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The article analyzes two ideologies that are the most important for the modern Transhumanism and managerialism as two ideologies most significant for the modern Western world have been analyzed. The study of these issues was carried out in the context of identifying the relationship between the Western elites’ support for Ukraine and the transformation processes that are taking place in the European Union and North America. The purpose of the study is to determine what social changes in the West lead to forming barriers to the peaceful resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The work applied general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as the comparative method of scientific cognition. Document analysis was used as an applied method of collecting empirical information (the study of information portals, state authorities’ and non-governmental organizations’ websites). As the study result, the following conclusions have been made. The transhumanism ideology in the countries of the European Union and North America is focused on creating a “society of the chosen”. The transhumanism and managerialism application leads to a significant increase in society manageability by accelerating traditional social ties disintegration. Western society transformation increases its vulnerability due to incomplete change of social values and internal resistance to transhumanism and managerialism. The special military operation on the territory of Ukraine is used to strengthen integration processes in the West.

Abstract There are always ideas or pseudo-sciences with high certainty in the minds of policymakers, which win due to their certainty, value-orientedness and high speed in mobilizing public opinion to achieve action in the competition with objective evidence and science. They turn considering the importance of these ideas, the researchers in this research have to focus on the ratio of ideologies on the policy making process in the field of higher education. The main field of reproduction of ideologies are educational policies, which are effective in the fields of general education, education and higher education. Among these, researchers, while systematically studying ideology in policy-making and designing a framework for the analysis of ideology in the field of policy-making in the field of higher education, analyzed the approved and communicated policies of the main higher policy-making institutions in The field of higher education, i.e. the Islamic Council and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and finally two ideologies of Islamism and managerialism were extracted in these policies. These two ideologies have caused powerful currents during the post-war periods imposed in the policy making in the field of higher education in all periods of the parliament and the government, and their analysis was extracted and presented.Introduction For a long time, the role of actors, institutions, interests and ideas have been identified and investigated as background elements in policy making (Howlett & et al, 2009: 1). Among various ideas, according to Goldstein and Kohin, at least three categories of ideas are related to policy-making: world-view or ideologies, main beliefs and causal ideas. These ideas can serve as a "road map" for policy making, define the problem, influence strategic interactions between policy actors, and limit policy options (Howlett & et al, 2009:97). In the very first stages of policy making, identification and definition of a problem, there can be an error known as the third type error, whose primary causes are belief in a worldview and ideology or a false myth to conceptualize the situation of a It is a problem (Danaei Fard et al., 1401: 6).It can be expected that by identifying explicit or implicit ideas, ideas, patterns or worldviews of policymakers and their different works, the analyst can conduct a realistic analysis by intercepting the deviant currents of his or his colleagues' minds. It deals with the issues and flow of policy making, and in this way, it is possible to understand why sometimes the policy makers unconsciously and inevitably leave the real issues of the society and deal with the issues that they think are important.Policy-making in the field of higher education in recent years is faced with various currents such as monetization of education, flood of graduates and high unemployment rate, dissatisfaction of the country's officials with the state of students' religiosity, a wave of student protests, degree orientation, lack of success There has been an expectation in the localization of humanities after the Islamic revolution and the lack of dissatisfaction of students with the course content (Dahaghani et al., 1390:16) and the like. Analyzing the way policy makers understand, direct and respond to issues in this area can be effective in identifying more suitable solutions in the future, in addition to knowing the reasons for not realizing the goals of policy makers.In this regard, despite the identification of the role of ideologies in the policy-making process, ideology in Iran has always attracted the attention of thinkers and researchers of political sciences, sociology and educational sciences and in fields such as foreign policy, political parties and the education system. has been up to management thinkers.In this research, the researchers seek to explain the role of ideology in the policy-making process in the field of higher education. For this purpose, along with a systematic review of the literature using the content analysis method, to analyze the approved policies of this field in the post-revolution periods in terms of policy trends in the field of higher education and the role of ideology in formulating this Approved policies have been paid.Case studyministry of science, research and technology andMaterials and Methods: The overall design of this research is based on the qualitative exploratory methodology, and based on that, the objectives, sampling and data collection have been conducted. In this research, using the content analysis method, an attempt is made to extract key ideoogies related to the research topic. In the first stage, the studies of this field are studied using the systematic study method and finally a framework was designed to conduct the research. The statistical population includes all policies that is enacted in the field of higher education by legislative institutions of Iran. These policies include the approvals of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution from the time of its establishment until 1402 in the field of the higher education system, as well as the most important policies approved by the Islamic Council after the Islamic Revolution.The method of sampeling was judge sampeling and finally, two ideologies of Islamism and managerialism were extracted in these policies. These two ideologies were identified with the sub-components of transformation in humanities, Islamization of universities, as well as monetization and privatization of higher education that these findings were approved by some experts of this field.Discussion and ResultsRegarding the ideology of the Islamic Revolution or Islamism, it can be expected that this ideology will follow its reproduction process in the transformation of scientific institutions. Therefore, with the victory of the Islamic revolution, human sciences were given attention. The agents of the revolution were of the belief that it is necessary that the foundations of human sciences be re-evaluated based on authentic Islamic sources and cleansed of the cultural and ideological elements of the West. As can be seen, various policies were adopted to achieve this goal.The main function of ideology in entering the policy flow is to define in groups and out groups. After that, these people and groups entered the cycle of agenda setting in the policy-making institutions and finally proceed to advance their goals and ideological values in these proposed policies. It is not the case that all the goals and values considered by the actors will be approved by these institutions. Depending on the monopoly or competition of the policy space of these institutions, the changes in the policy proposals are from little to much.According to the analyzed policy trends, the approvals of the two supreme policy-making bodies of the two ideologies of Islamism and managerialism can be traced. These two ideologies have always had a policy effect with the central values of Islamization of universities and monetization of higher education in the governments after the war, imposed both in the Islamic Council and in the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and had obvious implementation consequences, which in the statistics of the official institutions of this field of expansion of paid higher education has been clearly reported in the past years.ConclusionThe analysis of policy documents extracted from the period after the Islamic Revolution of Iran to 1402 in the field of higher education shows that the two ideologies of Islamism and managerialism have always had serious effects on the definition of guiding ideas for solving problems in this field. In other words, the developers of policies in the form of laws in the main legislative and policy-making institutions have considered the solution to the problems of this field either in the expansion of Islamic values in universities or market values. Although in this research, only the phase of policies formulation was discussed, but the empirical evidences provided by the centers that provide relevant statistics show that the implementation of these policies is completely in line with these documents.

