In the service of a higher good: Resilience of academics under managerial control

Abstract

<p>This article extends the literature of resistance in organisational settings by examining the<br />forms and sources of resistance that endure even in the face of successive adversities. This<br />article characterises such resistance as resilience and elaborates on this concept empirically<br />in the university context by showing how academics find new ways to maintain and promote<br />their professional agendas despite successive, unpredictable managerial interventions typical of<br />the contemporary university. In our analysis, we identify three forms of resilience – protective,<br />independent, and adaptive – each of which draws on specific professional values that we term<br />constitutive goods. The focus on constitutive goods highlights the moral grounding of resistance<br />that comes into play, especially in situations in which the actors have something fundamentally<br />valuable at stake, and which they feel compelled to defend. Moreover, resilience extends the<br />focus beyond situated resistance tactics to a process geared towards protecting constitutive<br />goods against control over the long term.<br /></p>