In this presentation, we will provide some insight into the lived experience of academic middle managers in the role of heads of departments. The narratives evolve from issues such as circumstances of the decision to become an academic manager, how that feeds into increased demands of the academic middle manager role, and finally, we provide a brief evaluation of the career impact at the moment of the interview. This presentation is built on the data collected in 2015-2016, and currently, we are collecting interviews in a follow-up study with the same set of respondents.

1. PERSUADED TO LEAD:
WHAT IS THE COST OF
MANAGERIAL POST FOR
AN ACADEMIC CAREER?
Machovcová, K., Cidlinská, K.,
Zábrodská, K. Mudrák, J.

2. Academic
middle
managers
• Increasing bureaucratic and managerial
workload for academic middle managers
• Performance criteria strongly based on
research output (Floyd, 2012, Floyd,
Dimmoc, 2011, Floyd, Preston, 2019)
• Strong professional groups such as
academics demand professionals to
adapt as managers (Pekkola et al.
2018)

3. Research
question
What is the impact of taking a
managerial post on academic
career among academic middle
managers (department level)?

4. Research design
Ongoing longitudinal study
Individual semi-structured interviews
Heads of departments (or similar) public HEI, across career phases and
disciplines
Phase 1: 2015-2016 – 32 interviews
Phase 2: 2021 (ongoing) - 16 interviews collected, 9 in negotiation
Full-transcript, thematic analysis Braun, Clarke (2016, 2013), MAXQDA

5. RESULTS

6. I. Professionalism over managerialism
Decision to take managerial
post is typically influenced
by external factors not
individual career plan
Starting position is
academic adding
on managerial and
leadership tasks

7. Senior Academics: Growing into managerial
responsibility
Senior academics who felt it is "their turn" to
provide managerial service for the community
Expected growing responsibility (team lead, department head)
that expands and changes the researcher's role (from doing
research myself to supervising others doing research)

8. Example – Senior Academic
Because Professor B was leaving the position after two terms in office and
a head was needed again, and a few people at the department thought I
should do it, so I applied. I was the only applicant, so I would probably
be a complete … if I didn't win. (professor, head of department, STEM)

9. Early Career Academics: Unexpected change of course
Asked to do managerial work by senior academic
Persuaded the department needs change and there is no one else to act
Skilled researcher-administrator who moved to a managerial position

10. Example – Early Career Academics
And there was an open call for the new head, because the current head
decided not to continue. And I had an idea of how to conceptually adjust
the study plans... We also had few students and a very generous study
plan. It offered three specializations, so you only had twenty students
and expected much energy of teachers, to teach an awful few
of students. So, somehow naturally I wanted to get involved, but the
main motivation was the fear of a colleague who might become a
head. (PhD, head of department, SSH)

11. II. Overhelming demands
Positions are not designed as
full-time managerial (include
teaching and research
responsibilities, often not
clearly delineated)
Growing bureaucratic
demands, yet perceived
freedom to define
the position

12. Examples
My main task is everything an academic does. This means teaching, research,
project preparation, a lot of administration, human resource management,
long-term strategy, medium-term strategy, operational management.
(professor, head of department, STEM)
And as for the feeling of satisfaction from the work, I may be a little
masochistic, but I see it as if it's mainly pain. I do a lot over the edge. And
when I want to dedicate some time to science, I have very limited time to do
so. So, I feel like I'm working too hard. It always hurts, it hurts, then you are
very happy that something worked out, then it hurts again, and that's how it
works. (PhD, head of department, SSH)

13. Navigating the pressures
Management and teaching prioritized – urgency; research on expense of personal time
Larger departments allowed better support/delegation and research via supervision
of research groups
Teaching-intensive departments increased administration tasks (eg. accreditation)

14. III. Career vision after managerial phase
Both senior academics and early career managers mostly prefered to
return to academic career after a phase of taking-up a managerial
role
- some expected to take another managerial role in the future
- generally, system of post-rotations prefered, but some prefered longer
periods because of the continutity and time needed for realization of their
vision

15. Examples: Idealized career after
managerial phase
...but I'm definitely done in a year and a half. And I finally want to enjoy the
normal position of a normal academic with relatively older children (PhD,
head of department, SSH)
I would like to complete this term of office, move the institute forward and
hopefully there would be some nice person, who would keep going... So, that
I can devote more time to the field as such, I would like to continue working
in teaching and I would like to finish all the scientific projects that are
underway and that I have planned, because I have a habilitation project
planned, which I would care a lot about and I would like to do the research
and I don't have the capacity for it now (PhD, head of department SSH)

16. Further career options in our study
Senior Academics: Higher managerial post, focus on
own research team development, open to taking a post again (rotations), retirement
Early Career Academics: Restart scientific career, focus more on teaching
development, remain/return to
(partially) administrative/managerial positions (similar or higher level)

17. Career stage differences
Senior academics:
networking&institutional insight,
develop own group,
less pressure closer to
retirement
ECA: difficulties in restarting
scientific career; key is support
from senior r.

18. Conclusions
• The impact on further academic career
is based on a complex interplay of
number of factors strongly influenced
by a career stage when commencing the
post and characteristics of the
department
• Managerial careers are typically not
planned, academics are not
systematically preparing themselves for
commencing the role and combining it
with academic duties

19. Implications
Need for a different support provided at the
beginning and after finishing managerial
service according to career stage
Need for on-the-job developmental support
of academic middle managers

20. Resources
Floyd (2012) 'Turning Points' The Personal and Professional Circumstances That Lead
Academics to Become Middle Managers. Educational Management Administration &
Leadership 40(2), 272-284
Floyd, Dimmoc (2011) 'Jugglers', 'copers' and 'strugglers': academics' perceptions of being
a head of department in a post-1992 university and how I influences their future careers.
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 33(4), 387, 399
Floyd, Preston (2019) Supporting the role of associate dean in universities: An alternative
approach to management development. Higher Education Quarterly 70(3), 263-280.
Pekkola et al. (2018) Management and academic profession: comparing the Finnish
professors with and without management positions. Studies in Higher Education 43(11),
1949-1963.

21. Contact
Katerina Machovcova, Ph.D.
machovcova@praha.psu.cas.cz
Organizational Studies in Higher Education group
Institute of Psychology website
http://www.psu.cas.cz/en/
OSHE on Researchgate
https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Organizational -Studies-in-Higher-
Education-OSHE-Katerina-Zabrodska