The article analyzes the negative effects of managerialist management on the subjectivity of the academic community. The aim of the research: to establish a correlation between the decrease in the subjectivity of the academic community and the managerialist model of higher school management. Two methods were used to collect empirical information: a mass survey of teachers at four universities in Rostov region and the analysis of normative-legal documents regulating the application of managerialist norms to the higher education system. The result of the operationalization of basic concepts (subjectivity, academic community, managerialist management) was the definition of three empirical indicators: 1) perceptions of the academic community about the traditional goals of higher education; 2) resources of the academic community to achieve managerialist goals; 3) the presence of deformations in the professional ethics of academics and teachers. The study confirmed the hypothesis that the implemented managerialist policy has a negative impact on the academic community, reducing its subjectivity. Dysfunctions are manifested in two areas of professional activities of scientists and teachers. The first one is caused by the peculiarities of managerialism. Managerialism in any socio-cultural and socio-political conditions inevitably leads to the substitution of goals for the means of their achievement. This occurs due to the absence of reliable indicators for effective managers to assess the quality of reproducible results of their activities by scientists and teachers. The second direction is related to the loss of freedom in decision-making at meetings of historically established in universities sustainable social practices (meetings of the department, academic councils, dissertation councils, etc.). This is due to the administrative subordination of the academic community to the managerial tasks of the bureaucracy.

This paper applies an Intersectionality Based Policy Analysis Framework to Ontario’s current mental health plan – The Roadmap: A Plan to Build Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions Services – in order to identify the contextual influences, underlying values and assumptions, which promote or undermine the uptake of human rights and equity as a mental health policy priority in Ontario. We found that dominant framings of the “problem” of mental health (as lack of access, coordination or integration, as a fiscal drain, as an economic burden, and as a clinical or medical problem) served to obscure and ignore the underlying social and structural conditions that impact mental health and the human rights violations that routinely occur in the context of “care.” We discuss the implications of The Roadmap ignoring social and structural determinants of health, and by way of contrast, explore how citizen engagement and activism can support rethinking mental health policy so that it is more just and equitable.

The concept of managerialism as it relates to the field of human services has garnered increased attention from researchers in recent years. Understood as the “dominance of management practices and ideas derived in the for-profit sector”, managerialism is widely embraced within the nonprofit sector in the United States. Despite increased attention to the role and impact of managerialism within human services, theoretical and empirical research examining the operationalization of managerialism within human service organizations remains limited. In the field of homeless services specifically, little is known about how managerialist ideology and practice affect the provision of services within organizations serving unhoused populations. This paper examines the role and impact of managerialism on the organizational functioning of a large homeless services agency located in a major metropolitan area of the United States. The specific ways managerialism is operationalized within this organization are examined. Further, the impact of managerialist ideology and practice on the organization’s ability to work successfully toward its mission of eradicating homelessness is discussed. In doing so, this paper suggests that managerialist approaches to providing homeless services may impede an organization’s ability to meet its goals and mission in ways that align with institutional logics more commonly associated with human service organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally.

This article takes a slight detour from this edition's theme – decolonising systemic practice – by suggesting that systemic practices can be used to decolonise dominant discourses, such as Western-centric management and its associated form of knowledge production. My views are voiced from an insider–outsider, intersectional positionality – a person from the Global South now working as a Human Resource Practitioner in the United Kingdom. The article posits management and human resource management as Western in their cultural roots and neoliberal in their economic worldview and proposes that underlying assumptions embedded in these discourses have resulted in epistemic othering and subjugation on an international scale. It suggests that decolonising management could begin with making the paradigm shift from a diagnostic to a dialogical understanding of organising human systems. It holds up this epiphany as an example of embracing indigenous knowledge and practices. The article also suggests, through a case story, the use of a systemic practice known as Social GRACEs (Burnham, 1992), that systemic reflexivity and the re-constitution of language games are paramount for making such a paradigmatic shift to decolonised practice.

ABSTRACTThis article surveys current management ideals of higher education institutions, and our analytical focus is on the balance between line management and faculty self-governance. It presents an empirical study of evolving governance structures including all 31 public sector higher education institutions in Sweden. The point of departure is the Autonomy Reform of 2011, which resulted in a deregulation of the Higher Education Act, and a loss of constitutional support for collegial bodies. To assess the consequences of the reform, we have examined collegial bodies and academic leadership posts before the reform (2010) and after (2020). Our findings show escalating line management in the appointment of academic leaders, a diluted role for collegial expertise, and a loss of decision-making authority for collegial bodies. What we observe is the decollegialization of higher education institutions. Our study contributes to the existing literature with an unusually comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of the consequences of new managerial ideals at the local institutional level.

