research and development series · 2012-03-09 · research and development series uk universities...

RESEARCH ANDDEVELOPMENTSERIESUK Universities and Executive Officers: the ChangingRole of Pro-Vice-Chancellors

Final Report

David Smith, Jonathan Adams and David Mount Higher Education Policy Unit, University of Leeds and Evidence Ltd

RESEARCH ANDDEVELOPMENTSERIESUK Universities and Executive Officers: the ChangingRole of Pro-Vice-Chancellors

Final Report

David Smith, Jonathan Adams and David Mount Higher Education Policy Unit, University of Leeds and Evidence Ltd

October 2007

This report presents an overview of the principal findingsfrom a research project funded by the LeadershipFoundation for Higher Education (Leadership Foundation).Its central theme is how the role of pro-vice-chancellor (PVC)is being configured within the contemporary UK university.

The bulk of the field research – across 13 selected UKinstitutions – was conducted during 2005-06 and focusedon the descriptions provided by PVCs and their seniorcolleagues of how they perceive and interpret their roles.We wanted to understand how they got into their posts,what development and experiences they drew on, and howthey placed their particular roles not just in the context oftheir particular job descriptions and responsibilities butwithin a wider conception of the institution and highereducation more generally.

Interviewing PVCs was a fascinating experience. It gave us aprivileged insight into how the world of universities looksfrom the vantage points of those whose responsibility is(usually) for something that equates to more than the sumof the parts, that is to say: the institution itself. But we arealso aware that the portrait that emerges is inevitablypartial, in several respects. First, it is a snapshot composedof the personal views and responses of those whohappened to be in post at the times of our visits. Second,such is the diversity of the mass, verging on universal,system of higher education that there will inevitably bepeople, and even whole institutions, where it may befeasible to say “But it’s not like that here”. Third, we areconscious that our investigation of senior leadership is alsopartial in that it canvassed the opinions of the leaders, butnot the led. In an ideal world we would have sought tobalance the two, but resources and time are limited.

To mitigate these limitations we did two things. First, weincorporated into the methodology a sense of the historicaltrajectory of the management model in higher education.Going back to 1960 and using data published by theAssociation of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) wesought to provide a statistical portrait of the evolution of thepro-vice-chancellorship for six sample years. Linked to thiswe also examined, in outline at least, what we have termedthe restless history of higher education management, insome cases contrasting what we believe did happen inrelation to the PVC with what some no doubt think ought tohave happened. This includes the continuing advantage ofacademic and collegial models over business-derivedmodels. This approach provides our report, we believe, witha stronger sense of how the present system has emergedand a stronger confidence in our arguments concerningsome of the key continuities from the past that in our viewdelineate and define the important role of PVC.

The second thing we did was to select our site visits torepresent the spectrum of histories, traditions, sizes andmissions that characterise a unitary yet highly stratifiedsystem of institutions. The responses to our requests forparticipants were invariably positive, although the finalprofile of our visits probably favours the pre-1992institutions, albeit of varying sizes and sub-sectors, at theexpense of the former polytechnic sector. Even so the lensof our sample is sufficiently broad to warrant theconclusions for the sample as a whole. Beyond that wecannot say with any certainty. No doubt there will be plentyto recognise and some to question. In the end this is socialresearch and we take responsibility for the final voice.

Preface

First published in October 2007Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

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In research of this kind debts of gratitude accumulate rapidly. First and foremost we would like to thank the numerous pro-vice-chancellors and their colleagues who agreed to participate. These are (very) busy people, but they met us with unfailinggenerosity of time and spirit. We hope that the dialogue was as interesting for them as it was for us. We would also like toacknowledge the tireless efforts of Isabella Peter-Liburd at Evidence Ltd in setting up the visits and the work of the variouscolleagues in the site visit institutions who organised diaries and room bookings to bring things together. Finally we would liketo thank colleagues in the Leadership Foundation for funding the research and for being so supportive throughout.

David Smith, Jonathan Adams and David Mount

Acknowledgements

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CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

1. INTRODUCTION 6

THEMES, QUESTIONS AND SOME CHALLENGES 7

2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRO-VICE-CHANCELLORSHIP SINCE THE 1960s 10

INTRODUCTION 10

FROM DONNISH DOMINION TO JARRATT 11

JARRATT AND THE ‘EFFICIENCY’AGENDA 12

UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE 13

UNIVERSITIES AND BUSINESS 14

THE PRO-VICE-CHANCELLORSHIP AND THE MANAGEMENT MODEL 15

LONGER-TERM TRENDS IN THE STATISTICAL PROFILE OF PVCS 16

A PROFILE OF CONTINUITY: PVC BACKGROUNDS 19

SUMMARY 23

3. BECOMING A PRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR 23

INTRODUCTION 23

SELECTION AND APPOINTMENT PROCEDURES 24

MODEL A: SELECTION BY INVITATION 25

MODEL B: COMPETITIVE RECRUITMENT 26

PREPARATION FOR THE ROLE 29

SUMMARY 32

4. BEING A PRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR: RESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT POWER? 33

