al., 2013) in European higher education systems has shifted academic leadership positions towards being more management-oriented, professionalised and ‘business-like’. Numerous empirical studies reveal how the consequences of academic ‘managerialisation’ have created a path for a de-collegialisation or weakening of the role and influence of the academic workforce in university governance and decision-making processes. Instead, we find a stronger vertical chain of command (cf. Ahlbäck Öberg et al., 2016; Ahlbäck Öberg & Boberg, 2023). Rhoades and Sporn (2002) argue that the expansion of more ‘professionalised’ models of management has resulted in a proliferation of permanent, full-time executive managers with increased power vis-à-vis the academic staff, and Meek et al. (2010) have found a radical increase in the number of management titles and positions in universities.
However, although today’s higher education is largely influenced by managerial values and governance ideals, these have not altogether replaced previous bureaucratic and collegial ideals and practices. Instead, university managers at all levels must cope with and manage an increasing institutional pluralism (Kraatz & Block, 2008, 2017), which has made scholars refer to them as ‘hybrid professionals’ (Giacomelli, 2020) with positions characterised by ‘hybridity’ (Pekkola et al., 2022). Some describe the activities of hybrid professionals as attempts to manage institutional complexity (cf. Noordegraaf, 2007; Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Spyridonidis & Currie, 2016). Others go further, arguing that professionalism itself has changed. Noordegraaf (2015) discusses a new type of ‘organising’ professionalism based on both professional and managerial principles. If professionals in management positions were previously required to contribute to management through their core expertise (in a sort of pure professionalism), they are now able to draw on their role as hybrid professionals and make decisions based on knowledge from several different areas of expertise. In this way, ‘organizing becomes a normal part of professional work’ (Ibid. 2015, p. 187). Whether this is a fact or not is an empirical question; however, the purpose of this chapter is to study whether this is an idea ‘whose time has come’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, p. 44; Czarniawska, 2014) and that has been made into a template or ‘recipe’ (Christensen et al., 2007) for university management.
We investigate academic leadership at the level of the department. As a professor or PhD graduate in a management position, the head of a department could be defined as a hybrid professional and is as such ‘engaged in managing professional work, professional colleagues and other staff’ (McGivern et al., 2015, p. 412). In the higher education hierarchy, department heads are the formal managers closest to academic work practices; as such, they have been
In this chapter, we describe and analyse the types of role expectations formal university policy documents express regarding the position of head of department, in the context of public universities in Sweden. Within the Swedish context, the governance of universities and university departments has traditionally involved a type of hybridity – initially influenced by the idea of collegiality and primus inter pares, but also including clear bureaucratic elements, since universities are public authorities. In recent years, however, demands have emerged for more management-oriented leadership at all levels of the university (cf. Sandstedt, 2013).
This chapter is structured as follows. We start by introducing the concept of institutional pluralism, followed by a discussion of department heads being part of a hybrid setting and their role as hybrid professionals. To analyse whether and how ideas about hybrid academic leadership have become an integrated template in university policy documents, we understand the idea of ‘appropriate’ leadership as being part of a translation process, including the importance of context and context-dependent editing rules that affect the translation process. We do not study the translation process itself but rather its outcome as it has been materialised in policy documents. Using translation theory in this way enables us to describe and analyse the template for ‘appropriate’ academic leadership and examine whether it includes an expectation for managers to act as hybrids. This also allows us to get a sense of how different professional groups with different professional norm systems and agendas have influenced and formulated the role expectations for university department heads, although we do not investigate this topic in detail here.
2 The Construction of Academic Leadership
2.1 Parallel Governing Ideals and Professional Norm Systems in the University
The university is a setting characterised by an institutional pluralism (Kraatz & Block, 2008, 2017) that covers different types of governance ideals. The norm of collegiality is a fundamental component of university governance. Formal structures for collegial decision-making (i.e. academic senates and faculty boards), elected leaders in accordance with the principle of primus inter pares, and the use of peer reviews for quality control are considered to be the main elements of collegiality. Collegiality is also built upon a special norm system for work activities: a set of shared norms advocating meritocracy, shared responsibility and collegial discussions based on professional discretion – all for the purpose of a refined production of scientific knowledge (Sahlin & Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2016). In parallel with the collegial governance ideal, traditional bureaucratic ideals of rules and regulations to uphold the rule of law play an important role in higher education governance. In addition, the idea of constructing more ‘complete’ organisations, with a distinct identity, hierarchy and rationality, has propelled many reforms in the public sector (Brunsson & Sahlin-Andersson, 2000). Moreover, in the wake of new public management (NPM) reforms in the late 1980s, public universities have been influenced by new-managerialism ideals and techniques involving more hands-on management and a focus on efficiency, excellence, flexibility and external accountability (Deem & Brehony, 2005; Teelken, 2012a, b).
As a consequence of the institutional and multifaceted norms embedded within them, universities ‘are considered to be prime examples of hybrid organizations’ (Lepori, 2016, p. 246). Jongbloed (2015) argues that European universities could be understood as hybrid organisations using hybrid models for governance (i.e., governmental regulation and market forces). The increased amount of private research funding and university–industry cooperation have multiplied the stakeholder demands a university needs to manage. Focusing on the multiple identities of higher education organisations, Winter and Bolden (2020) claim that universities are hybrid organisations with a mix of ‘competing utilitarian (managerial) and normative (professional) beliefs and values systems that challenge the existence of a unitary, fixed or stable cultural identity (Foreman & Whetten, 2002)’ (ibid., p. 169).
