From academic communities to managed organisations: the implications for academic careers in UK and German universities

This paper examines the implications for academic careers of the apparent global trend towards marketisation and managerialism in higher education with reference to the UK
and Germany. It discusses how university employers might exercise greater control over their employees, privileging research and international publication, and fragmenting the traditional unity of the academic role. The effect is to challenge the values of academic communities, subject
individuals to greater uncertainty, competition and insecurity, and influence the shape and direction of academic careers. The paper notes how todays academic careers could be understood in terms of Kanters three forms of career as well as the boundaryless and protean career. However, it argues that these approaches do not address the key issue in both the UK and German cases: the changed locus and exercise of power within the employment relationship. It concludes that, to understand how careers are changing, this power relationship and the context of career in general have to be taken into account.