The entrepreneurial researcher: Re-formations of identity in the research marketplace

Abstract

This article seeks to consider the nature and impact of managerialism on Higher Education with particular reference to research. Managerialism will be addressed here primarily as a transmission system of economic rationalism into the body politic of the university, by that it is meant that competitiveness is assumed to improve performance and only the financial calculation of benefit is recognised. This agenda is developed through consideration of the changing management of research work and draws on the wider literature on work and organisations to look at the impact of changing material conditions and social relations on the identity formation of researchers. In general, the article seeks to promote reflexivity both in the style of presentation and in the focus on research and managerialism in Higher Education. The salience of Barry Troyna's strictures about reflexivity (Troyna, 1994) is acknowledged but it is suggested that if we seek to understand how the values and cultures of the public sector are being transformed, in particular through the formation of new subjectivities, then our own experience as workers within higher education offers a valuable and useful resource. It is also possible that subjecting this process to self-critical scrutiny may alert us to its invidiousness and so assist in the retrieval and re-formation of alternative formations of research work. For some of us, including the author, this may extend into consideration of the effects of managerialism on our own identities as managers and on our own management practice.