The SSLIS seminar | University Administration and Collegial Self-Destructive Behaviour

University Administration and Collegial Self-Destructive Behaviour — Josef Pallas.

University administration grows not only as an “apparatus” but as moving flows driven by external, internal, and interstitial logics. As the line/administration territorialises, appropriates, and incorporates collegial practices—and as academic leaders themselves shift loyalty from collegium to “the organisation”—the space for collegial work contracts. The result is a form of collegial self-destructive behaviour: we legitimise structures that turn teaching and research into instruments of organisational goals. The way out is not only anti-administration, but re-collegialization of the core of decisions and tying measurement and steering back to the very core purpose of our universities as academic institutions.

The presentation is partly based on a recently published article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2024.101386

Prof. Josef Pallas is Professor of Business Administration at Uppsala University. He studies how public‐sector organizations—especially universities and welfare services—are governed, communicated, and evaluated, with work spanning mediatization, quality management, and the changing conditions for professional work. His current projects trace how administrative logics reshape professional autonomy and knowledge work, and how different governing regimes travel across and within sectors.

Zoom: https://hb-se.zoom.us/j/66891319632

Language: English

Chair: Björn Hammarfelt

Josef’s website at Uppsala University: https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N2-997 

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