Academia After Virtue? An Inquiry into the Moral Character(s) of Academics
- PDF / 755,637 Bytes
- 18 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 90 Downloads / 184 Views
REVIEW PAPER
Academia After Virtue? An Inquiry into the Moral Character(s) of Academics Daniela Pianezzi1 · Hanne Nørreklit2 · Lino Cinquini3 Received: 29 July 2018 / Accepted: 17 May 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract An extensive literature has focused on the impact of new public management (NPM) oriented structural changes on academics’ practice and identity. These critical studies have been resolute in concluding that NPM inevitably leads to a degeneration of academics’ ethos and values. Drawing from the moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we argue that these previous analyses have overlooked the moral agency of the academics and their role in ‘moralizing’ and consequently shaping the ethical nature of their practices. The paper provides a new theoretical understanding of NPM-oriented reforms in light of the virtue ethics approach, thereby directing the attention to the moral character and moral agency of academics. Our analysis of interviews collected in the business department of a Danish university provides an example of how individuals have divergent ethical understandings of these structural changes and enact/resist pre-defined social roles in different ways. While in some cases the NPM agenda of the institutions has triggered internal moral conflict and a crisis of moral character, in other cases the new logic resonates with academics’ values and evaluative standards. Partially departing from the theoretical ground of MacIntyre (1981), we conclude that academics can play a crucial role in shaping the morality of NPM-oriented institutions and in transforming these settings into suitable contexts for the cultivation of virtues. Keywords NPM · Performance · University · Moral character · Moral agency · Identity
Introduction Since the early 1980s when governments started embarking upon programs of economic rationalization in the name of increasing market competition and state downsizing, the performativity of academic assessment tools has attracted the attention of literature (Churchman 2002; Humphrey et al. 1995; Nagy and Robb 2008; Roberts 2004). A number of studies have argued that new public management-inspired * Daniela Pianezzi [email protected] Hanne Nørreklit [email protected] Lino Cinquini [email protected] 1
University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK
2
Department of Management, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark
3
Institute of Management, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33, 56127 Pisa, PI, Italy
reform initiatives have proved to be detrimental in several aspects when translated in the academic realm (Christopher 2012; Craig et al. 2014; Humphrey and Gendron 2015; Roberts 2004; Parker 2002; Vesty et al. 2018). In particular, the diffusion of performance measurement mechanisms has led to the appearance of the so-called “academic performer” (Gendron 2008, p. 97). This new identity is a result of the disciplinary power of journal and universities’ rankings which provide a
Data Loading...