Germany’s traditional nonprofit sector, rooted in membership associations that served as intermediaries between citizens and government, is a story of the past. The organizations have either suffered from a significant decrease in membership, or they have turned into business-like organisations. As a result, welfare partnership is still in place. However, the partners have significantly changed: governments are enchanted with the logic of the market; nonprofit organizations are no longer part of civil society but proxies of corporate enterprises, and volunteering is welcomed by the government as a substitute for cheap labour.

The transformation of academic institutions inspired by the ideas of New Public Management introduces a new paradigm of university governance. The essence of the new university model is the transfer of corporate authority structures and managerial practices to the academic institutional environment. Such an approach to university reform refers to the concept of “hard” managerialism. If universities accept the imposed new managerial rules of the game, they strengthen a system based on a logic that departs from traditional academic norms. However, universities can try to maintain their traditional institutions rooted in the academic institutional logic, which requires an alternative approach falling within the concept of “soft” managerialism. The article shows that collegiality and managerialism do not have to be contradictory. These two seemingly conflicting ideas can co-exist in a “soft” version of managerialism, taking on a more humanised or neo-collegial form. This requires a redefinition of university governance structures while maintaining traditional academic norms and values. The article uses critical literature analysis as a research method.

Academic personnel routinely carry out a wide range of teaching, research, administrative, and expert functions. However, many of them do not focus on universality, but in fact specialize in performing one or several academic functions (profiles). The article deals with the discrepancy between the traditional distribution of professional duties of academic and teaching staff (ATS) and their actual performance. The research methodology is based on the positive agency theory, which allows explaining the peculiarities of social and labour relations in the academic sphere. The research methods of descriptive, frequency and regression analysis are used, including the method of logistic regression. The empirical basis includes the results of a survey conducted in 2022 of 207 academic and teaching staff members of the Southern Federal University, Russia. The questionnaire was compiled of the aspects of academic, teaching, expert and administrative profiles, as well as the questions about the socio-economic characteristics of respondents, the professional role they prefer, labour productivity and salary satisfaction. The results of studying the structure and the ATS’s choice of professional roles (profiles) can be used to solve problems in the field of social and labour relations at the university. According to the findings, the share of employees choosing specialization and the share of ‘universal’ employees were distributed equally; a discrepancy was found between respondents’ preference for performing one or another function and the actual work they do in the academic field. It was revealed that the specialization of work in a certain profile has a significant impact on labour productivity, and an increase in the number of work profiles reduces the likelihood of being in a group of employees satisfied with the correlation between their salary and the volume and complexity of the work performed.

Since 2015, Greece has been one of the main host countries for many thousand people from Middle East who have been forced to leave their countries by political reasons. This article illustrates the housing policies for refugees and asylum seekers in Greece as part of a policy of power enforcement in micro and macro level, resulting to heir social exclusion. In this context, social workers have been at the forefront in order to respond to refugee and asylum seekers needs, facing limits to their work due to the social policies. The study constitutes an effort to provide an insight on the social work practice and the difficulties professionals face being a part of a social control policy. For this purpose, a qualitative method has been conducted via interviews with social work practitioners from non- governmental organizations serving asylum seeker and refugee population (NGOs) in Greece. Research analysis highlighted work overload along with limited training and support. At the same time, it is found that social workers do not comprehend housing policies for asylum seekers and refugees as policies which encourage integration, but rather contribute to a regime of control and exclusion. Although professionals reported that there have been attempts of resistance at the individual level, collective actions of resist control and repressive practices seem to be absent. Social work practice with asylum seekers and refugees in Greece seems to confront the neoliberal system which reproduces managerialism and, on the other hand the anti-immigrant rhetoric which embraces control policies. Within this context, social work profession is being challenged, raising concerns about the capacities and the restrictions social workers face by developing interventions which promote social change. Political analysis and involvement with service users’ groups, labor groups and collectivities’ groups need to come to the fore in order to address these challenges and to stand against any oppressive practice.

The article focuses on the strategies and mechanisms for the development of higher education practiced in modern Russia. They are analyzed in terms of their effectiveness and adequacy to the needs of the country’s development. The authors emphasize the inertial predominance of the ideological impulses of radical liberalism of the 1990s in these strategies, including managerialism. The article raises the question about the need to adjust the general course, goals and mechanisms for the development of domestic higher education, taking into account the pressing challenges to the country and education, the features of the current stage of Russia’s development. The authors propose the concrete measures in this direction. At the same time, special attention is paid to the differentiation of strategies for the development of educational institutions, increasing the role of democratic mechanisms in the life of the university and in the management of the university.

Revolutionary technological change in the publishing business and the expansion of information technology have given an impetus for scientific journals institution to evolve with the development of bibliographic databases that create new information products, indicators, and indices. The Russian scientific journals institution, which plays a significant role in the Russian innovation system, is developing in line with this trend. The article analyses the Russian innovation system actors’ narratives regarding the role of journals in the functioning of the system. The methodological basis of the study includes theories and approaches of narrative economics and original institutionalism that allow focusing on the use of qualitative research methods. Narratives reflect actors’ ideas of publication activity indicators getting increasingly used in management practices in the field of education and science. These indicators have received special significance within the framework of the managerialism doctrine, or new public management, in which publication activity indicators were associated with the effectiveness of scientific research. The role of journals and indices is considered from two points of view: at the individual level actors talk about personal success in publishing articles in top-rated journals; however, at the level of science and education the role of publication activity indicators is described using negative connotations; actors refer to the situations as problematic. Further development of the Russian scientific journals institution should contribute to the formation of new foundations and organizational structures which allow taking into account and intensifying the grassroots initiatives of scientists and innovators.

