Jan Currie

Issues related to ‘work-life balance’ have recently come to the fore in public policy debate and academic inquiry in Australia. As yet, however, these questions have been relatively under-explored in the context of Asian business and society. This paper reports on focus group and interview data gathered from professional women between the ages of 25 and 45 and living in Singapore, Hong Kong and China. The data collected was used, first, to describe how these women perceive why they engage in paid work, and what approaches the women in these countries use to handle work/life conflicts in the context of varying economic, political, cultural and social/family situations (e.g. making use of family members and/or maids for help with household chores and child caring, rather than a spouse or a childcare facility/centre).

This paper extracts key themes from empirical research conducted by the authors on accountability and quality policies in higher education in a number of different countries (Australia, South Africa, the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore and China) over the last decade. We examine the changing nature of accountability of universities accompanying globalisation and then identify a series of contradictory tensions inherent in many of the accountability/quality policies in these countries, and discuss the implications for different forms of institutional autonomy. In the light of our broader analysis we briefly examine recent policies in Australian higher education – the Research Quality Framework and the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund – to reveal the ongoing presence of the policy tensions highlighted earlier. We conclude by arguing the need to actively negotiate a balance amongst the different forms of accountability and autonomy in the interests of forging more ‘authentic’ quality in higher education.

When the Australian government urges universities to be more entrepreneurial and competitive, it is hard to imagine that they can return to the collegial institutions that they once purported to be. Th e university as a community of scholars survives in some countries; however, it is being replaced by the university as corporation in many others, especially Anglo-American ones. Despite the move to a ‘new world order’ that embraces the free market, there is resistance to privatisation in many European universities. Why have they resisted and Anglo-American universities embraced privatisation? Th is address will analyse how privatisation alters the organisational cultures of universities and examine some of the ethical issues that universities have to confront as they pursue teaching and research for profi ts. Commercialisation of research, for example, can threaten the notion of the university as an institution working for the ‘public good’ of the nation. When universities turn to corporations to sponsor research or to collaborate with them on research projects, what evidence is there that bias creeps into the research fi ndings? Protecting academic freedom and the independence of research is fundamental to the integrity of universities and their ability to fulfi l their public interest function. When universities become reliant on the fi nancial gain that comes with attracting overseas students to their universities, this profi t motive may begin to threaten the academic quality of universities. Recruiting international students may have advantages as well as disadvantages for institutions. Australian universities could be lauded as benefi ting the country by increasing diversity and giving Australian universities a global image. However, there are reports on Australian campuses that tell a diff erent story. Australian students may not gain greater tolerance from studying with international students. For example, Australian students may feel that international students are taking places that should be going to domestic students. Academics are concerned that critical education is declining as vocational disciplines are more favoured by international students and thus this distorts the choices for study in our universities. Th e enviable reputation that Australian universities currently have in providing a high quality education may be threatened by the lack of adequate public funding. Th is has already led to declining staff /student ratios and imbalances in our institutions because universities have had to seek profi ts from their teaching and research. Has the global trend towards privatisation gone too far in the case of Australian universities?

The twin policy domains of accountability and autonomy have featured in recent education reforms in many countries, signalling new relationships between governments and educational institutions. Despite different national and localised contexts, a number of common 'global' trends have been identified. However, simultaneously context-specific differences are also evident. For us, the concept of 'globalisation', when it implies policy homogenisation, is too blunt an instrument to critically analyse these major reforms. We would argue that there are still too few studies on globalisation processes grounded in detailed examinations of particular historical times and geographical spaces. Our research is located within the tensions between global commonalities and localised differences. This paper reports research on changing accountability and autonomy in higher education in three 'Asian' countries. Empirical data has been collected in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Singapore in an attempt to begin to redress a 'Western' hegemony in such research. Within each national context two different types of universities became case study sites for the analysis of both commonalities and differences in accountability and autonomy policies and practices. The current paper focuses in particular on the conceptual and methodological framings of the research and presents some preliminary findings.

This paper describes the development of Murdoch University’s Academic Council from its creation in 1973 to its current working in 2003, charting its strengths and 2 weaknesses. It draws upon my personal experience serving two terms on Murdoch University’s Council and interviews with 12 individuals who were or are currently on Council, and supporting documentation (council minutes, reviews and legislation).

During the last decade, competition for funding and privatization transformed most Australian universities into corporate enterprises. This paper describes three Australian universities, established in different eras, all restructuring themselves to become more enterprising: Melbourne University (1855), a traditional university, recently developing Melbourne Private, and creating an alliance, Universitas 21, with Australian and overseas universities to deliver online courses; Monash University, established in 1961, becoming a multiversity by merging six campuses in Australia and building campuses in Malaysia and South Africa, and capitalizing on satellite television and other new technologies extending open learning to students in Australia and overseas; and Murdoch University, a small university established in 1975, beginning as an alternative university and now struggling to be a global player in this competitive environment. Pressures are mounting for all Australian universities to commercialize, to become more utilitarian, and to market their courses more aggressively in Australia and overseas. This paper discusses the potential benefits of these transformations, some of the controversies surrounding these decisions, and the possible negative consequences for these universities of becoming corporate enterprises.

Commentators in Australia and the United States have observed that the shift in power in universities from academic departments to administration has been accompanied by a number of changes, leading to 'corporate managerialism'. As a result, managers make the most important decisions and make them quickly. These managers also restructure their institutions to mould them into streamlined operations which allow only a few people in the whole organisation the information base to make decisions. At the same time, these managers devolve administrative tasks to divisions and departments where Executive Deans have increasing power. The result is that academics have a lot less control over their institutions. This paper narrates the views of 253 academics interviewed in six American and Australian universities from 1994-1997 about how these changes have affected their universities. It explores how various forms of managerialism are applied in these universities and how academics try to resist them. It also comments on how some universities have managed to maintain forms of democratic decision-making at certain levels but have lost consultative mechanisms about major changes. It concludes by discussing why participatory forms of democracy are important in universities and suggests ways of increasing them.

Universities have undergone and are continuing to undergo radical changes in major English-speaking, industrialized countries during the 1980s and 1990s. The main changes have been stimulated by budget cuts and an associated ideological shift to the right which privileges corporate practices. Slaughter (1993) reported that in 1991-92 roughly two-thirds of public research institutions in the United States faced substantial cuts and many private universities were also engaged in various forms of retrenchment. She noted that "higher education, paralleling the American economy, probably has to restructure to deal with the future" (1993, 247). This ideological shift is nowhere better described than in a recent statement by Australia's Minister for Education, Senator Amanda Vanstone: "To survive and prosper in a rapidly changing world, universities must embrace the marketplace and become customer-focused business enterprises" (1996, A11). She went on to describe the government's vision of change which would allow universities to adjust to the forces of globalization and give them the sort of policy directions to deal with microeconomic reform which many industries have already faced.

This paper explores how two universities in Western Australia are implementing Award Restructuring. In the process it examines how universities can be studied by a person actively involved in trying to change the current structures. One aim of the research is to try to involve women academics more actively in this process of change through the union movement. And more generally to develop more participatory processes within universities for all academics. One of the aims of award restructuring is to develop greater industrial democracy. This paper will describe the reaction of academics and university administrators to the term `industrial democracy' and the extent to which this may be achieved in Western Australian universities. Further, it will examine how using a combination of action research and case study methods the research can plot the kind of change that is occurring within a rapidly changing environment. This paper is about research in progress which is in its third and final year of funding. It will develop a more action oriented phase in 1994 and this paper will attempt to reflect upon the form that research should take.