In an institutional analysis of higher education, Lepori (2016) argues that hybridity could serve as a management solution and strategy for managing institutional pressures and potential conflicts, and that the traditional collegial norm systems of the university have sometimes been protected through ‘selective coupling models’. For instance, universities have opted out of certain management practices that are in direct opposition to collegiality while adopting other practices that are not in direct conflict with this type of professional logic.
2.3 Hybrid Professionals, Positions and Work
In this chapter, we argue that managers in academia can be conceptualised as hybrid professionals, referring to professionals that have gained experience in other knowledge areas, in addition to their original expertise (Kurunmäki, 2004). A medical doctor practicing medicine while simultaneously working as a clinic manager (cf. Burgess & Currie, 2017) is a typical example of a hybrid professional. Previous research has referred to the work of hybrid professionals as ‘knowledge brokering’ (Currie, Burgess & Hayton, 2015; Kislov, Hodgson & Boaden, 2016), ‘boundary work’ (Ong, 1998) or ‘translational work’ (Blomgren & Waks, 2015; Spyridonidis & Currie, 2016), suggesting that these professionals use their intermediate positions to manage and support change by connecting, recombining and translating managerial and professional knowledge across different individuals and groups within and outside the organisation. Pekkola et al. (2022) define hybridity at the level of work descriptions and positions as a combination of academic, administrative and managerial roles and identities. These researchers conducted a comparative analysis of higher education in Finland, Sweden and Norway and concluded that the three contexts shared both similarities and differences. One difference was that the hybrid positions in Sweden were more managerial than those in Finland and Norway.
In the literature, an assortment of ‘recipes’ for how to manage and lead properly (Christensen et al., 2007) have been circulating in the public sector since the introduction of private-sector-inspired reforms in the early 1980s. In organisational institutionalism, the circulation and adoption of popular management ideas have been understood as ongoing translation processes in which the attributes of an idea are being created, negotiated and recreated as the idea travels in time and space (cf. Sahlin-Andersson & Engvall, 2002; Wedlin & Sahlin, 2008). Such processes include the materialisation of an idea into an object (e.g., a policy document), which is translated into actions, repeated and stabilised into an institution; when re-embedded into a new setting, it is viewed as a ‘new’ idea, which then becomes subject to new translations. The more people are involved in the translation process, the more energy the idea gains, and the more diffused and powerful it will become.
The idea of appropriate academic leadership and its specific meaning can thus be understood as an expression of a specific occasion in the translation process – that is, as an idea ‘whose time/space has come’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, p. 44). However, translations are not completely open-ended. Rather, implicit editing rules guide the process (Sahlin-Andersson, 1996; Wedlin & Sahlin, 2017), and, when a specific idea travels and is adopted into an organisation, it will also encounter other ideas. Wedlin and Sahlin (2017) argue based on the concept of ‘ecologies of translation’ and explain how a multitude of ideas interplay, mix and can potentially reinforce each other in processes of translation. In university settings, several governance ideals – as well as a growing number of different professional groups carrying different sets of rationales – interplay and influence how academic leadership is made sense of (cf. Pallas, Fredriksson & Wedlin, 2016). Universities are populated not only by those in the academic profession but also by support staff professionals (e.g., HR and communication professionals) that are involved in professionalisation projects of their own. These non-academic professionals make sense of what constitutes a ‘proper’ academic leadership through their own specific norm systems and thus have the potential to shape translation processes.
During times of considerable change and reform, hybridity becomes more legitimate (Battilana, Besharov, & Mitzinneck, 2017, p. 142), which might open up a window in the translation process to blend elements from different ideals. In the setting of Swedish university governance, for example, Sahlin and Eriksson-Zetterquist (2024) show that organisational and leadership criteria are being integrated into research assessments of Swedish universities and are sometimes given a status superior to that of science, thus a sign of collegiality being ‘watered down’.
3 Method
The research context of this study is the population of Swedish higher education institutions (HEI s). While this context covers a large number of various forms of HEI s, we focus solely on public universities, as they are exposed to greater institutional complexity than other kinds of HEI s. Public universities are not simply pure HEI s; they are hybrid organisations. They do not only have to be responsive to the ideals and regulatory frameworks that are specific to the higher education sector; as governmental agencies, they are also embedded in a context governed by ideals, norms and rules that are common to all organisations producing and supplying public goods and services in the public sector. Following major university reforms, and especially in the wake of the Autonomy reform in 2011, Swedish HEI s in general – and public universities in particular – have been subjected to pervasive changes in terms of deregulation and decentralisation. As a result, universities now have the discretion to independently structure and govern their internal organisation by themselves, including the formulation and implementation of internal regulatory frameworks conditioning the role and function of academic leaders.
