Beyond the cookie factory

The presentation depicts the complexities of collective forms of resistance to organisational change of a New Public Management (NPM) nature at VU University Amsterdam (the VU), and the response of its management to that resistance. It is the result of a 3-month qualitative research consisting of semi-structured interviewing and participant observation. Twenty-two in-depth interviews were conducted. Further, the researcher attended eight meetings and a public event organised by an informal resistance group. The data was analysed using an interpretivist approach, focusing on understanding the interpretations of the social as perceived by the research participants. Since the 1980’s, public institutions all over the world have been influenced by NPM reforms which have introduced business-like characteristics such as private-sector styles of management, a focus on output, and parsimony in use of resources (Hood, 1991). Dutch universities have been no exception (De Boer et al., 2007). However, at the VU, these changes have not gone unchallenged. An informal platform of opposing academic and support staff was formed, linking their activities to the work of the unions and the Works Council. In their manifesto, they argue that the VU is turning into an organisation where private-sector styles of management are taking over, and that for this reason an alternative management approach is needed. Spicer and Böhm’s (2007) model of resistance to ‘managerial hegemony’ is used to analyse the ways in which different informal and formal collective resistance agents at the VU have cooperated in order to achieve their (sometimes contradicting) goals. The commonalities and discrepancies between the different movements are shown. Furthermore, the presentation provides an analysis of the ways in which the management has responded to the resistance, and how this response has influenced its development (Courpasson et al., 2012). The author concludes that the complexities inherent in the resistance movement are a consequence of both the dissimilarities among the resistance agents, and the differing response of the management. In addition, a further complexity referring to an overlap of the resistant’s and the dominant’s aims is identified. References Courpasson, D., Golsorkhi, D., & Sallaz, J. J. (2012). Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets: Classical Perspectives, Current Research, and the Future Agenda. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 34(1), 1-20. De Boer, H. F., Enders, J., & Leisyte, L. (2007). Public Sector Reform in Dutch Higher Education: The Organizational Transformation of the University. Public Administration, 85(1), 27-46. Hood, C. (1991). A Public Management for All Seasons? Public Administration, 69(1), 3-19. Spicer, A., & Böhm, S. (2007). Moving Management: Theorizing Struggles against the Hegemony of Management. Organization Studies, 28(11), 1667-1698.