This article investigates management systems in higher education organisations by analysing the 2009 Italian reform of performance management and its implementation within Italian universities. The research is based on a survey that covered about half of Italy's public universities. Survey results provide an account of the state of management…

Changes in expectations of research education worldwide have seen the rise of new demands beyond supervision and have highlighted the need for academic leadership in research education at a local level. Based on an interview study of those who have taken up local leadership roles in four Australian universities, this paper maps and analyses…

Recent literature has emphasised the distributed nature of leadership in higher education (HE) and the multitude of actors and factors that contribute towards organisational outcomes. Gronn suggests, however, that rather than using such evidence to provide broad, normative accounts of leadership practice, greater attention should be directed to…

It is broadly acknowledged that leaders in the twenty-first century are required to navigate an increasingly complex landscape and that the types of challenges individuals and organisations face in the knowledge era require the capacity to adapt and respond to continual fluctuations and change. Outcomes from previous leadership research, combined…

This reflective essay presents a personal account of experiences and models that have shaped the development of the author as a leader in tertiary education. It is presented from the perspective of a practitioner whose career has led her through academic and administrative roles in Australian and UK institutions into her current position as…

Over the last 20 years, the tertiary education sector has adopted new administrative management approaches, with the aim of improving accountable and strategic focus. Over the same period, the question of how to build leadership capacity to improve learning and teaching and research outcomes has led to discussion on what constitutes academic…

In this paper, we explore the work life of a scholar new to academia in her methods of leading informally. We discuss five vignettes that offer moments of learning and reflection, including reducing performance anxiety, privileging financial accountability, the rise of the virtual world, the impact of silence, and the potential for confrontation…

This paper locates "leadingful leadership literacies" as a lens for considering changing contexts for leadership and work in higher education management. It makes a contribution to higher education leadership studies by offering an empirical account of expanded notions of leadership. These extend the field beyond those unwilling to…

This study examined the perceptions of professional staff on their contribution to student outcomes. An online Delphi survey method was used to collect data from two expert panels: professional staff based in faculties and professional staff based in central university departments. The aim of this method is for the panels to reach consensus. The…

Art & Design receives ratings on a number of scales of the UK's National Student Survey (NSS) that are less strong than those for some other subject areas. Art & Design, along with performing arts, is characterised by a relatively high level of part-time (PT) staffing. PT staffing data are set against NSS ratings for post-92…

Regional and rural students in Australia face unique challenges when aspiring to higher education. These challenges reflect systematic disadvantage experienced by rural and regional populations as a whole. In an effort to redress these inequities, and aided by the Australian Government's Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program…

This exploratory study of female general staff across New Zealand universities examined career motivation, subjective discrimination and home and occupational salience. Career development and aspirations and multiple home and community commitments were examined through a self-administered online questionnaire. Skill recognition, a good…

University rankings are key drivers in national and institutional strategic planning. The increase in the number of university ranking systems and the diversity of methods and indicators used by these systems necessitate the development of an index that can measure a university's performance in all these systems at once. This article presents…

This article calls into question the use of the h-index as an aid to decision-making in the higher education sector. The h-index is increasingly employed by institutions, funding bodies and even governments as a guide to the allocation of resources. This practice is contrary to the evidence that the h-index is intrinsically meaningless, a point…

This article describes the results from a national project that investigated institutional approaches to the development of student English language capabilities in Australian higher education. The project aimed to identify the various approaches and strategies that higher education providers have established and to gauge whether they have been…