Our choice of sample of public universities (inspired by the study of Ahlbäck Öberg & Boberg, 2023) includes a wide array of universities, from large old universities with strong roots in collegial norms and ideals to younger universities sharing a history as former university branches or university colleges and specialised universities of applied sciences (Table 11.1). The large old
Public universities in Sweden
| Old universities | New universities | Universities of applied sciences |
|---|---|---|
| Uppsala University (UU) (1477–) | Karlstad University (KaU) (1999–) | Karolinska Institute, KI (1810–) |
| Lund University (LU)
(1666–) |
Linné University (LnU) (2010–) | The Royal Technical University (KTH)
(1827–) |
| Göteborg University (GU) (1891–) | Örebro University (ORU) (1999–) | Luleå Technical University (LtU) (1971–) |
| Stockholm University (SU) (1960–) | Mid Sweden University (MiUn) (2005–) | Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) (1977–) |
| Umeå University (UmU)
(1965–) |
Malmö University (MaU)
(2018–) |
|
| Linköping University (LiU) (1975–) | Mälardalen University (MdU) (2022–) |
The university departments, which are organised as part of the faculties, are the key units of Swedish universities’ core operations. These units provide education at a basic, advanced and PhD level, as well as performing basic and applied research. They also have a third mission, as they collaborate with external stakeholders in the surrounding environment.
The university departments at Sweden’s public universities vary in number and size. LU has the largest number of university departments in the sample (n = 62), followed by UU (n = 54) and SU (n = 51). In contrast, the younger universities have fewer departments. The size of the departments also varies among the different universities. Higher education reforms in the 1990s caused university departments to merge into larger basic units (Boberg, 2022). GU, SU and LiU are three examples of universities that organise their core operations through large-scale and multidisciplinary departments. Still, most university departments are organised in rather small and single-disciplinary units, especially in
In Sweden, as in other national contexts, university departments are not only the workplace for academic professionals doing academic work; they also contain a growing number of administrators supporting the management and operations at the local level in functional areas such as course administration, finance, HR and IT.
3.1 Data Collection
We explore expectations regarding the role of heads of departments through a qualitative analysis of formal and internal policy documents at Swedish public universities. Coffey (2017) argues that it is difficult to understand higher education more generally and ‘academic work’ in particular without studying their ‘documentary realities’; in line with this argument and those of other scholars (Ahlbäck Öberg & Boberg, 2023), we claim that formal policy documents are valuable and reliable data sources for exploring role expectations at public universities.
The universities are governed and managed through several policy documents. We have selected three forms of policy documents that we argue are crucial for answering our research question properly: namely, work orders, delegation orders and formal policies for management/leadership. These documents explicitly express what is expected of those who hold a position of academic leadership, including what tasks and obligations the position entails and how these should be carried out.
The work and delegation orders and policy documents in the sample were systematically gathered, compiled and processed through a web-based study carried out during 2022–2024. These documents are public and are largely available on the universities’ websites on the Internet. A few documents were also gathered through direct contact with HR specialists at individual universities by e-mail or phone early in 2024. All documents are contemporary and currently applied in the governance of the universities.
3.1.1 Work and Delegation Orders
Internal work and delegation orders are formal rules that are formulated, decided and implemented by the university boards and the Vice-Chancellors as a response to specific paragraphs in Sweden’s Higher Education Act and Higher Education Ordinance. As such, they are the outcome of an established
3.1.2 Internal Policy Documents
University-specific policy documents and guidelines for management/leadership are our main sources of data. While the work and delegation orders stipulate what the academic managers should do in their role as formal managers at that university in general, the policies express what is expected of these managers in terms of how good and appropriate leadership should be practiced. As such, the policies articulate the objectives, values and expectations for university leadership in greater detail. Unlike the work and delegation orders, the policies can be viewed as ‘soft rules’, as they are not legally binding and have no formal sanctions if not complied with. The policies are not independent steering documents; rather, they supplement current laws, agreements and other governing documents both within and external to the universities.
In line with our social constructivist view on reality (Berger & Luckman, 1979), we do not view the policy documents as given but as constructions and outcomes of social translation processes. Thus, we interpret the documents as ‘social constructs’ that are produced, used and shared in socially organised ways (Coffey, 2017). Methodologically, we approached the documents as texts and as representations of the practical accomplishments involved in their production. We did not analyse the processes of the production of the documents per se, but we view the documents as the products and manifestations of such processes. The constructions of these policies have been preceded by internal audit processes and/or university-based inquiries or action programmes focusing on the specific context of heads of departments. Such audits were conducted by internal audit units at UU, UmU, MaU and SLU in the 2000s. As described in the written reports, an overall purpose of these processes was to assess whether the heads of departments have sufficient conditions and administrative support to manage their tasks properly and strategically in order to achieve the mission of the universities. Among other things, the objective of the audits has been to submit proposals for changes and organisational actions in order to clarify and improve the conditions, continued direction and development of the head of department’s role to make it clearer and more attractive.