This article aims to explain the evolution of forms of political regulation for the allocation of resources and representation of interests in Southern Italy, at length qualified as clientelistic. It will show how managerial principles can be taken up in a context with a historical resistance to bureaucratic change as well as a political orientation which contests neoliberal beliefs. To this end, it analyses a sequence of political change in the Apulia region, while focusing on the political strategies and discourses concerning local development tools for entrepreneurs. It shows how the objective to increase the regional council's institutional capacity to deliver public policies turned into a managerial drift. It is argued that the critique of clientelism, considered the main factor hindering the development of the South, led to the prioritisation of efficiency over representation of collective interests. The critique of clientelism corresponds to the mechanism through which managerialism has spread in a context of economic crisis.

This article examines the concept of defense disclosures within the theory of managerialism in criminal proceedings in Ghana. Through a doctrinal and comparative legal analysis with the English jurisdiction, it finds that in substance, the requirement of defense disclosure seeks to move the criminal process from its core protectionist ideology that insulates the accused from matters of proof toward a managerial process informed by objectives of truth-finding, trial efficiency and case management. Ironically, this new direction in the criminal trial process is in practice denounced as being at odds with the procedural due process values that shield the accused from matters of proof and pretrial disclosures. The problem is that unlike in England where the move towards defense disclosures is informed by a clear policy change, the managerial policy introduced by the Judiciary in Ghana is not grounded in any articulated theory or policy direction. While pursuing a path of ensuring effective criminal adjudication through mutual disclosures by the parties, it is important to find a proper balance between the denounced but yet adopted procedural concept of defense disclosures and the highly valued protectionist rights of the accused.

News work conducted more like business creates clashes between the journalistic and managerial professional ethos of editors. While journalists’ professional ethos includes values of self-regulation, autonomy, and public service, managerialism promotes business ideals, measurable outcomes, and organizational efficiency—values that business journalism is claimed to support. This article aims to show how editors negotiate their work-related ethos at the junction of two professional discourses. The article is based on 20 semi-structured interviews of editors in four Nordic business newsrooms. The results reveal a new hybrid professional ethos that combines managerial practices with journalistic ideals. Furthermore, editors in business journalism tend to absorb managerial tendencies more easily due to close connection to financial and commercial communities. Strong journalistic principles prevail, but managerial ideals are considered a notable part of the new editorial work ethos.

Management training for doctors has become crucial with the introduction of market-inspired logics in the Italian national healthcare system. In this frame, the paper presents the main findings of a study with a twofold aim: providing an overview of health management training system by analyzing the Italian training provision; investigating perceptions and opinions of medical doctors involved in management courses. Results suggest, on the one hand, the heterogeneity of the Italian management training system and, on the other, a gradual reframing of medical professionalism.

This article examines the implementation of the EU Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) in Italy. By analysing and discussing the governance of the plan and the reform agenda it sets out, it aims to determine its political-constitutional background from the viewpoint of the regional and local authorities. The author purports that the logic and political inspiration of the plan is traceable to a longer trajectory of the political direction of executive power that results in the side-lining of both parliamentary and devolved powers. In particular, four factors are detected that justify this claim: the Prime Minister’s hegemony within the governance of the RRP; a considerable injection of technical/bureaucratic expertise within the Cabinet Office; the attempt to rearticulate the so-called multilevel governance around this hegemony by resorting to uniformity and concentration in the implementation process; and the adherence to a new public management (NPM)-like ideology.

Post-Global Financial Crisis, global law firms and in-house departments have started to take up ‘Legal Project Management’ (LPM). LPM adopts and adapts project management methods for the law context as a means of streamlining, planning and costing legal work. This article examines LPM as an aspiring driver of managerialist change within the legal profession. In its reframing of all legal matters as ‘projects’, LPM is also an example of a more specific type of managerialist change, ‘projectification’: the process by which work activities, and our activities generally, are being organised and shaped as projects or temporary endeavours. Though we know managerialism is occurring, our understanding of how it manifests in, and is promoted by, specific practices and discourses within the workplace organisation is under-developed in the law context. It may be tempting to read managerialism as sullying traditional professionalism. But an extensive body of literature has documented the interactions of professional and managerial imperatives that result in what has been described as a hybridisation of different logics or belief systems. This article adds vital detail to the existing literature about managerialism within the legal profession by looking closely at LPM as projectification. To do so, it utilises Mirko Noordegraaf’s three dimensions of professionalism that represent core points of distinction: coordination of work, authority or the grounds for legitimacy, and values at stake. Through these facets, it analyses LPM’s somewhat contradictory aspects, illustrating the schismatic nature of projectification as both exciting and empowering, and ethically risky and dehumanising.

Universities in Russia are experiencing a dynamic transformation of scientific and educational processes, their structures, and management systems. These changes occur at different rates and levels of transformation; they allow for both positive and negative transformation scenarios. A general trend to develop university’s management systems in the country – as well as in the whole world – lies in the managerialization, which poses risks for transforming a university. Following Mintzberg’s methodology for analyzing organizational systems and Taleb’s concept of “black swans”, the paper aimed to analyze degradation scenarios for developing university’s management systems and identify factors and conditions for these scenarios and their consequences for universities.

This article reports on qualitative research, aimed at acquiring an understanding of what transpires in an individual social work supervision session in South Africa. Findings reveal that supervision sessions are chiefly “open door” and “on the run”, with minimal evidence of critical reflection. A key recommendation stresses that the evolution of supervision in the country should enter a new phase as response to the hegemony of a neoliberal inspired managerial discourse in social work. The deliberate utilisation of more clinical educational and supportive elements, and critical reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action in supervision sessions is therefore recommended.

