Work reorganization in the neoliberal university: A labour process perspective

Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage
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Stephanie Ross: McMaster University, Canada
Larry Savage: Brock University, Canada

The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2021, vol. 32, issue 4, 495-512

Abstract: This article maps the major changes taking place in academic work within the broader context of the neoliberalisation of universities. Recognising the great variability in the form and pace of neoliberalisation across institutions and national contexts, the article identifies a set of features and indicators to aid in the comparative assessment of the extent and effect of neoliberal processes at different institutions. The authors use conceptual tools from labour process theory to highlight the ways that neoliberalisation has resulted in academic work that is fragmented, deskilled, intensified, and made subject to greater levels of surveillance, hierarchy, and precarity. In doing so, the authors also demonstrate the importance of combining political economy and Foucauldian approaches to neoliberalism, to highlight the way that external structural conditions and subjective processes combine to create new labour processes to which participants find themselves consenting and actively reproducing. JEL Codes: J5, L2

Keywords: Collective bargaining; faculty associations; labour process; labour relations; managerialism; neo-liberalism; new public management; trade unions; universities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:32:y:2021:i:4:p:495-512

DOI: 10.1177/10353046211003635

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