In general, the processes of formulating leadership policies can be described as inclusive and anchored in the entire organisation of the university in order
Policies for leadership and co-workership at Swedish public universities
| University | Policies for leadership | Policies for co-workership |
|---|---|---|
| Uppsala University (UU) | n/a | UFV 2021/1066 (2021) |
| Lund University (LU) | Reg No STYR 2023/2758 (2023)
Reg No STYR 2023/2803 (2023) |
n/a |
| Gothenburg University (GU) | n/a | n/a |
| Stockholm University (SU) | SU 814-0915-12 (2013) | n/a |
| Umeå University (UmU) | Reg No FS 1.1.-2713-21 (2021) | Reg No FS 1.1.-1048-22 (2022) |
| Linköping University (LiU) | n/a | n/a |
| Karlstad University (KaU) | Reg No C2023/120 (2023) | Reg No C2023/120 (2023) |
| Linné University (LnU) | n/a | n/a |
| Örebro University (OrU) | Reg No ORU 2019/05029 (2019) | Reg No ORU 2019/05029 (2019) |
| Mid Sweden University (MiUn) | n/a | n/a |
| Malmö University (MaU) | n/a | n/a |
| Mälardalen University (MdU) | n/a | n/a |
| Karolinska Institute (KI) | Reg No 1-76/2022 (2022) | Reg No 1-76/2022 (2022) |
| Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) | Reg No 2019-0009 (2019) | Reg No V-2019-0013 (2019) |
| Luleå Technical University (LtU) | Reg No 2050-14 (2014) | Reg No 2050-14 (2014) |
| Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU) | Reg No SLU ua 213.1.1.1-5596 (2013) | Reg No SLU ua 213.1.1.1-5596 (2013) |
In addition, a growing number of universities have formulated specific policies for co-workership or plan to do so in the near future (i.e. SLU). In most cases, these are integrated with the policies for leadership/management (i.e. SU, OrU, KaU and KI). At UmU and KTH, on the other hand, these policies are integrated as sub-sections of general HR policies in areas such as competence and career development.
3.2 Data Analysis
The policy documents were analysed using a reflexive, flexible and open-ended approach in order to explore the tasks and expectations articulated in the content of the investigated policy documents. This was done through a qualitative content analysis (Coffey, 2017; Schreier, 2017).
In line with Miles and Huberman’s (1994) interactive model of data analysis, we looked for patterns and themes on the basis of our conceptual framework, while remaining responsive to new themes emerging from the data. Therefore, we used a combination of concept-driven and data-driven themes and categories in our coding scheme. We started by closely reading the content of the documents in order to identify the sets of tasks (academic, administrative and managerial) and types of expertise these managers were expected to possess at the various universities. We found it essential to have a flexible and open mindset in relation to our empirical data in order to avoid ignoring any valuable and useful data in the content of the documents. In this way, we discovered the manifestation of the idea and value of ‘co-workership’ in our data – a concept that could be considered peripheral in the practice of Swedish academic leadership until now. Through an iterative process (Coffey, 2017; Schreier, 2017), we repeated the steps of reading, coding and interpreting, modifying the coding frame in the process.
4 Higher Education and the Role of Heads of Departments in Sweden
In Sweden, the higher education system has changed over time in response to a series of political reforms. The 1977 higher education reform radically changed the system, with increased centralisation, uniformity and expansion. The tasks of heads of departments and the department board were specified in a new
In the wake of the pervasive NPM wave in the 1990s, the higher education sector in Sweden passed from rule-based and detailed management to management through objectives and results. The changed form of governance included a strengthening of various forms of ‘ex post control’ such as follow-up, accounting and reporting. The sector-specific higher education reform in 1993 brought a decentralisation of the Swedish higher education sector. Established traditions provided little guidance when the universities were suddenly faced with the task of designing their own organisation, distribution of responsibilities and decision-making order.
The new 1993 higher education regulation also brought new requirements and expectations for the heads of departments (Eriksson, 1997). A follow-up of the reform (RUT-93) reported that the heads of departments were surprised by the changed demands on leadership, while their colleagues at the departments found it difficult to accept that new conditions had been established. The report also emphasised that the recruitment of academic leaders needed to be developed and that a stronger and more management-oriented leadership was required at all levels within the university (Sandstedt, 2013). Leadership was presented as a new academic profession, which was partly at odds with the traditional collegial view of academic leaders as primus inter pares. The reform follow-up emphasised that it was important that the holder of the position of head of department be given real opportunities to meet the new and increased demands.
As a result, the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education (Högskoleverket, HSV) received an instruction from the Ministry of Education in 1995 to promote management development at universities. To avoid risking the re-centralisation of the higher education system, the HSV recommended that the university management of HEI s should make efforts to achieve this goal at the local level. It was considered the university principal’s task to be responsible for managerial development at each respective HEI. In response, a number of
As the higher education sector grew in size and scope, heads of departments’ areas of responsibility expanded significantly during the 2000s, as shown by several studies and investigations (e.g., Engwall & Lindvall Eriksson, 2012). One explanation is that many university departments were merged into larger multidisciplinary units. In addition, the requirements for explicit action programmes and the reporting of implemented measures and achieved results have been strengthened in recent years. In the wake of the 2011 Autonomy reform and a more general expansion of the university, the variety and complexity of university governance – and forms of management across Sweden – has been increasing, which is perceived as problematic. In particular, the universities’ self-governance or collegial forms of governance have been questioned in state reports and at the central level of HEI s. Instead, a strengthened vertical chain of command has been advocated, in which the head of department plays a key role.