The purpose of the article is to empirically analyse how the idea of inclusion is portrayed within the boundaries of the “Competency-Tetris”: a metaphor that should not be confused with the Tetris® game but used to theoretically capture individualised, competency-based, and managerially governed Vocational Education and Training (VET). We argue that the meaning of social inclusion within and through VET is unclear and vested by the human capital doctrines and the neoliberal assumptions from which it is derived. Whom does inclusion in VET involve, and to what and where does inclusion take place? Employing a design-based research approach, we used abductive applications to analyse data produced through participatory ethnographic observations (N=32) and interviews (N=12). The results identified four abstracted themes: (1) Fitting the workforce auction; (2) Multi-professional support trajectories; (3) Inclusion of qualification measures; and (4) Social and cultural learning communities. The first three abstracted themes suggest that the Competency-Tetris is a social divider of students based on a “go-forward” engine with social engineering at its fore. That is, the desired boundaries between VET and work are not strengthened, and the question of enabling equal learning for all students faces a U-turn. Thus, the economic value accumulated in competency-based qualification measures is accentuated. The latter abstracted theme identifies a different, albeit obscured, aspiration: human encounters requiring dignity, mutual respect, social generosity, and developmental sustainable ecology are increasingly approached as part of, within, and through VET.

New public management (NPM) tar stor plats i dagens sociologiska studier av arbetsliv och samhällsutveckling, men försök att ge begreppet teoretisk stadga är sällsynta. I denna artikel inplaceras NPM i en längre samhällsutveckling som går tillbaka till det moderna samhällets rationalisering och ”avförtrollning”. Dess inverkan på arbetsliv och samhälle diskuteras med hjälp av klassisk sociologisk teori som utgår från att samhället byggs upp av olika värdesfärer med inre lagbunden autonomi (Eigengesetzlichkeit). Idén, som kommer från Max Weber, har utvecklats inom den sociologiska funktionalismen samt av Jürgen Habermas. Här används den tillsammans med senare organisationssociologisk kritik av ledning och styrning av professionella verksamheter som delvis går emot professioners egenart, vilken också denna kan förstås utifrån idén om Eigengesetzlichkeit. Inom denna teoretiska ram diskuteras konfliktytan som uppstår då NPM möter samhällets sfärer, särskilt professioner. Ambitionen är att utforska möjligheterna att använda klassisk sociologisk teori för att analysera ett aktuellt och kontroversiellt ämne.

This study asks what behaviours might convert professional disturbances in maternity wards into opportunities for learning within healthcare and how that process is influenced by models of management and leadership. A framework of Cultural History Activity Theory helped to analyse moments of fractured collaboration in which uncertainty about roles and differences in professional status was a factor. Implications for professional learning are discussed along with the frames that might give coherence and utility to future research. We conclude that any interventions to support professional learning should reflect the broadly compassionate ethos that informs the commitments and activities of healthcare workers.

Introduction. This paper explores some of the recent transformations in social work in Italy, against the backdrop of the economic crisis and the processes of rationalization. Specifically, the aim is to understand the relationship between managerialism and professional autonomy in social work. Methodology. The article presents a qualitative study conducted in Northern Italy through 40 interviews with practitioners and managers from two different services. A comparative analysis of the representations of labor practices was performed. Results. Managerialism has direct consequences on social workers’ professional practices. Efforts to achieve efficiency have led to the standardization of work and curtailed professional autonomy. Bureaucratic tasks have encroached on working time, leaving less time for professional relations. Discussion and conclusions. The rise of managerialism can deplete the ethical content of social work practice. However, empirical data show that there is no confrontation between managers and practitioners, and that there are no signs of collective strategies of resistance to the risk of de-professionalization.

Modern universities often become a subject of discussion in the public sphere, during which the relevance of university programs, the financing of science and higher education, and a number of other issues are discussed. These discussions again and again prompt political theorists to reflect on the “idea of a university”. These ideas are associated with values, expectations and beliefs, and are most often expressed in the form of normative representations based either on pragmatism that define the university as a functional element of the state system, or on utilitarianism that required from the university to satisfy the economic demands of society, or on idealism that forces position the university as an “ivory tower”. The presented positions somewhat exaggerate the value of some of the university’s abilities to the detriment of others and distort not only the optics of research, but also the social beliefs that influences the development of state systems and universities. Based on the institutional approach, the authors of this article propose a theoretical position that allows to grasp the current pragmatics of the university community, the market and the state regarding the development of universities and their contribution to the organization of the societal order. According to this position, the university should be considered as an intermediary institution that has public subjectivity; acts as an organizational form of the university community and agent of societal relations; carries out a communicative exchange with the external environment (represented by societies, states, markets); creates conditions for the interaction of various agents of societal relations, including on their own space via a formalized rational public discussion; finally, it produces knowledge that influences the organization of the societal order. All of this taken together allows us to consider the university a mediator. This position of the university allows it to successfully fulfill its mediating role, both within the university corporation and outside it, balance between different social expectations and remain in one of the most stable and adaptive organizational forms that constitute the societal order.

Over the past decades, ‘governing by numbers’ has taken a flight in the higher education sector. Performance-based budgeting and quality assurance schemes orient universities to new objectives, while rankings have globalised the metrified observation of higher education at large. Where previously no indicators existed, they are being introduced; where indicators already existed, they are being standardised for purposes of comparison. This thematic issue aims to work towards a more comprehensive understanding of the growing diversity of quantification-based instruments in higher education sectors in three European countries. The effects of quantification are noticed at all levels of the higher education system, from policy makers at the top of the regulatory pyramid down to students and academic staff. Yet even quantifiers outside of the regulatory system, such as ranking and metrics organisations, may have an important bearing on the operation of the university organisation and the sector at large. Thus, an entire governance landscape emerges in which actors at various levels turn to numbers for guidance. The articles in this thematic issue analyse the life cycle of such numbers, from their origins, through to their production and finally, their consequences. This editorial outlines the central questions and overarching issues addressed by the thematic issue and introduces its various contributions.

