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PurposeUniversities claim to provide many benefits to their context. What remains less clear is what is meant by context. Whatever it is, context is fundamental to decision-making. Understanding what context means is crucial to understanding leadership in higher education.Design/methodology/approachTheoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach, this study is based on interview data from a purposive sample of ten English vice-chancellors and nine Canadian university presidents. Transcripts were analysed for the assumptions participants held regarding the work of universities and how that played out in practice.FindingsContext is not an external variable engaged with or acted upon. It is not separate to leadership and the work of universities but is constitutive of and emergent from activities. There is no single definition of context, and this has major implications for university activities.Research limitations/implicationsContext(s) is based on assumptions. Making explicit the assumptions of participants, without pre-defining them, is a key task of research on leadership in higher education.Practical implicationsLeaders need to explicitly articulate their assumptions regarding the work of universities. Assessment should be based on the coherence between the espoused position and activities undertaken.Originality/valueThrough the emerging resources of relational scholarship, this paper demonstrates how context is constitutive of and emergent from the activities of universities. More than novel vocabulary, the paper makes a fundamental point about the generative nature of context. De-centring entities (e.g. university, leader, context) and focusing on relations our approach provide a path forward by encouraging the articulation of intended purpose(s) and perspective on the work of universities.

Applying a critical gendered lens, this article examines academic leadership ideals. It draws on a content analysis of job advertisements for Vice-Chancellors at Swedish higher education institutions from 1990 until 2018. The aim of the article is to investigate to what extent masculine or feminine wordings have been used to describe the ideal Vice-Chancellor in these documents. The analysis reveals that a shift in the leadership ideal has taken place during the time period investigated. Before this shift, during the 1990s, the ideal Vice-Chancellor was described as competitive, bold, strong, tough, decisive, driven, and assertive. These wordings are still included in the job advertisements from the 2000s and the 2010s. However, a more communicative and collaborative leadership ideal also emerges during these decades. There is thus a significant shift in how the leadership ideal is described. This shift is analyzed from a gendered perspective, suggesting that the traditional masculine-biased leadership ideal has decreased in influence with the feminine, transformational leadership ideal acting as a counterweight. The article argues that the shift in leadership ideals, as constructed in the job advertisements, mirrors the increase of women Vice-Chancellors appointed in the Swedish higher education sector.

The application of New Public Management (NPM) approaches throughout the Australian higher education system (AHES) over the last thirty years has radically altered the ways in which tertiary education is administered and governed. We explore the ensuing crisis in the AHES through a focus on 'commercial business models' adopted by vice-chancellors and university governing bodies. We argue these models are premised on university executives acting as 'information gatekeepers' whereby most of the data about institutional operations are withheld from external (and especially public) scrutiny. Public accountability with respect to these neoliberal changes has been rendered problematic as the result of legislative changes to the governance clauses of universities. We consider the broader economic and cultural focus of NPM as calculative and commodifying practices that are constructed to be largely impervious to public evaluation. These regressive changes have legitimated by reducing the oversight of staff and student representatives on university governing bodies.

Abstract Over the past ten years universities in Tanzania through the Committee of Vice Chancellors, Principals of Public and Private Universities in Tanzania (CVCPT), have been in dispute with the Copyright Society of Tanzania (COSOTA) over the exploitation of literary copyright protected works. This long-standing dispute has centered on a controversial copyright licensing of reproduction and rental rights scheme issued by COSOTA. On the one hand, universities claim reproduction and rental rights for educational purposes are exempted from the requirement of license under the doctrine of \"free use\" while the licensing body refutes such claim. This article is set to critically discuss this tension and suggest how the dispute may be resolved. The present analysis is governed by the international and national legal framework on copyright exemptions and limitations.

