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Fabrications, Time-Consuming Bureaucracy and Moral Dilemmas — Finnish University Employees’ Experiences on the Governance of University Work

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Abstract

This article explores how the university workers of two Finnish universities experienced the range of neoliberal policymaking and governance reforms implemented in the 2000s. These reforms include quality assurance, system of defined annual working hours, outcome-based salary system and work time allocation system. Our point of view regarding these practices is based on the ideas of the governmentality research tradition, which means that they can be seen as technologies through which the ideology, values and aims of the neoliberal policy are carried out in every day work at university. This article draws on a survey that is based on open-ended questions concerning those managerial techniques. These experiences can be summarised into three themes from the perspective of performativity culture: techniques that confirm a culture of fabrication, moral dilemmas and increase in the new type of bureaucracy in their work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Turku, Assistentinkatu 5, Turku, 20014, Finland

    Arto Jauhiainen, Annukka Jauhiainen, Anne Laiho & Reeta Lehto

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  1. Arto Jauhiainen
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  2. Annukka Jauhiainen
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  4. Reeta Lehto
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Jauhiainen, A., Jauhiainen, A., Laiho, A. et al. Fabrications, Time-Consuming Bureaucracy and Moral Dilemmas — Finnish University Employees’ Experiences on the Governance of University Work. High Educ Policy 28, 393–410 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2014.18

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