This article deals with the socio-political effects of a development toward more "managerialism" that has taken place over several decades up to the present day. Using the practical example of low-threshold drug help, it asks to what extent this service, which is based on empathy, contact and resonance, is compatible with the movement toward a business model that is profitable for users, providers and funding bodies. The method is based on ideal-typical case descriptions, personal experience and a theoretical analysis of relevant literature on the topics of "management" and "low-threshold addiction support". The article refers primarily to developments in the German context, but can - with certain qualifications - also be used to describe developments in comparable countries.

This article deals with the socio-political effects of a development toward more "managerialism" that has taken place over several decades up to the present day. Using the practical example of low-threshold drug help, it asks to what extent this service, which is based on empathy, contact and resonance, is compatible with the movement toward a business model that is profitable for users, providers and funding bodies. The method is based on ideal-typical case descriptions, personal experience and a theoretical analysis of relevant literature on the topics of "management" and "low-threshold addiction support". The article refers primarily to developments in the German context, but can - with certain qualifications - also be used to describe developments in comparable countries.

Managerialism is an ideology that presents management as the center of organizations, shifting power and agency away from workers. This ideology allows more control and power to reside at the top of an organization, rather than allowing shared power in decision-making and everyday work. This structure can create inequitable and oppressive work environments that devalue the agency and intelligence of library staff and librarians. Managerialism, while considered an ideology on its own, has been building stronger roots in academic library practices due to influence from neoliberalism in the university environment. While managers can help with achieving organizational goals, it is important to critically examine library management practices to ensure that managers address instances of exclusion and inequity that may arise in these practices. This article introduces managerialism by providing a brief history of management and its expansion. It also identifies academic library practices that have been and continue to be susceptible to managerialist influences, such as consumer surveys, the demand for managers, strategic planning, leadership institutes, and merit pay. The article also provides some suggestions for addressing managerialism in the profession to ensure equity and inclusion are prioritized in library work. This includes practicing critical reflection, embedding critical perspectives in LIS education and training, and introducing critical perspectives on leadership.

Reforms in the sphere of higher education and science have significantly changed its institutional structure. Managerialism as a neoliberal ideology was one of the sources of these reforms. Extensive spreading of managerialism stimulated marketization of higher education and science without due regard to professional values and institutions and resulted in the formation of institutional traps. The paper studies the effect of managerialism on the reforms enacted and their outcomes through the prism of discourses between educators and researchers. Methodologically the research rests upon original institutional economics and elements of narrative economics, including quantitative and qualitative analysis of the evolution and transformation of the ideology and theory of managerialism and its effect on management processes in higher education and science. Based on empirical data – questionnaire and in-depth interviews of researchers of the Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation) – we explore the way in which they interpret the optimization of higher education and science. We also establish and assess the role of formal and informal mechanisms of state reform and effects of institutional optimization traps in these areas. Institutional traps analyzed through the prism of debates between the main actors display the key characteristics of the institutional sphere of education and science that impede its modernization and prevent it from enhancing its image globally. To make the reception of the reforms more positive, there is a need for constructive dialog between the governing body and subordinate entities and contact between the main actors and reformers.

The recent spate of changes in university management worldwide should be carefully considered, interrogated and assessed against its impact on the capacity of the university fulfilling its unique role in society. For various justifiable reasons, South African higher education has been finding itself under the spotlight of the international community since 1994. The article surveys the South African academic profession vis à vis the changes that have been taking place regarding university governance and management. It is concluded that the South African academic profession, as far as (de jure and de facto) governance and management are concerned, find themselves sandwiched between two forces: from national and institutional governance on top, and the student corps from the bottom. This threatens the very survival of the university. A new exercise surveying the South African academic profession, as provided for by the Academic Profession in Knowledge Society (APIKS) international survey of the academic profession currently taking place, appears both timous and promising.

If the intention of South African education legislation is to professionalise teachers, and if this is seen as empowering them for their task, connected to quality education, then it is indeed a worthy ideal. However, pedagogical values have been redefined within a neoliberalist framework, serving corporate culture and lowering the pedagogical role of teachers to a position of obedience to market norms. In the attempts of professionalising teachers, education has fallen prey to an ideology of new managerial professionalism – the worthy ideal of professionalising teachers has become a mechanism for dominating the very people it set out to liberate. Within the context of a growing global economy the pedagogical values that embody the professionalisation of teachers have been replaced by values aligned with economic growth. The professional role of the teacher and educational reform has been driven by a political ideology committed to new managerial professionalism. The paper highlights the way in which an overemphasis of the professional status of teachers within a neoliberalist framework establishes and sustains relations of domination in South African education. The effects of new managerial professionalism on education are also explored.

The article focuses on the waves of the Russian reforms in the field of public administration in the context of global trends towards modernization in this domain. It highlights that there is heavy dependence of the reform ideology on the main tools of New Public Management (NPM) premised on the ideas of neoliberalism, and outlines the reasons behind this dependence. The main research objective is to identify the NPM elements implemented as part of the Russian strategy for importing institutional components that are effective amid the specific institutional environment. Methodologically, the research relies on neo-institutional theory and evolutionary approach. The empirical basis includes scholarly publications as well as research studies headed by the author in Omsk in 2016–2018. The author uncovers the double helix of institutional import in the Russian system of public administration. The helix implies both adapting effective administration institutions and tools from the private to the public sector in foreign countries and transplanting them into the Russian practice of public administration. The paper provides case studies for the main areas of reform (introduction of the system of multifunctional centers providing state and municipal services, e-government, performance management, social control, etc.) which demonstrate the difficulties in transplanting administration institutions into the practice of the Russian reforms in the field of public administration.