INTRODUCTION 33

MAPS OF STRATEGIES, OPERATIONS AND POLICIES 33

GETTING THINGS DONE 37

PERFORMANCES AND PRESSURES: CAREERS IN THE BALANCE? 41

SUMMARY 43

5. CONCLUSIONS: DO UNIVERSITIES NEED PVCS? 44

THE MANAGEMENT MODEL: A LEADERSHIP GAP? 45

SHIFTING BOUNDARIES: A ‘STRETCHED’SECOND-TIER? 46

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY: THE PVC ROLE RECONFIGURED? 47

SUMMARY 49

REFERENCES 50

APPENDIX: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODS 52

1. DESK-BASED RESEARCH 52

2. SURVEY APPROACHES 52

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RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SERIES

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Chapter 1 – IntroductionOur report is composed of three parts. First, we brieflysummarise the recent change in the abundance anddiversity of the Pro-Vice Chancellor (PVC). Second, the mainpart of our work stems from a series of semi-structuredinterviews with PVCs and the people they work for and with.These interviews covered a diversity of institutions acrossregions and sub-sectors. Third, we have started a process ofreflection on the outcomes of our interviews and ofconsolidation of emerging conclusions. This report is part ofthat process, but not the final step. In particular we will bepresenting in a subsequent report the results of acomparative analysis of those in equivalent roles in selectedAustralian and European universities.

The traditional higher education senior management team(SMT) has been the Vice-Chancellor (1st tier) and the PVCs(2nd tier) together with the senior staff (once Registrar andBursar, now professional Directors) leading the supportingadministrative functions. The VC and PVCs are the onlyacademic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) with awholly cross-institutional perspective, though in someinstitutions such responsibility may also extend to the postof Deputy VC (DVC). Where a DVC is appointed it is a point fordiscussion whether the second tier is merely ‘stretched’ orwhether it is, in effect, reduced in status to a distinct third tier.

The title of PVC sounds archaic but the role has beenretained because of the unique niche that PVCs fill. They arenot directors or general managers. Rather they operate inthe space between the academics, the professional servicesand the VC. In traditional HEIs, they have operated throughinfluence rather than power although delegated power isnow sometimes more explicit. Their effectiveness stemsfrom their own status as academics, their experience of thesector and their personal relationship with colleagues.Resourced or delegated, positional powers are much lesssignificant.

Models and the particular features of leadership inuniversities are a starting point for a study of PVCs. Atension exists between traditional collegial culture andnewer ‘managerialism’, but there is little hard evidence toassociate managerialism with academic success. Insteadthe university must grapple, as other third-sectororganisations do in seeking to be successful in the contextof their missions and purpose, with a division (sometimes, a

chasm) in the institutional bottom line betweenunavoidable financial imperatives and essential academicvalues. Achieving the former is pointless unless the latter isalso delivered, and the PVCs are intimately involved in thatdelivery.

Chapter 2 – Historical Perspectives From the 1960s onwards, UK universities – focussed on thedissemination of knowledge - developed from an elitesystem to a mass system. An increase in student numbers,an increase in the diversity of activity and challenges, andchanges in the culture of management were some of thereasons VCs started to need the support of an enhancedsenior management team.

In the 1980s, the culture within public services changed –with a new emphasis on strategic management, marketorientation and competition. The Jarratt Report (1985)suggested that VCs start to operate as chief executives, notjust as academic leaders. The existing ‘civil service model’ofhigher education management was portrayed asineffective. Management pressures were increased in 1986with the introduction of research selectivity and areinforcement of the mission of knowledge innovation.

In 1988, the Polytechnics moved out from under the aegis oflocal authorities. Signalling further change in concepts ofand attitudes to higher education, in 1992 the Polytechnicsbecame universities and the sector was exposed to a newrange of management ideas and models.

The Dearing Report in 19971 was seen on the one hand asthe high-tide mark in terms of giving power to governingbodies (with power taken away from the senate / collegialcommittees). But, on the other hand, Dearing recognisedthe distinctiveness and complexity of academic life,requiring a different style of leadership to that used inbusiness. The Lambert report (2003) differed from Dearingand harked back to Jarratt in wanting universities to havestrong executive leadership, the better to work withbusiness and industry. The interface with the knowledgeuser had become a further challenge for seniormanagement.

Data show that there has been a clear increase in thenumber of PVCs per institution during the period 1960-2005. This has been a steady process generated within thesector. Some of this change is associated with systemicfactors such as research selectivity but there was no

1 The National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, NCIHE (1997)

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noticeable rate change attributable to Jarratt. In fact, theevidence suggests that Jarratt’s case study institutions wereatypical and therefore misleading in terms of policy signals.

