Abstract
League tables are a common way for various competitive sports to judge team quality and identify winners and are also making increasingly frequent appearances in higher education globally. In this paper, we argue that this compilation of league tables is a product of the global hegemony of market-driven systems of higher education in which universities compete with each other for declining resources and students-as-customers. We explore why and how such exercises shape and define conceptualisations of the relative strength of organisations, and what the consequences of this are likely to be. Our analysis is grounded in a conceptualisation of universities, particularly in the UK, as marketised, neoliberal institutions for which rankings are essential to organisational transformation. We provide empirical data to support our argument via an exploration of the UK Association of Business Schools’ Academic Journal Quality Guide.
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Notes
This situation is rapidly changing. In April 2012 the College of Law, which has degree-awarding powers, was purchased by a private equity firm.
A particular form of research carried out by the university as a factory that only replicates and applies extant understandings more akin to consultancy is an exception in this respect. The processes that produce such knowledge can be standardised in terms of approaches, methodology and dissemination media. Labour can also be more closely directed in a capitalist enterprise sense, with a standardisation of skills embodied in staff. This form of research, however, is rather peripheral to the core knowledge production mission of the university.
To build the case of emergence and institutionalisation of the ABS Guide we traced back its versions and linked these to the career biographies of its authors; examined ABS official documents for the period after 2004; traced relevant media material; and used material from our empirical study.
The Research Assessment Exercise, now re-badged as the Research Excellence Framework, is a national evaluation system whereby academic units submit selected the academic output for assessment and are assigned a grade between 1* and 4*. For more on the RAE, please see Barker (2007).
As part of a general overhaul of policy for higher education and research in the UK, in 1992 the former polytechnics were formally rebranded as universities and brought under the same governance and resource allocation rules. Since these were organisations very different from the more ‘traditional’ universities, and differences still persist, analysis still distinguishes between pre- and post-1992 universities.
Interestingly, a dramatic increase of submissions to ‘highly ranked’ journals may in effect lower their quality as peer review becomes diluted and editorial control weakens.
Currently, many of the journals heading different journal rankings take 2 years or over to publish contributions. These delays can render results and papers obsolete and slow down careers.
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Nedeva, M., Boden, R. & Nugroho, Y. Rank and File: Managing Individual Performance in University Research. High Educ Policy 25, 335–360 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2012.12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2012.12