The aim of this article is to interpret the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic within the frame of the global higher education revolution. One of the striking elements of the contemporary world since 1990 is a global higher education revolution. While the most prominent feature of this revolution is massification, it is a multifaceted revolution, involving all aspects of higher education, including the curriculum, methods of teaching and learning, the academic profession, funding, relations between higher education and government and management. This article first outlines the societal drivers of this revolution, being demographic shifts, increasing affluence, the rise of knowledge economies, the neo-liberal economic revolution, the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution, the rise of multicultural societies, democratisation, individualisation and the rise of the creed of human rights and next key features of the revolution will be surveyed. The revolution is then critically evaluated by interrogating and using as yardstick the unique, indispensable mission of higher education in society. The changes that the pandemic are forcing in the higher education sector is then assessed against the potential of the disruption brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to redress or strengthen the discontents of this global higher education revolution.

The aim of this article is to interpret the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic within the frame of the global higher education revolution. One of the striking elements of the contemporary world since 1990 is a global higher education revolution. While the most prominent feature of this revolution is massification, it is a multifaceted revolution, involving all aspects of higher education, including the curriculum, methods of teaching and learning, the academic profession, funding, relations between higher education and government and management. This article first outlines the societal drivers of this revolution, being demographic shifts, increasing affluence, the rise of knowledge economies, the neo-liberal economic revolution, the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution, the rise of multicultural societies, democratisation, individualisation and the rise of the creed of human rights and next key features of the revolution will be surveyed. The revolution is then critically evaluated by interrogating and using as yardstick the unique, indispensable mission of higher education in society. The changes that the pandemic are forcing in the higher education sector is then assessed against the potential of the disruption brought by the COVID-19 pandemic to redress or strengthen the discontents of this global higher education revolution.

While social welfare policy forms a cornerstone of the social work profession, economic policy and its interactions often remain distant and of academic interest only. In this paper the authors argue that understanding how economic policy is impacting upon the profession is important for its day-to-day practice. This has become ever more apparent in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affirmed social work as an essential service. In particular, the authors argue that the global impact of neoliberal economics on the day-to-day practices of social workers is fourfold in terms of the marketisation, consumerisation, managerialisation and deprofessionalisation of social work.

The substantive area explored in this article is hospital consultants in an English Acute NHS hospital dealing routinely with increasing managerialism. Data were drawn from 49 interviews with hospital consultants, at one English Acute NHS hospital Trust. The classic grounded theory named “Rolling with the Punches” that emerged was enriched by literature relating to everyday resistance, labour process theory, institutional complexity and organisation studies by considering public and private (internal) scripts. Interpretation of the emergent theory also drew from everyday resistance narratives from rural peasantry applied to the highly qualified public sector hospital professionals. The theory reiterates the role of discursive resistance in the workplace.

This article aims to gain knowledge on how gender and profession are accounted for and expressed in leisure-time teachers’ (LtTs) work in Sweden, with a specific focus on the caring aspects of the profession. Our results show that LtTs take up various positions in navigating between aspects connected to managerialism and external auditing as well as trust and internal valuation. We argue that the need exists for an expanded understanding of care in order to recognise and reward various gendered actions and activities in teachers’ caring orientation. The article provides knowledge to both researchers and practitioners on gendered nuances of care that by tradition have been connected to women.

The study of resistance organizations, multiplicity of social experiences squandered by the dominant organizational discourse, is one of the critical political actions in the context of organizational studies. Although Brazil has a long critical path in critical analysis of organizations, the alternatives are often addressed in an abstract and conceptual mode. Thus, through an intrinsic case study, we analyzed the organizational dynamics of the Off Axis Circuit (FDE), a grouping of collectives that make independent cultural production, as an organization at the limit of the dominant discursive social formation. Through FDE analysis, we seek to demonstrate the limits of the dominant theoretical framework in the study of organizations, presenting alternative approaches that seem more appropriate to explain the social context in which we live.

This paper examines the increasing incorporation of New Public Management within penal policies. More precisely, it analyses the different techniques pertaining to this new managerial rationale and their implications on penality. In conclusion, the paper synthetically reflects on both the pitfalls of this rationale and its ability to shape a criminal justice system more moderate than that witnessed in a wide variety of jurisdictions in recent decades.

This article explores one aspect of increased managerialism, the impact of the expansion of rules in organizations. Discussing findings from a recent large-scale Canadian research project with social workers, this paper addresses some of the effects of the proliferation of rules, including their ethical implications, and considers the usefulness of different theoretical accounts of the rule-bending individual. The research indicated that although rules did serve as technologies to regulate and normalize practitioners’ behaviours, they were not monolithic in their consequences. Typologies, which divided individuals in terms of their responses to rules, were useful but insufficient explanations of the observed effects. The paper suggests that practitioners will use discretion to deal with the complexity of situations, the contradictory nature of the rules, and to resist being positioned as subjects in ways they found problematic, outcomes that support Lipsky’s classic premises. Other findings were that the increase of rules, through their complexity and contradiction, promoted ‘rogue’ or rule-bending behaviour. A further outcome was that practitioners who perceived part of their responsibility to be change agents towards societal transformation encountered particular difficulties, because the expansion of rules impacted negatively on the availability of their time and energy.