Data also show that PVCs are, and always have been, almostexclusively drawn from the ranks of established academics.Most are professors, and typically have an Oxbridge, Londonor big civic pedigree. Only a small minority of academicsbecome a PVC much before their 50th birthday. Most were,and still are, men.

Chapter 3 – Becoming a PVC

PVCs can be characterised in a number of ways:

The full range of characteristics are found across all types ofinstitution, but there is a tendency for characteristics in theleft-hand column to be a prevalent ‘set’ in pre-92 institutionsand for the right-hand ‘set’ to be more prevalent in post-92institutions.

There are three common models for making appointments

• By invitation – VC in effect is patron of the PVC, whichinspires loyalty but means a PVC’s loyalty to the VC maybe greater than their loyalty to the institution.

• Competitive recruitment – either internal or external.The VC will usually be chairing or at least advising theappointment committee.

• Election by senate – a less common model but stillpresent.

The system is in change, however, as it has always been andthe historical route that led from an opaque informalapproach seems likely to be increasingly replaced by formaland transparent recruitment processes.

The reality in any of these models is that VCs nearly alwayshave the whip-hand in terms of PVC appointments,regardless of the small print in university statutes. Even inthe ‘elected’examples, VCs usually chair nomination panels,determine the candidates who go forward to election andwill set the scope of the role allocated.

The characteristics needed to perform as a PVC are seen bypost-holders and other senior staff as being essentiallythree-fold. They are:

• Engagement with the academic life.

• Imagination to extend boundaries, envisage changes.

• Alignment with the academic / institutional enterprise.

PVCs were asked about how they or their successors mightgain these abilities. They strongly emphasised experienceover formal training:

• Prior experience of leadership.

• Subsequent learning though doing the job and then reflecting on and making sense of their own experiences.

• Undertaking formal and structured development and training programmes was generally seen as much less important. The essence of the PVC role was not really amenable to such an analysis and approach.

Chapter 4 – Being a pro vice-chancellor: responsibilitywithout power?

What PVCs do

PVCs are required to take on many roles, both strategic andoperational. Operational activities will often include acompliance role (e.g. maintaining assessment standardsacross departments) and sometimes an advocacy role forparticular projects (e.g. new Hefce initiatives) or areas ofuniversity life (e.g. growing research income). Maintaining abalance between the strategic and the operational in thesecomplex arenas can be problematic. PVCs talked about theneed to ring-fence time for strategic thinking (the importantbut challenging) and to guard against being suckedexclusively into operational matters (the urgent andamenable).

The strategic influence of PVCs is limited in some institutionsas a consequence of the strength of the VC’s own vision. Thismay mean that second-tier staff have less flexibility to injecttheir own ideas. We also found great variation in the extent towhich PVCs have, or are seen to have, clearly delegated remitsand resources to prosecute those remits. VCs can eitherhamstring or empower their second-tier and it is evident that,in many cases, it is the VC rather than the post-holder who isthe prime determinant of the scope and impact.

Part-time (in theory) Full-time

Fixed term secondment Permanent post

Internal appointment External appointment

Appointed by VC and/or Appointed by VC

academic community and/or Council

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How PVCs get things done

PVCs deliver primarily by working with and through otherpeople – they are facilitators. In such a role, personalrelationships are critical. This is problematic when structuralrelationships are challenging. Examples where this had beenthe case occurred, for example, at the interface between thePVCs (academics) and heads of services, a point put to us byboth PVCs and by the experienced and professional managerswho worked with them.

Many PVCs work alone. They often have minimal ‘privateoffice’support. Only some have a central administrative unitworking to or with them, and some of these links havebecome weaker where new professional managers have beenappointed.

As well as building up 1:1 relationships with key players, PVCswork with the university committee structure, using the powervested in the committees which they chair as a source ofauthority. Given the nature of collegiate culture this appearsgenerally to work to greater effect than using executive power:“academics don’t understand the word managerial”. Thecommittee is a forum for debate not decision, and was thuscriticised by Jarratt and others. But the PVC uses it to getconsensus, buy-in and thereby create self-management. Towield this sort of power, PVCs need academic rather thanmanagement credibility. In such a culture the way to getthings done is to share information, make sensible anddefensible analysis, and then enter and lead the debate.

Only a minority of PVCs see themselves using the formalauthority they might be able to draw on. Generally, mostagree that it is efficacious to use their ‘collegiate’ power. Butthey also recognise that their more formal authority is in thebackground, but is present in academic awareness, and mayacquire added value from being rarely invoked.