Applying a critical gendered lens, this article examines academic leadership ideals. It draws on a content analysis of job advertisements for Vice-Chancellors at Swedish higher education institutions from 1990 until 2018. The aim of the article is to investigate to what extent masculine or feminine wordings have been used to describe the ideal Vice-Chancellor in these documents. The analysis reveals that a shift in the leadership ideal has taken place during the time period investigated. Before this shift, during the 1990s, the ideal Vice-Chancellor was described as competitive, bold, strong, tough, decisive, driven, and assertive. These wordings are still included in the job advertisements from the 2000s and the 2010s. However, a more communicative and collaborative leadership ideal also emerges during these decades. There is thus a significant shift in how the leadership ideal is described. This shift is analyzed from a gendered perspective, suggesting that the traditional masculine-biased leadership ideal has decreased in influence with the feminine, transformational leadership ideal acting as a counterweight. The article argues that the shift in leadership ideals, as constructed in the job advertisements, mirrors the increase of women Vice-Chancellors appointed in the Swedish higher education sector.

The pay of university managers (vice chancellors, VCs) in the UK has risen sharply in recent years. This paper considers the extent to which VC pay awards are related to university performance measures based around institution mission and financial probity using an individual fixed effects strategy based on data covering academic years 1998–99 to 2008–09. In contrast to earlier studies on this theme, we find evidence that VCs are rewarded for observable mission-based performance measures. Specifically, our results suggest that success in widening participation for students from comprehensive schools and those from areas with low university participation exerts a positive effect on VCs’ pay. Securing income flows from university funding council grants also impacts positively on their remuneration. However, even after controlling for a rich array of observable and unobservable factors, there have been sizeable increases in real pay in recent years that cannot be readily explained.

Dissatisfaction with the 'corporate' model for university governance, a model advocated by both sides of the Australian parliament and adopted by Australian universities over the past two decades, prompted the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) in 2003 to suggest an alternative 'trusteeship' model. The paper discusses how this model differs from the traditional 'collegial' and 'corporate' models in a number of key areas and attempts to determine whether good reasons exist to justify changing from the current 'corporate' style to a 'trusteeship' form of governance.

This book addresses one of the most central issues in the field of management and answers the following questions: What do managers actually do at work? How do they tackle their responsibilities and work pressures? The book takes a practice perspective by using the behaviour and activities of knowledgeable, experienced, and skilful managers as the primary data for theorizing about management. In this perspective, successful management requires understanding and artistry in addition to knowledge, experience, and skills. The practice perspective calls attention to how widespread certain management practices are, how management practices are performed in everyday work, and what the outcomes of such practices are. Moreover, the book tackles fundamental management questions such as: Why do managers work in a very different ways than most management literature describes? What can we learn from the everyday work practices of successful managers? What are the similarities and differences in work behaviour among different kinds of managers? This book presents thirteen chapters on various kinds of managers: from construction site managers to university vice chancellors and from front-line health-care managers to CEOs of large companies. Another chapter reviews the classic studies on managerial work. Other chapters address research design and research methodology related to management studies.

The research presented in this paper attempts to identify and analyse the reported selection criteria used in the appointment of Australian vice-chancellors (VCs) and to contrast this with the selection criteria actually used. Design/methodology/approach. Contemporary research into the nature, role and purpose of selection criteria in appointment processes has chiefly been conducted in the private sector and across various hierarchical levels. The research is based on a PhD entitled 'The recruitment and selection of vice-chancellors for Australian universities'. The research for the thesis had ethics approval and involved interviews with former and incumbent chancellors, VCs, consultants, representatives of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee and selection panel members. Central to this research were the selection criteria and the skill bases that selection criteria attempted to measure. A questionnaire was also sent to those listed above. Findings. The findings show that a matching of organisational antecedents with candidate attributes does occur. The research also highlights the key selection criteria used to appoint VCs. It also demonstrates how these key criteria are universally applied but in different orders depending upon the various foci of universities. Non-stated, but important, criteria and competencies are also discussed. Originality/value. No other research exists outlining the skill sets and competencies required by Australian VCs. It is hoped that this research will form the basis for further research and discovery into this field that so little is known about. [Author abstract]

In this paper we examine variations in Honours programs in Australian universities and the consequences that this has for students who wish to undertake higher degrees by research after their undergraduate programs have been successfully completed. Our review of universities' Honours programs across rural, regional, and urban Australia has indicated that there is a degree of variation that is localised as far as each university is concerned, and that there is a lack of consistency in various universities' application of policies or procedures in the implementation of their Honours programs. We conclude by calling for greater consistency across universities in Australia in the awarding of Honours, certainly, but also suggesting that a review needs to be undertaken as part of national, systematic and orchestrated project.