Academic leadership is based on scientific freedom, the collegial structure and that universities and colleges are public authorities in the service of democracy and the state. (Proposition 2001/02:15, ‘The open university’, p. 151)
5 Role Expectations for Heads of Departments at Swedish Public Universities
Working and delegation orders are central in university governance in Sweden. In brief, they articulate the university’s overall internal organisation, division of labour, principles for delegation of decision-making and responsibility, how certain matters should be managed (e.g., the election processes of formal managers) and the general forms of operations. The orders are rather similar in how they are framed at the various universities. They are often introduced by articulating which legislation applies and which decision-making rights are delegated to the various bodies and functions within the universities, including the heads of departments. There are also variations, especially in how the universities express their academic values. Some universities introduce their
Concentrating on the role of the head of department, there is also a variation in how this formal role is portrayed in these orders. For instance, the working orders at the MiUn, LtU, SLU and KI point out a long series of specific obligations that are expected of their heads of departments in areas such as organisation and administration, education (at the basic, advanced and PhD levels), economy and personnel administration, whereas the working orders at universities such as GU, UU, OrU, LnU, KaU and KTH only briefly address the responsibilities and tasks of the heads of departments. That said, a common expression is that the head of the department is the formal manager at the departmental level and represents the department internally at the university and externally towards stakeholders. The Vice-Chancellors (and deans) delegate the overall responsibility for operations at the departmental level to the heads. Among other things, this means that the head of department should guarantee that research and education are conducted at a high-quality level. In addition, the head should promote the department’s third mission of collaboration with the surrounding society. The heads of departments are also responsible for the economy and finances of the departments, HR issues regarding academic and administrative employees, the work environment, and ensuring that the daily operations at the department are run smoothly in accordance with formal rules and regulations. In some cases, it is argued that the head is also responsible for developing the department. In the working order of MiUn, for instance, it is articulated that the head is responsible for the overall business planning and long-term priorities at the departmental level.
The content of the work and delegation orders defines the formal position of heads of departments as academic managers. It is argued, however, that this is insufficient to influence the activities of the university. What is needed is good leadership as defined and explained in local policies.
5.1 A Move towards a Stronger Vertical Chain of Command, Or …?
Most of the leadership policies state that they are intended to clarify the responsibility, expectations and demands placed on formal managers at the university in general, including the heads of departments. The aim is to define
However, more recently, an opposite development was distinguished at LU, where specific policies have been formulated and implemented for what characterises a distinct academic leadership. These policies are argued to complement the leadership policy; their stated aim is to reinforce and protect collegiality and academic values and principles, which are unique and central for academic leadership at the university. In this case, there are multiple expectations for academic leadership, as the university embraces a well-developed strategic approach (while simultaneously cherishing daily practices) to be able to communicate externally and internally, to understand the university’s surroundings at both a national and international level, to have integrity and the courage to make decisions and, finally, to have the ability to balance the different parts of academic leadership in term of collegiality and hierarchy.
5.2 A Focus on ‘Co-Workership’
In the policy documents, it appears that the role of head of department is still largely about managing both daily and complex HR issues. More broadly, it is explicitly articulated that being a head of a department is largely about managing ‘employees’. In LU’s policy for leadership, for instance, it is prescribed that an important role as formal manager of the university is to promote a working climate that favours independent thinking and development. It is also important to make use of the employees’ competence, experience and commitment. A manager is expected to support the employees’ development of skills and competences as part of the development of the department’s or unit’s operations. In their role as ‘operational’ managers, the heads of departments at LU
At a number of universities, in parallel with the development towards a stronger and more salient leadership, specific policies for ‘co-workership’ (medarbetarskap) have been formulated. These policies express that it is not only good leadership that is strategically important for their universities (e.g., UmU, KaU and SLU); clear ‘co-workership’ is also a condition for good leadership. A good leadership and co-workership are hence declared as being significant for achieving the vision and goals of the university as a whole. Similar to the policies for leadership, most of the policies for co-workership are introduced by stating that the university is a governmental agency and, further, that the policies are based on the governmental core values. In most cases, the policies for co-workership cover a broad range of issues. Among other things, they state that the employees are responsible for keeping themselves up-to-date on their area of expertise. The employees are also expected to contribute to a good working climate for the university as a whole, an open and constructive dialogue across and within professional and operational boundaries and the development of a trust-based culture.
As an example similar to other policies, the co-workership policy at UU expresses the centrality of governmental values; in parallel, however, it also emphasises the importance of the traditional academic values of collegiality. The policy concerns all employees at the university, regardless of occupational position. Thus, academic colleagues and administrative support staff are categorised as ‘co-workers’. Even the heads of departments at the university are included in this category, albeit with a special responsibility for the operations and employees of their respective departments. Furthermore, the policy states that all employees have a shared responsibility for the university’s work environment and for creating favourable conditions for the university’s overall mission. The employees are also expected to respect the fact that their managers have been delegated the responsibility to make decisions and to lead and distribute the work within the framework of the conditions that prevail in the workplace. A specific section in the policy is allocated to the managers at UU; among other things, they are expected to act as role models, show trust in employees and safeguard employees’ commitment, initiatives and ideas. In addition, managers are expected to act promptly and respectfully when problems arise and to seek support if necessary.
In the case of SLU, the policy states that a successful university requires competent, engaged and involved employees who are willing to actively contribute to the development of the university and to a good working climate. A series of points indicate the expectations placed on the employees from SLU’s
The internal investigations that earlier identified the need for formulating and designing the policies on leadership and co-workership at the various universities were mostly run by representatives from the HR departments at the central level of the universities. The decisions to start these projects were made by Vice-Chancellors and/or university boards, but it was largely the administrators from the central HR departments that led the projects on the local level.