Academic credibility is maintained - in theory and in tradition– because PVC roles may be designated as part-time. Theimplication is that the translation is temporary and that theindividual remains an active and engaged member of a widercommunity. The reality for most is that the PVC role is a morethan full-time commitment in itself in which the individuallives off their academic capital. Current research and teachingcommitments are frequently notional or tokenistic, but theirsymbolism retains a value that might surprise outsiders.

PVC performance and support

There appears to be a shift in universities towards formalassessment of PVCs, using indicators which often are linked to

corporate plan targets. Many PVCs use a process of selfassessment – for example in terms of the quality of keyrelationships - as a way of measuring their own success andsetting targets for improvement.

The PVC role can be a lonely one. Although professionalexpertise and support is available, from heads of service areasfor example, some of our interviewees believed that peoplefelt ‘dropped in it’ in the early stages of developing their life asa PVC. The extent to which they felt unsupported was markedand widespread, but variable. Many of the people we metwere clearly overworking – as a quick glance at a few diariesreadily confirmed - and acknowledged that they were notmodelling a good work-life balance for other colleagues.

Career progression

The sector is not very good at looking after its senior people.Some VCs expressed concern that tempting someone to a PVCjob was a risky venture for the individual concerned. Not allseemed to recognise the challenge or the load when theywere candidates.

Appointment to being a PVC is the pre-cursor to becoming aVC for some people. That has, after all, been the historicalroute and might be expected to remain so. In fact, recruitmentto the first tier is changing. The advent of ‘Super Deans’ hasopened up an alternative route, with more explicitdevelopment of management competency. It might be thatrecruitment to the PVC ranks will become less attractive.

For those not moving onwards, re-entry to academia isfraught. Academic plans may need to be refreshed and hostdepartments may be faced with carrying large salary bills. Theexperience of senior management may not sit well withdepartmental demands. For these reasons, where people arenot able to secure the VC job, attractive options include (early)retirement or a move out of the academic sector.

Chapter 5 – Conclusions: do universities need PVCs?Pro-vice-chancellors continue to have an important andspecial role to play in contemporary universities. Althoughchief executives are routinely adjusting and refining thestructures and reconfiguring PVC roles within them, thereare some enduring features that justify the continued needfor PVCs within the management model. Our researchfound a consistent view from within the system that the PVCis not only a facilitator of the VC’s vision, but also an initiatorof action to achieve that vision.

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There is nevertheless a sense of slight unease about how toimprove the match between structures and roles. Thisreflects a broader problem arising from the nature of thehigher education enterprise. Universities are not likebusiness organisations. Despite the transformationsassociated with mass higher education, the main historicalempires and activities of the university survive largely intact.Teaching schemes, research groups and administration (insome form) mark the main fault lines of all universities andwithin each, especially teaching and research, there areenduring and often highly distinct professional practices,procedures and cultures that define the organisation.

Although not totally immune from management these arenevertheless areas of great sensitivity and importance that,in terms of their inner processes, are difficult to control andmanage. Consequently academic work remains largelyseparated from the formal organisational structures ofmanagement. It is this separation that arguably providesthe primary reason for the almost constant search for better

alignment between academic processes and themanagement model. The changing role of the PVC bearswitness to the latest phase in the somewhat restless historyof recent higher education management going back to theJarratt Report if not earlier.

However, a key and enduring characteristic of the PVC role isthat only they and the chief executive have a cross-institutional perspective. They facilitate the initiatives andstandards that deliver the mission and maintain theinstitutional ‘brand’. PVCs have progressively increased inabundance since 1960, not because of managementdirectives but because the more complex challenges facedby academic institutions have increased the need forindividuals who weave and maintain a complex web whichenables the institution, as the sum of its constituent parts, tofunction. We argue that such is the centrality of PVC roles tothe working of the dual structures of academic work andmanagement, that if the pro-vice-chancellorship did notalready exist, it would need to be invented.

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2 The presence of a DVC in some UK institutions adds a layer of complexity to the concept of

the second leadership tier. We refer to this in subsequent sections of the report. We will

also return to the question of whether the DVC forms a distinct second tier after the VC or

whether, in effect, the post should be conceptualised as part of a ‘stretched’second tier in

the report on comparative Australian and EU approaches to senior leadership.

3 Middlehurst, R. (2004) p2724 Lambert R. (2003) para 7.235 Ozga, J. and Jones, R (2006)

1. INTRODUCTION

Pro-vice-chancellors (PVCs) are key members of the ‘secondtier’ of university leadership. They provide academicleadership, support and act as deputies to the vice-chancellorand take responsibility for specific areas of strategy and policyactivity. Despite the apparent seniority of their position andthe importance of their responsibilities the role of PVCsremains, arguably, misunderstood and under-theorised. Noris there much empirical evidence concerning the historicalevolution of the role or its relationship to changingconfigurations of the management model in universities.While researchers have focused attention on vice-chancellorsand, more recently, those in leadership positions in facultiesand departments, the PVC appears to have been overlookedin previous research. While many in the system continue toassume that the second tier is essential to the functioning ofthe contemporary (and future) university, we suspect that thereality is that many are increasingly unsure why, how or inwhat form PVCs contribute to the second leadership tier. Inshort, what are the rudiments of leadership in the second tierand why do universities need PVCs?

