Introduction to the Special Issue

This Special Issue emerged as a reaction to changes in the organisation of academic work that authors variously refer to as the managerial university (e.g., Laiho et al. 2022; Lea 2011), the McUniversity (e.g., Nadolny and Ryan 2015; Parker and Jary 1995), the neoliberal university (e.g., Davies et al. 2006), the corporate university (e.g., Angus 2007) or the entrepreneurial university (e.g., Marginson and Considine 2000; Slaughter and Leslie 1997). Following the neoliberal idea of a smaller state and more market in conjunction with New Public Management ideology, universities are increasingly managed along the lines of marketisation, hierarchising, measurement, auditing and control. In that regard it is powerful external stakeholders (e.g., politicians, industry, media, general public) and internal stakeholders (e.g., management and administration) rather than academics that debate and decide the legitimacy of higher education or make various claims about the purposes and the preferred outcomes of academic work (Weik et al. 2022). At the same time, the perspective on academic work has shifted from a validation and certification by peers (Huff 2000) towards a validation focusing on the practical usability of academic knowledge production (Grey 2001; Gulati 2007; Learmonth et al. 2012).