For example, the new guidelines for managerial assignments at LU were the result of a local project titled ‘Future Leadership Development’, which was led by LU’s HR department with the goal of developing a concept proposal for the university’s future leadership development. The project resulted in a number of proposals, such as setting up a management platform for leadership development with the aim of providing inspiration, learning and support for managers and leaders at LU. A team in LU’s HR department manages the platform with the aim of providing an arena for continuous dialogues on principles for competence development of the leadership role(s) at LU. Another proposal was to update the guidelines for management assignments with a management and leadership policy that applied to all formal managers at LU. The aims of the new guidelines were to clarify what it means to be a manager at LU and to form a basis for the development of new management training courses.
5.3 A Strengthened Professionalisation of Academic Leadership
A priority being raised in many of the leadership policies is to strengthen and ‘professionalise’ the leadership role through well-developed internal leadership education and targeted competence development efforts. The documents also argue that good administrative and organisational support at both the central and local levels is key in the professionalisation of leadership.
The leadership policy at SE expresses that professional leadership is a strategic prerequisite for achieving the university’s vision. It is assumed that professional leadership increases the attractiveness of the university as an employer. An ambition of UmU’s leadership policy is that the employees at the university should be given the opportunity to develop their leadership and be able to prepare early on in their career for a role as a leader.
The professionalisation efforts of leadership are reflected in the administrative structure of most universities. For instance, the universities in Uppsala, Lund and Linköping have strategically established and developed specific leadership development units that provide a variety of activities to support
5.4 A Unified University with a Strong and Unified Leadership
A recurrent statement in the documents is that the university is a unified university with a common mission, and that a well-developed and common view on leadership and co-workership is a prerequisite for a well-functioning and proper academic practice. Strong and developed leadership and co-workership are a requirement for the university to realise its vision of being a ‘world-class university’ (SLU), to achieve success in research and education (LU and SU) or to be attractive as an employer (UmU). The policies also articulate that they apply to everyone with managerial duties at the HEI, not just those appointed as academic leaders. Thus, they do not differentiate between people internally appointed through collegial procedures and those externally recruited or in a part-time or full-time manager role (e.g., LU). They apply to everyone with a management assignment with personnel, operational and budget responsibility.
5.5 Emphasising the Role of the Head in the Service of the State
In a number of policy documents, it is articulated that the universities and their managers serve the state. In the leadership policy of SU, for instance, it is expressed that – besides protecting the collegial decision-making system – the academic manager is expected to adhere to the same principles and requirements as other managers in the state administration. The importance of the state sector’s common basic values is more or less emphasised across all the university policies. It is expressed that these values – namely, democracy, efficiency, legal security, objectivity and free expression of opinion – are fundamental for practicing good and appropriate leadership at the universities. It is also important that the university – like other public authorities – ensure that its co-workers are informed of and understand these values. (Statskontoret, 2019). For example, the leadership policy at UmU states that a manager must actively work to keep the governmental core values ‘alive’. Many policies also express the meaning and importance of the governmental-driven idea of trust. It is argued that trust is a key component of professional leadership, not least in the relationship between leaders and employees. It is also expressed that university managers should work hard to enable trust-based governance across the university (e.g., UmU) or to support a trust-based culture (e.g., KI) in which formal managers and leaders jointly create proper conditions and space for their employees to grow and take responsibility.
In this chapter, we investigated the types of role expectations – materialised in both ‘hard’ regulations and ‘softer’ policy documents – that are placed on the heads of departments in Swedish public universities. The investigation showed how these expectations have increased in both scope and content. Although the documents contain descriptions that aim to create a homogeneous and standardised template for the managerial role, the template itself expresses expectations of the management position that are perhaps even more complex than they were before. The role of head of department seems to involve being a collegial leader of peers, a state agent, an employer that trusts co-workers, and a boundary spanner responsible for communicating and upholding relations with the surrounding society. The number of duties has expanded; the head of department is responsible for securing the department’s finances, ensuring the quality of teaching and research, and promoting collaboration with the surrounding society. The head should also ‘serve the state’, keep the governmental core values ‘alive’ and make sure that the department operates in accordance with formal rules and regulations. At the same time, the head should contribute to the university as a whole, develop the department, encourage independent thinking among the employees and attract new ones to the department. The head should also protect the collegial decision-making system and, on top of that, achieve a reasonable balance between the different role expectations. To conclude, it seems as if the pursuit of task clarity has resulted in further role complexity and hybridity – a paradoxical outcome, since the purpose of the policy documents was to clarify what is expected of academic managers.
So, how can we explain this development? We understand the role expectations expressed in the policy documents as part of an ongoing translation process during a certain time and context. The role of a university head of department has always been hybrid, but now additional elements have been added or highlighted. For instance, the expectation to act as a civil servant has been reinforced, as have ideas about mutual trust and co-workership. Different governance ideals thus seem to be at play at the same time, forming an ecology of translation (Wedlin & Sahlin, 2017) and potentially creating hybridity and tension.