Resolving this uncertainty is important for two reasons. First,understanding continuities and changes in PVC roles acrossthe sector, provides an opportunity to test how highereducation is reorganising its approaches to leadership andmanagement in response to the changing landscape ofextended mission and realigned boundaries. Leadingchange inside institutions is increasingly perceived as a teamgame and PVCs are historically perceived as key members ofthe senior team. In Clark’s (1998) formulation ofentrepreneurial or transforming universities there is anexpectation that we will find a ‘strengthened steering core’.Clark suggests this might take different forms, but one ofthem might be invigorated deputy vice-chancellors2 andpro-vice-chancellors3.

Second, from an external policy perspective, the ability todemonstrate effective leadership capability is seen by a rangeof stakeholders to be increasingly important. In the UK atleast, several governments over recent years have sent fairlystrong signals-to-the-system that they suspected there to bea ‘deficit’ in university leadership capacity. The most recentcame in the Lambert report, where it was observed thatgovernment ‘does not seem to have enough confidence inthe way that universities run themselves to give them extrafunding without strings attached’4.

This ‘official’ distrust of higher education’s leadershipcapability appears to be mirrored in higher educationsystems in other parts of the world, and we will document thisin our subsequent comparative studies focusing onleadership in other European Union (EU) states and Australia.In all these contexts the focus on leadership, and perhaps thesource of some of the distrust, is linked to the concern ofnational governments to maximise the contribution ofuniversities to the skills, research and innovation necessary tobuild and sustain globally competitive knowledgeeconomies5.

The European Commission (Commission of the EuropeanCommunities 2006), for example, envisages universities asleaders of their own renaissance, from a position of tutelageto the state into unfettered agents of change through thedrivers of research, innovation and competition. Theunderlying assumption is that universities have beensuffering not just from the interfering hand of the state, butfrom entrenched and historically distorting internal culturesof collegial authority and academic consensus. Even in theUK, where governance systems are generally perceived to beless trammelled by ‘management by committee’, there havebeen several high-profile attempts in recent years toencourage universities to replace what many observers haveperceived to be slow and unresponsive management, withmore executive structures and styles of decision making6.

Whatever the driver, there appears to be evidence ofimportant changes taking place in the shapes and structuresof university senior teams. Lambert for example, reported‘significant changes for the better’ in the quality of executivedecision making and governance, though remained critical ofthe sector’s attempts to prepare and train its leaders oftomorrow. That such reforms are deemed necessary is takenas axiomatic, with specific criticism being levelled at bothdeans who ‘often lack a sector-wide strategic view’, and pro-vice-chancellors who ‘usually have limited experience ofmanaging large budgets’7.

The reform agenda, then, anticipates a revolution inleadership and management capacity in universities. Yet thereality is that we know relatively little about the evolving roleof PVCs. Although often eminent and highly successfulacademics in their own right, PVCs have tended to remain inthe shadows in previous studies of leadership, managementand governance8. For example, Fielden and Lockwood’sprescriptions for improving the planning and management

6 Lambert R. (2003) para 7.67 Lambert R. (2003) paras 7.23-7.258 Middlehurst, R. (1993)

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of British universities in the 1970s located the PVC under thedesign of supporting structures for the Vice-Chancellor.Within these structures they considered the main support tobe heads of areas (e.g. the Deans) rather than PVCs. Theseauthors lamented the trend of that era towards appointingthree or four PVCs, advocating instead ‘the need for onesenior Pro-Vice Chancellor, not concerned with linemanagement, standing apart from the structure other thanfor ceremonial purposes or in the event of the Vice-Chancellor’s absence, death etc’9.

More recently, the investigation of new managerialism in UKuniversities by Deem et al10 in 2001 provided a valuableanalysis of academic managers’ perspectives on currentmanagement practices, the actual procedures used anddominant organisational forms. Although the analysis castsome light on the position of PVCs within this framework,particularly the problematic nature of the academic-management interface, the changing nature of their roleswas not the main focus of attention. Similarly the earlierstudies of governance and executive leadership by Bargh etal11 made extensive use of PVCs as key informants indocumenting managerial and governance roles, but againthey were not the explicit focus of attention. More recentlyShattock’s study of managing successful universities madeonly two passing references to PVCs, the most substantial ofwhich related to the importance of academic involvement inthe process of appointment to the post12.

The present study, therefore, switches the focus of attentionto this small but somewhat neglected group. Its purpose is todocument the evolving role of pro-vice-chancellors as seniorexecutive officers and assess their centrality to emergingmanagement models in UK universities.

