Between Professional Bureaucracy and Managerial University: A Comparative Analysis of the Administrative Demands Placed on University Professors in Germany and Australia

Recent decades have seen increasing concern internationally about growing bureaucratisation of universities and the associated increase in administrative burdens placed upon universities’ academic workforce. While there has been some limited examination of the administrative demands placed on academic staff in specific national settings over the years, there so far has been no targeted investigation of the issue from a comparative, cross-national perspective. Addressing the resulting lacuna and drawing on two comprehensive sets of survey data, this project proposes to conduct an in-depth comparative investigation into the administrative burdens reported by senior academic staff (professors) working in German and Australian universities. The two countries were chosen as they represent two markedly different approaches to the organisation of the work of their professoriate. Germany continues to be in key respects dominated by a chair model granting professors considerable autonomy and control over local academic activities, whereas at Australian universities, professors are typically integrated into departments or other comprehensive academic organisational units, and formally have less autonomy but also fewer management responsibilities than their peers in Germany.