Baker, G and May, T 2002, 'Auditing as the eternal present: the depoliticising implications of organizational transformation in British higher education' , European Political Science, 1 (3) , pp. 12-22.

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Abstract

his article examines organisational transformation within Higher Education in Britain. In the process it highlights the focus upon the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’ of organisational existence that guides these changes. Drawing on recent experiences of auditing of subject provision within Universities, it is argued that the new discourse of managerialism that is reflected in the drive for ‘quality assurance’ constitutes the triumph of method over purpose. Internal to the thinking motivating these transformations is an uncritical attachment to putatively universal forms of market-oriented practice. This, in turn, involves a process of historical forgetting vis-à-vis the academy’s longer-standing practices that have been rooted in bodies of organisational knowledge developed out of a distinct ethos. The resulting sense of an ‘eternal present’ constructs points of difference from newly dominant discourses of organisational practice as merely ‘old-fashioned’ customs to be overcome.

Item Type:	Article
Themes:	Memory, Text and Place
Schools:	Colleges and Schools > College of Science & Technology Colleges and Schools > College of Science & Technology > School of the Built Environment Colleges and Schools > College of Science & Technology > School of the Built Environment > Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF)
Journal or Publication Title:	European Political Science
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Refereed:	Yes
ISSN:	1680-4333
Related URLs:	http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/publications...
Depositing User:	Users 47901 not found.
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2011 12:28
Last Modified:	02 Sep 2011 11:27
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/16887

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