Themes, questions and some challenges

The research was designed to illuminate a number ofthemes about the second tier of university leadership andthe place and purpose of PVCs within it. As a starting pointwe wanted more detail about the historical context for thepro-vice-chancellorship. How has the role evolved overrecent decades? Have PVC numbers increased and, if so,why? What is the changing profile of PVCs in terms of titles,academic backgrounds and responsibilities? To what extenthas the evolution of the post been influenced by widertrends and discourses about management and leadershipin universities?

Although we had anecdotal evidence pointing to certaininterpretations of the recent history of academic

management, we felt that a more systematic investigationwas necessary in order to ground our contemporaryanalysis on something rather firmer. For example, we werenot convinced by the thesis of a relentless rise ofmanagerialism in university life, or the value of largelyrhetorical accounts drawing seemingly simplistic causallinks between executive leadership and effectiveness, onthe one hand, or collegiality and ineffectiveness, on theother. This account of the pro-vice-chancellorshipcommences therefore with some historical analysis basedon documentary sources together with a comprehensiveanalysis of data on PVCs recorded in selected volumes of theYearbooks published by the Association of CommonwealthUniversities (ACU).

Our analysis of the main contours in the development of thepro-vice-chancellorship since the 1960s is set in the broadercontext of evolving management models in highereducation. In our view this is some essential history that notonly enables us to make sense of the trends, but allowsfurther elaboration of the main themes of thecontemporary analysis. We wanted to know what ishappening in universities in the second tier - what isworking, what is not working and why? But we also wishedto know how significant PVCs are in enabling universities toachieve their purposes. Why do universities continue tohave senior leaders called ‘pro-vice-chancellors’ or otherbroadly equivalent titles derived from the terms used forvice-chancellors, rather than, say, directors or generalmanagers? What is it that a PVC adds to the management ofa university? How should their roles be characterised – asleaders, as facilitators, as mediators or as something else?How should people be selected and trained for the post?What mechanisms are used to appoint them? How, whereand with what effect do PVCs operate and how arerelationships brokered? What is the impact on the‘traditional’ PVC role of executive deans, an emerging newmanagement tier responsible for large faculties andbudgets? In summary, does contemporary highereducation really need PVCs and are there any discernibletrends for the future?

Data for the contemporary analysis included documentarymaterials, statistics, tape/digital recordings and extensivefield notes. However, interview data lies at the heart of theevidence base. Our respondents were drawn from astructured sample of 13 HEIs selected to represent both thecontinuum of institutional types in the UK system as well asa reasonable regional distribution. We conducted 54

9 Fielden, J. and Lockwood, G. (1973) para 52-5310 Deem, R. et al (2001)

11 Bargh, C. et al (1996; 2000)12 Shattock, M. (2003) para 90

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in-depth interviews, the majority with serving PVCs in UKuniversities, the remainder with vice-chancellors, seniormanagers and administrators who worked with PVCs incross-campus roles and other key informants in the system.Further details on the methodological approach areprovided in the Appendix (page 52).

At each institutional site we sought to explore with PVCsand some key colleagues the nature of their roles, who theyworked for and with, and the relationship between being aPVC and an academic. It is impossible of course to assertthat our approach captured the full complexity of viewsacross the sector. Nevertheless, we are confident that withinthe confines of the sample, both of institutions andrespondents, the structured discussions yielded substantiveconsistencies in responses and views. Indeed, in thereporting process we have sought wherever feasible toselect quotations because they are illustrative ofpredominant and pervasive themes in the discourse ofleadership.

It was through the accounts provided by PVCs and theircolleagues that we hoped to construct a phenomenologicalaccount addressing the main themes and questions of thestudy. It is clear, however, that how to write the research –how to transform the phenomena of individual experiencesand perspectives of those we interviewed into a form of textsuitable for telling the story of the pro-vice-chancellorship -constitutes an important challenge, in two key respects.

The first concerns the primacy accorded to different, perhapscompeting, voices in the reporting process. Who tells thestory – the researcher or the researched? Answers to thisquestion are seldom satisfactory and usually produce anuneasy compromise. Scientific writing invariably privilegesthe researcher as the so-called authoritative voice, the onethat separates out and gives meaning to the voices of thesubjects of the research. It is a convention to rely on theobjective rather than subjective in socio-historical accounts,though one that is not unchallenged in some moreexperimental genres of academic writing13. Consequently itis often the voice of the researcher that we hear most abovethe ‘noise’of the researched, but with the attendant dangerthat the voice of the subjects is drowned out.