Privatization, a well-known Neoliberal strategy, is transforming the human services in both Europe and the US. Scholars have studied its impact on clients, the hollowed out welfare state, and the economic slowdown. Few have examined how privatization within agencies – better known as Managerialism/New Public Management--affects service provision, the organization of work, and the well being of the workforce. Filling this gap this research: 1) describes three overlapping historical phases of privatization in US human services: Marketization, Managerialism and Financialization; 2) analyzes how 3000 front line workers view the impact of Managerialism in their agencies, and 3) applies the lens of race to the findings. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed 3000 NYC human service workers in collaboration with five major human service organizations, one union, and the NY Non Profit Press. Findings suggest that human service workers--mostly women and persons-of-color-- are deeply troubled by the pressure to increase productivity, accountability and efficiency; the focus on quantifiable outcomes, and the associated dwindling of advocacy and social justice. The implications for service quality, staff retention, professional autonomy, burnout, and structural racism are explored. The finding should strengthen the voice of human service workers in the highly contested privatization debate and help to mobilize them for policy change in the welfare “service” state.

Social work practice and education have been significantly impacted by neoliberal governmentality, which can greatly undermine the espoused social justice mission of social work. This study explores the research questions: How might critical reflection support social work practice in neoliberal organisations? And how might critical analysis using insights from critical theorists fortify the findings of critically reflective research? This study uses critical reflection on a critical incident (from Author 2’s practice) as a methodology to respond to the first research question. It further analyses the findings of the critically reflective inquiry by drawing on relevant concepts from critical theorists to respond to the second question and expand the possibilities for practitioners to develop emancipatory practices in neoliberal organisations. The findings suggest critical reflection on the critical incident examined was effective in improving social work practice, and that additional critical analysis of the wider issues raised by the research findings may enhance social work as a value-driven, client-centred and social change-oriented profession. The article highlights the benefits and outcomes of working in a critically reflective way, and makes an original contribution to the growing literature that suggests critical reflection is a vital skill for social work practice in neoliberal organisations.

In my last years in academia, I have experienced the intimidating impact of pettybureaucracy and top-down micromanagement that typify managerialism in higher education today. In this paper I use my own experiences to reflect on why this is happening, attempting to gain understanding that can support others still working in the sector to survive and ultimately thrive. I argue that neoliberalism operates as an ideology, shaping the way we perceive and act in the world. In higher education, it is enacted through managerialism, together creating a social imaginary that defines what is expected of managers and what is expected of workers. Women are particularly vulnerable in this social imaginary given that the challenges they face in the workforce are attributed to their own shortcomings rather than any systemic barriers. Women face choices as to how to operate in this social imaginary, but all choices have consequences that need to be understood and managed. Ultimately, systemic disadvantage will not change without significant action taken by collectives of women who have a clear vision of better alternatives.

This paper addresses academic disciplinary writing practices, and how these are affected by changes in the landscape of Higher Education in the UK. After exploring the definition and understanding of the notion of “discipline”, the paper presents research from an ESRC-funded research project studying academics’ everyday writing practices, working closely with academics across different disciplines and different kinds of higher education institutions. The changing context of Higher Education in the UK is presented, in particular the emergence of new kinds of managerial practices which shape and co-ordinate the everyday writing work of academics. The paper shows that while some disciplines, such as History and Pure Mathematics, are associated with clearly-defined writing practices, others are more diverse. It discusses how managerial practices, particularly those driven by centralised national research evaluations, affect different disciplines in different ways.

There is a growing incapacity to understand the major institutional principle that made the research university into such a revolutionary success, firstly in Prussia and in Germany, later in the United States: academic freedom. Far from being a simple formula to be carried out without afterthought, academic freedom is a value, a practical instrument and a legal principle that has to be understood in relation to creativity. In this article, academic freedom and its importance for creativity in research (and teaching) is analyzed from three fundamental vantage points, firstly in terms of what academic freedom is, secondly how it works in practice and thirdly by looking at why academic freedom is so crucial to creativity. It concludes by reflecting on why it is that while the research universities that have worked under the principles of academic freedom have been extremely successful, those who today develop research policies and even university leaders are striving to dismantle the one precondition that makes all the difference, namely academic freedom.

The article focuses attention on managerialism from the point of view of its ideological status. It traces the rise of managerialism, the main contributors to theorising about the nature of managerialism, and the characteristics and appeals of an outstanding managerialist text. The article begins by outlining the major features of the economic and social context in the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western countries that have contributed to the rise in the intellectual and social standing of the concept of managerialism. The problem of establishing consensus on the definition of managerialism is noted, as is the difficulty of positioning it within the conventional left-right political spectrum. The nature of an influential variant of managerialism known as ‘socially responsible’ management is then explored.

The transition from the bureaucratic public administration model to a more effective managerial model requires a new kind of behavior within public universities. As a response to demands of a new more competitive for better performance there is a growing trend among universities of incorporating managerial approaches oriented by the market, and characterized as managerialism. However, such practices have identified as inappropriate losing much of its effectiveness by neglecting the organizational complexity of universities, especially the public ones. The purpose of this study is to analyze the contributions and limitations of the strategic planning incorporated by a public university. The results indicate the existence of a consensus among the central administration and the academic units related to the need for a professionalization of public management. It is also stressed that the ambiguity of public policies and overload of regulations together with the complexity of the academic organization ended up being serious barriers to the success of managerial practices like the strategic planning. The main conclusions reveal that the success of such managerial approach requires the adjustment of the rationality implicit in the model to the specificities of the academic organizations, as a condition by which the efforts can generate the expected benefits.

This article reflects on the challenges of mixing public advocacy, teaching, and research in Irish third level education. It explores the concept of academic activism and introduces concepts of ‘public sociologist’ and ‘pracademic’ to contextualize my own academic trajectory and activism. Having reflected on general academic activism in the context of challenges facing Irish civil society, the focus then shifts to a personal case study. The conclusion addresses the ambiguities and tensions of pursuing a particular approach to academic life. The need for academic activism is intensifying in the context of the neoliberalization of Irish universities, a weakening civil society, and a more precarious academic life.