The vocabulary used in the studied documents breathes a new idea about the university as an institution. The word ‘employee’ and the head of department that acts on behalf of the ‘employer’ and is ‘liable’ to the employees are rather different from traditional ideas about the university as a meritocratic collegium of peers. The concept of co-workership also seems to be a wide concept that could mean different things at different times and in different
Another interesting and important question for further research is whether or how heads of departments cope with the type of ‘hybridity overload’ that the expectations presented in the policy documents seem to imply. We are already witnessing two strategies today. The first is to commit to the type of ‘organising professionalism’ (Noordegraaf, 2015) that seems to be expected from a reading of the policy documents. Different types of leadership training programmes are already in place in many universities in Sweden, with the aim of promoting a more professionalised leadership role. A second strategy, which is almost the opposite, involves a shared management position in which duties and responsibilities are delegated and tasks are spread out to more than one person. Nevertheless, further studies of actual work practices are required in order to investigate how heads of departments cope and what strategies they choose.
Note
E-mail correspondence with an HR specialist at GU on 23-11-03.
References
Ahlbäck Öberg, S., Benich-Björkman, L., Hermansson, J., & A. Jarstad (Eds.). (2016). Det hotade universitetet. Dialogos förlag.
Ahlbäck Öberg, S., & Boberg, J. (2023). The decollegialization of higher education institutions in Sweden. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 9(2), 126–143.
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (Eds.). (2020). Ledning, och snedstyrning i högskolan. Studentlitteratur.
Andersson, T., Crevani, L., Eriksson-Zetterquist, U., & Tengblad, S. (2020). Chefskap, ledarskap och medarbetarskap. Studentlitteratur.
Andersson, T., Stockhult, H., & Tengblad, S. (2021). Strategies for co-workership retention. Human Resource Development International, 24(4), 425–445.
Battilana, J., Besharov, M., & Mitzinneck, B. (2017). On hybrids and hybrid organizing: A review and roadmap for future research. In R. Greenwood, Oliver, C. Lawrence, T. B., & R. E. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 128–162). Sage.
Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Anchor Books.
Blomgren, M., & Waks, C. (2015). Coping with contradictions: Hybrid professionals managing institutional complexity. Journal of Professions and Organization, 2(1), 78–102.
Boberg, J. (2022). Lärosätenas interna organisation: Kollegialitet, demokrati och linjestyrning. Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, 124(1), 19–49.
Brunsson, N., & Sahlin-Andersson, K. (2000). Constructing organizations: The example of public sector reform. Organization Studies, 21(4), 721–746.
Burgess, N., & Currie, C. (2017). The knowledge brokering role of middle managers: The case of hybrid middle managers in a professionalized organization. In S. W. Floyd & B. Wooldridge (Eds.), Handbook of middle management strategy process research (pp. 132–142). E. E. Elgar.
Christensen, T., Laegreid, P., Roness, P. G., & Rövik, K. A. (2007). Organization theory and the public sector. Instrument, culture and myth. Routledge.
Coffey, A. (2017). Analysing documents. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative analysis (pp. 367–379). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Currie, G., Burgess, N., & Hayton, J. (2015). HR practices and knowledge brokering by hybrid middle managers in hospital settings: The influence of professional hierarchy. Human Resource Management, 54(4), 793–812.
Czarniawska, B. (2014). University Fashion. On ideas whose time has come. In P. Gibbs, et al. (Eds.), Universities in the flux of time. An exploration of time and temporality in university life (pp. 32–45). Routledge.
Czarniawska, B., & Joerges, B. (1996). Travel of ideas. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevón (Eds.), Translating organizational change (pp. 13–48). De Gruyter.
De Boer, H., & Goedegebuure, L. (2009). The changing nature of the academic deanship. Leadership, 5(3), 347–364.
Deem, R., & Brehony, K. J. (2005). Management as ideology: The case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(2), 217–235.
Engwall L., & Lindvall Eriksson, C. B. (2012). Leaders of modern universities: Primi inter pares or chief executive officers. In S. Tengblad (Ed.), The work of managers: Towards a practice theory of managers (pp. 206–225). Oxford University Press.
Eriksson, C. B. (1997). Akademiskt ledarskap (Academic Leadership), Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Oeconomiae Negotiorum 43. Almqvist & Wiksell.
Giacomelli, G. (2020). The role of hybrid professionals in the public sector: A review and research synthesis. Public Management Review, 22(11), 1624–1651.
Gjerde, S., & Benner, M. (2020). Tratt, consiglieri, gisslan eller paraply? In M. Alvesson & S. Sveningsson (Eds.), Ledning, och snedstyrning i högskolan (pp. 108–127). Studentlitteratur.
Haake, U. (2004). Ledarskapande i akademin. Om prefekters diskursiva identitetsutveckling (Academic dissertation No. 74) [Doctoral dissertation, Umeå University].
Hällsten, F., & Tengblad, S. (Eds.), (2006). Medarbetarskap i praktiken. Studentlitteratur.
Higher Education Act 1977:218.
HSV (National Agency for Higher Education). (2002). Ledarutveckling – ett styrinstrument? Insatser för chefs- och ledarutveckling vid universitet och högskolor 2000–2001. Högskoleverkets rapportserie 2002: 19R.
Jensen, T. (2020). Interrimsprefekten. In M. Alvesson & S. Sveningsson (Eds.), Ledning, och snedstyrning i högskolan (pp. 297–314). Studentlitteratur.
Jongbloed, B. (2015). Universities as hybrid organizations. International Studies of Management and Organization, 45(3), 207–225.