In addressing such problems we have been guided to someextent by the ethical and pragmatic considerations ofconducting this sort of research. Academia is a relativelysmall world. That part of it concerned with senior

management is an even smaller and more intimate one.Interview data were collected under the terms of anassurance that the anonymity of informants and theirinstitutions or other affiliations would be strictly protectedin any published material.14 In terms of reporting, this meantthat publication of interview transcripts15 as ‘authentic’ textwas rejected, not just as impracticable, but as ethicallydubious. Apart from the inevitable distortions to the textnecessary to protect anonymity and, just as importantly,confidentiality, there is in any case the very real sense thatwithout a layer of analysis and comparison across thesample such transcripts might fail to convey anything of realsubstance.

The alternative approach has been to present our researchin a more conventional form, in effect as an elite study inwhich we as researchers present our analysis of PVCs asoutsiders looking in. In conveying a view of PVCs not just interms of their social characteristics but of their owninterpretations of their leadership experiences and the worklandscape they inhabit, the narrative voice is ours. Whethercompelling and comprehensive, or rudimentary and vapid,the accounts provided by the PVCs are interpreted by us asresearchers looking in on what it means to be a member ofthis tier of university leadership.

For the purpose of this end-of-award report to theLeadership Foundation we have illustrated our argumentsabout the experiences and work of PVCs with a number ofvignettes and exemplars drawn directly from thebiographical and perceptual raw materials. Hence, we havesought to capture the views of PVCs, as ‘insiders’and therebycomplement the outsider-in perspective of the researcher.In this sense the experiences of individuals are combined toform a ‘collective’account of a particular group of universitypeople. Wherever possible we have tried to avoid usingoutliers in the data to illustrate particular views orarguments, preferring wherever possible to presentexemplars that are more widely illustrative or representativeof the sample population as a whole.

The second challenge concerns the orientation of the studyto broader concepts and debates derived from the literatureof leadership. Understanding the social practice ofleadership, whether in universities or other organisationalsettings, requires some engagement with what is meant byleadership. In recent years a welter of leadership initiativeshas penetrated the public sector fuelled by a range ofofficial and semi-official policy endorsements and initiatives

13 For example, see Richardson, L. (1997)14 In seeking participation from a sample of institutions, we were careful to provide a

statement on the ethical protocols that would guide our interventions as researchers by

specifying the terms of engagement with institutions and those who would be interviewed.

15 The majority of interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed to aid our

analytical procedures.

9

of better leadership as a route to organisationalimprovement and modernisation16. The phenomenon of‘leadership’, of course, transcends sectors and in its recentmanifestations draws on a shared understanding of theproblems facing organisations – public or ‘third sector’ aswell as private - as they struggle to adapt to changingenvironments.

In essence, the thesis is simple. The organisationalenvironment – both public and private – is one of increasinguncertainty, instability, deregulation, competitiveness andresource scarcity. To succeed, organisations perceive a needto change their structures, shape, size and methods ofoperation. Staff at the operational end need bettermotivation, clearer direction and continuous reassurance.Change management, once seen as a suitable response tosuch unstable conditions is no longer deemed sufficient.What is required now is better ‘Leadership’ 17.

Although the leadership thesis is routinely regurgitated,critics have argued that it ‘remains incomplete, insufficientlytested, inadequately debated and not properlyscrutinized’18. Despite a burgeoning literature of leadershiptheory, key questions remain about what constitutesleadership in social enterprises characterised by twinbottom lines that combine budgetary control with socialand economic impact. In such circumstances it is notentirely clear how leadership can be distributed andempowering, and how it can be effectively embedded interms of succession planning and development activity.While the discourse of ‘leadership’ undoubtedly pervadesthe public sector, altogether less clear is the salience of thediscourse (and the value of leadership theory moregenerally) in particular contexts, whether national, sectoralor organisational. It is possible to argue, for example, thatorganisations, HEIs among them, need several forms ofleadership and that these require somewhat different skillsand perspectives. If this is so, then there is a need toproceed with caution in relation to the specificities ofleadership roles and to avoid any temptation into advocacyof more abstract remedies or approaches.

A similar, if slightly earlier, set of questions to those aboutleadership accompanied the phenomenon of newmanagerialism19. The extent to which UK higher educationhad been permeated by practices and culture derived from‘new managerialism’ was a question explored inconsiderable detail by Deem et al20. Their conclusionsstressed the extent to which established structures and the

histories associated with them influenced the salience ofsuch ideas across the sector. Certainly the efficiency model– doing more for less - associated with new managerialismwas found to have significantly permeated highereducation. The study also found evidence, but to varyingdegrees, of other models derived from theories of newmanagerialism such as downsizing, devolved budgets,internal markets, and new emphases on cultural changeand strategic activity. However, in contrast to the healthservice, where extensive organisational and cultural changehad taken place, Deem et al concluded that highereducation was characterised much more by hybridisedforms of new managerialism. Although a new ‘breed’ ofmanager academics had emerged in the sector, most ofthem had not embraced practices associated with newmanagerialism. Change in the sector had been more subtle,influenced by complex overlays of ideas derived from theappeal of historical structures and values, together withnotions of identity and practice derived from self regulationand the cultures associated with academic disciplines.

