Understanding Academic Work in a Changing Institutional Environment

In this talk, I explore the shifting nature of academic work at European and US research universities. Our analyses reveal four trends. First, despite significant differences in higher education governance, institutional environments have led to a shift away from the "integrated scholar" model toward structurally differentiated academic roles. Second, the priorities of external funding agencies influence the types of research performed in the United States and Europe, leading faculty to use diverse strategies to preserve their autonomy and address externally-defined research agendas. Third, in Europe, the quantification of research outputs has become a common trend whereas in the United States, publish-or-perish logics define the academic hierarchy of disciplines and institutions. Fourth, faculty identity is increasingly shaped by the institutional context such as the norms of academic capitalism, especially in the United States. The study revealed that research would benefit from employing innovative theoretical frameworks that explain changes in academic work.