Research Selectivity, Managerialism, and the Academic Labor Process: The Future of Nonmainstream Economics in U.K. Universities

This paper reports the results of empiricalresearch designed to explore the impact of researchselectivity on the work and employment of academiceconomists in U.K. universities.Research selectivityis seen as part of the general trend towardmanagerialism in higher education in both the U.K. andabroad. Managerialism based on performance indicatorsand hierarchical control has been contrasted withcollegiate control-based or informal peer review. However,analysis of the academic labor process has idealizedcollegiate relations at the expense of professionalhierarchies and intellectual authority relations. We argue that in the U.K., there has evolved amainstream economics which is located within awell-defined neoclassical core. We find that theexistence of lists of core mainstream journals which arebelieved to count most in the periodic ranking exerciseposes a serious threat to academic freedom and diversitywithin the profession, institutionalizing the controlwhich representatives of the mainstream exercise over both the academic labor process and jobmarket. In this way, managerialism combines with peerreview to outflank resistance to new forms ofcontrolling academic labor at the same time asreinforcing disciplinary boundaries through centralizedsystems of bureaucratic standardization andcontrol.     

HOW PROFESSORS OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT VIEW SERVICE OPERATIONS?

This study empirically tests assumptions that underlie operations management (OM) scholars' belief that service operations should be managed differently. Respondents were self-classified into manufacturing and service types. There is a significant statistical difference between the views held by each group with regard to statements such as “service Om should be taught as a separate course” and “service operations should be managed differently from manufacturing.” There was general consensus on the service research agenda with the exception of three research areas: time standards, technology, and productivity. The survey also revealed that customer influence has the greatest impact on service Om strategies and decisions.     

‘Brain circulation’ and transnational knowledge networks: studying long‐term effects of academic mobility to Germany, 1954–2000

‘Brain circulation’ has become a buzzword for describing the increasingly networked character of highly skilled migration. In this article, the concept is linked to academics' work on circular mobility to explore the long‐term effects of their research stays in Germany during the second half of the twentieth century. Based on original survey data on more than 1800 former visiting academics from 93 countries, it is argued that this type of brain circulation launched a cumulative process of subsequent academic mobility and collaboration that contributed significantly to the reintegration of Germany into the international scientific community after the Second World War and enabled the country's rise to the most important source for international co‐authors of US scientists and engineers in the twenty‐first century. In this article I discuss regional and disciplinary specificities in the formation of transnational knowledge networks through circulating academics and suggest that the long‐term effects can be fruitfully conceptualized as accumulation processes in ‘centres of calculation’.