ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the connections between economic rationalism, managerialism and the intensification of academic work. The position we adopt is that in the current economic, social and political conditions, the nature and purpose of universities has changed and what was once represented as the core of university life, ‘collegial work’, is historically out-flanked. We document at a general level the conditions that have precipitated this situation and the impact of changed conditions on the working lives of academic staff. We are particularly interested in the tendency to attribute work intensification solely to economic rationalism and managerialism and consequential attempts to reconstruct organizationally the tenets of a previous academic culture. We argue that these directions are mistakenly identified as new and appropriate directions for academics and universities in the 1990s.
