Professionalisation within the German Higher Education System

 

Project Summary

The project seeks to analyse new trends towards professionalisation in the German higher education system and its implications for the organisation, governance and identity of universities. Drawing on theories of organisation and professions, the project will establish a theoretical framework that conceptualises the varying forms of professionalisation within universities and research institutions. The empirical basis for the analysis will be a comparative survey among German universities as well as in-depth case studies. Thus, the project aims to establish an empirical validation of different dimensions of professionalisation, its institutional and individual preconditions, the development of new (semi)professions between administration and research, as well as its consequences for research and teaching.

Project Description

 1. The Problem:

Currently, the German higher education system is undergoing comprehensive changes and modernisation processes, which have extensive consequences for the organisation and governance of universities. One of the important aspects of change in higher education institutions is the attempt to professionalize single activities, functions and management sections within universities. This development is highly contested. While some expect an increase in efficiency, enabling the universities to respond to the growing task-complexity of institutional management, others fear that professionalisation will result in a new wave of bureaucratization with negative effects on the organisation and work of the academic profession, as well as on the higher education system as a whole.

Despite the general discussion in the academia, research about the different dimensions and processes of professionalisation in higher education institutions, and a systematic analysis of its implications within the organisation, has not yet been subjected to in-depth research. Thus, there is a twofold research gap that the project seeks to tackle. First, discussions about professionalisation are lacking a theoretical understanding of the process and forms professionalisation within universities, which may serve as a basis for a differentiated view on the dimensions of higher education professionalisation. Second, until now there is no systematic and comparative empirical research which gathers and correlates different fields and forms of professionalisation at German universities. More generally, the project wants to contribute to the current discussion on modernization and reform strategies in the public sector.

 

2. Aims and pivotal research questions:

The project seeks to develop a theoretical and differentiated categorisation of professionalisation processes in the German higher education system. This categorisation will provide the basis for a systematic analysis of the preconditions, structural patterns and results of professionalisation processes by means of different research methods in the social sciences.

Based on research on professionalisation processes in other fields of the public sector and considering the particular characteristics of the higher education sector, the following questions will be addressed:

• In which institutional sectors of higher education can professionalisation processes be observed, and to what extend? Do professionalisation processes particularly take place in sectors which do not directly influence the steering of the core activities of research and teaching (for example in technology transfer, marketing, and asset management) or are the core activities of the university themselves subject to these processes?
• How far can tendencies of professionalisation be observed at the management level, for example via the replacement of vice chancellors or deans by external higher education managers?
• Which institutional and human resource preconditions for professionalisation in the higher education sector can be identified (in organisation, processes, status, recruitment, and/or further training)?
• How far are processes of professionalisation linked to the emergence of new functional sectors within universities, new job descriptions as well as to changes in the self-images and identities of employees in the university administration? Are the role profiles and self-conceptions of academic personnel changing in the context of professionalisation?
• Which consequences do processes of professionalisation have for traditional forms of university governance, which are composed of different combinations of governmental steering and academic self-organization?
• How do trends of professionalisation vary across different types of institutions of higher education, especially between universities and universities of applied sciences?

 

3. Theoretical Background and Methodological Approach:

This project draws on theories of neo-institutional research within organisation studies, the sociology of professions as well as interdisciplinary university research. Based on this background, a more profound theoretical and conceptual knowledge of profes­sionalisation processes is to be developed in the context of this project.

Methodically, the project uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, whereby different data sources are to be analysed. Currently, four research steps are planned.  

First, advertisements of vacancies will be coded and the numbers of employees of German universities empirically analysed in order to identify different fields and focal points of the professionalisation process.

Second, different aspects of the professionalisation process will be systematically analysed in detail and evaluated by means of a questionnaire. The data sample will incorporate all German universities, including universities of applied sciences.

Based on this investigation, a third step will consist of qualitative in depth-interviews which should enable a more precise view on the most interesting results of the quantitative questionnaire investigation.

Fourth, qualitative organization case studies will be conducted in selected universities, in order to draw relevant conclusions for the German higher education system as a whole.

Overall, the project seeks to contribute to the discourse about the possibilities and constraints of modernization strategies in the public sector, addressing a specific type of public organisation (universities) and a specific strategy (professionalisation). The aim is not to identify concrete target achievements, as we do not investigate specific single activities which would enable a measurement of degrees of target achievement. More important is an analysis of the changes in the governance structures, organisation processes, and identity concepts of the universities as a whole, triggered by the professionalisation processes.

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