Kallenberg, T. (2007). Strategic innovation in HE: The roles of academic middle managers. Tertiary Management Education, 13(1), 19–33.
Kislov, R., Hodgson, D. E., & Boaden, R. (2016). Professionals as knowledge brokers: The limits of authority in healthcare collaboration. Public Administration, 94(2), 472–489.
Kraatz, M., & Block, E. (2008). Organizational implications of institutional pluralism. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. K. Sahlin, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 243–275). Sage Publications.
Kraatz, M., & Block, E. (2017). Institutional pluralism revisited. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. B. Lawrence, & R. E. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 532–557). Sage.
Krücken G., Blümel, A., & Kloke, K. (2013). The managerial turn in higher education? On the interplay of organizational and occupational change in German academia. Minerva, 51, 417–442.
Kurunmäki, L. (2004). A hybrid profession: The acquisition of management accounting expertise by medical professionals. Accounting Organizations and Society, 29(3–4), 327–347.
Lepori, B. (2016). Universities as hybrids: Applications of institutional logics theory to higher education. Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, 2, 245–264.
McGivern, G., Currie, G., & Ferlie, E. (2015). Hybrid manager-professionals’ identity work: The maintenance and hybridization of medical professionalism in managerial contexts. Public Administration, 93(2), 412–432.
Meek, V. L., Goedegebuure, L, Santiago, R., & Carvahlo, T. (2010). The changing dynamics of higher education middle management. Springer: Higher Education Dynamics 33.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Sage.
Noordegraaf, M. (2007). From “pure” to “hybrid” professionalism: Present-day professionalism in ambiguous public domains. Administration and Society, 39(6), 761–785.
Noordegraaf, M. (2015). Hybrid professionalism and beyond: (New) forms of public professionalism in changing organizational and societal contexts. Journal of Professions and Organization, 2(2), 187–206.
Norén, K., & Wallin, M. (2019). Akademisk chef – hur fungerar det? Studentlitteratur.
Ong, B. N. (1998). Evolving perceptions of clinical management in acute hospitals in England. British Journal of Management, 9(3), 199–210.
Pallas, J., Fredriksson, M., & Wedlin, L (2016). Translating institutional logic. When the media logic meets professions. Organization Studies, 37(11), 1661–1684.
Pekkola, E., et al. (2022). Hybridity in Nordic higher education. International Journal of Public Administration, 45(2), 171–184.
Rhoades, G., & Sporn, B. (2002). New models of management and shifting modes and costs of production: Europe and the United States. Tertiary Education and Management, 8, 3–28.
Risling, A., & Edenius, M. (2019). Prefekt. Framtidens ledarskap för forskning och utveckling. Sanoma Utbildning AB.
Sahlin-Andersson, K. (1996). Imitating by editing success: The construction of organizational fields and identities. In B. Czarniawska & G. Sevón (Eds.), Translating organizational change (pp. 69–92). De Gruyter.
Sahlin-Andersson, K., & Engwall, L. (2002). Eds. The expansion of management knowledge: Carriers, flows and sources. Stanford University Press.
Sahlin, K., & Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (2016). Collegiality in modern universities – The composition of modern ideales and practices. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2–3, 1–10.
Sahlin, K., & Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (2024). Collegiality washing? New translations of collegial practices. Revitalizing collegiality: Restoring faculty authority in universities. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 87, 157–180.
Sahlin, K., & Wedlin, L. (2008). Circulating ideas: Imitation, translation and editing. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 218–242). Sage.
Sandstedt, T. (2013). Om rekrytering i akademin – exemplen prefekter och forskarstuderande (Linneaus University Dissertation No. 137) [Doctoral dissertation, Linneaus University]. Linneaus University Press.
Schneijderberg, C., & Merkator, N. (2012). The new higher education professionals. In B. M. Kehm & U. Teichler (Eds.), The academic profession in Europe: New tasks and new challenges. The changing academy – The changing academic profession in international comparative perspective (Vol. 5, pp. 53–92). Springer.
Schreier, M. (2017). Qualitative content analysis. In U. Flick (Ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 170–183). Sage Publications Ltd.
SOU (2015:92). Utvecklad ledning av universitet och högskolor.
Spyridonidis, D, & Currie, G. (2016). The translational role of hybrid nurse middle managers in implementing clinical guidelines: Effect of, and upon, professional and managerial hierarchies. British Journal of Management, 27(4), 760–777.
Statskontoret. (2016). Utvecklat medarbetarskap och ledarskap i staten.
Statskontoret. (2019). Den statliga värdegrunden – gemensamma principer för en god förvaltning.
Teelken, C. (2012a). Compliance or pragmatism: How do academics deal with managerialism in higher education? A comparative study in three countries. Studies in Higher Education, 37(3), 271–290.
Teelken, C. (2012b). Academic leadership and its effect on professional autonomy. In C. Teelken, E. Ferlie, & M. Dent (Eds.), Leadership in the public sector. Promises and pitfalls (pp. 174–194). Routledge.
Wedlin, L., & K. Sahlin (2017). The imitation and translation of management ideas. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. B. Lawrence, & R. E. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 102–127). Sage.
Winter, R., & Bolden, R. (2020). Hybridity in higher education. In D. Billis & C. Rochester (Eds.), Handbook on hybrid organisations (pp. 169–184). Edward Elgar Publishing.