Our empirical study of PVCs sheds further light on some ofthese themes and the theories and concepts of leadershipand new managerialism underpinning them. Our approachis to employ tools from leadership theory very selectively.Sector and organisational context, it seems to us, areparticularly important in making sense of the roles of PVCs.The sort of leadership required, the opportunities toexercise leadership and to be ‘managers’ are likely to beinfluenced by the structure and culture of the organisation.Further considerations flow from this simple, but important,proposition. The perceived need for leadership and how theorganisation sets about implementing its approaches toleadership development reflect the characteristics of theenterprise. We might anticipate too that those who fillleadership roles will need to embody a range of attributes orbehavioural requirement in order to perform effectively inleadership roles.

Drawing carefully from appropriate strands of the literatureto illuminate the accounts provided by PVCs of theirexperiences in the job, the rest of this report explores howleadership needs are interpreted, whether different culturesof leadership are recognisable in different institutionalcontexts, and how leadership ‘talent’ is recognised anddeveloped. However, in the specific case of university PVCs,it seems to us unlikely that changing roles might beexplained simply by the current fascination with leadership.This is not to argue that higher education is an exceptional

16 Cabinet Office (1999; 2000)17 Storey, J. (2005) (in refs is 2004)18 Story, J. (2004): para 6

19 Ferlie, E. Asburner, L. et al (1996)20 Deem, R. et al (2001)

10


arena and therefore general leadership theories do notapply. Nevertheless, there is already a sufficient body ofevidence to suggest that the sector context in highereducation is likely to subvert many of the ‘conventional’rules of leadership21. Perhaps even more significantly, weare far from convinced that the indiscriminate use of generaltheories of leadership can explain the historical emergenceof the role of PVCs any more than the particularconfigurations of how leadership is practised. For this weturn in the following chapters from theory to history andthen to accounts of practice in order to review andcontextualise the evolution of the pro-vice-chancellorship.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRO-VICE- CHANCELLORSHIP SINCE THE 1960s

Introduction

This chapter assesses the impact of longer-term trends inthe management of UK universities on the pro-vice-chancellorship. In addition to a brief account tracing theemergence of new forms of public management in thespecific context of higher education, the aim is to provide astatistical portrait of PVCs drawing on data sourced from asample of the Yearbooks of the Association ofCommonwealth Universities, stretching back to 1960.22

These data describe the evolution of PVC posts across theUK higher education system in terms of total numbers andjob titles. They also enable some indicative conclusionsabout changes over time in the academic profiles of those inPVC positions.

The results will provide some new evidence with which toassess attempts since the 1980s to introduce to universityleadership and governance the languages, practices andorganisational forms associated with business models ofleadership and management imported. In particular, weexplore how far the evolution of the second tier of universitymanagement exemplified in the post of pro-vice-chancellorhas reflected a broader narrative of change, associated mostobviously with the growth of executive, rather thancollegial, structures of leadership and management. Ourstatistical analysis suggests that the office of pro-vice-chancellor characterises the growing complexity of themanagement task in contemporary universities. However,we argue that the rise of the pro-vice-chancellorship needsto be viewed as a long-term phenomenon stretching backto the early 1960s and the first stirrings of the transition inUK higher education from an elite to a mass system.

The historic contours of the management model and, inparticular, its rhetorical and recurring references tocompeting notions of collegial and executive cultures,provide the setting for understanding how the pro-vice-chancellorship has evolved over recent decades. Ouraccount has a secondary argument concerning theemerging discourses associated with almost continuousattempts to reform higher education over the last twodecades or so. The reality is that the rise of mass highereducation has taken place alongside far-reaching changesin the relationship between the state and public sectororganisations and in the ways it seeks to regulate and auditinstitutions. As the boundaries between public and privatehave been redrawn, the state has attempted to bring aboutchanges in the organisation, culture and delivery of publicsector services.

Referred to variously as ‘new managerialism’ or ‘new publicmanagement’these new organisational forms and practicesare themselves the subject of often intense debate. In arecent review of their relevance to understandingmanagement approaches in higher education, Deem23 hasargued that while new managerialism can be portrayed asan ‘ideological configuration of ideas and practices’ inrelation to public service management and delivery, ‘newpublic management’is generally perceived as ‘defining newforms of administrative orthodoxy about how publicservices are run and regulated.’ Both phenomena haverather different intellectual and theoretical roots.Nevertheless, both concepts share a common perception ofa shift from previous orthodoxies associated with publicbureaucracies and the power of service professionals overservice users in the culture of thinking and practice. Hencethere tends to be a common perception that public servicebureaucracies have shifted towards (quasi-) marketisation,devolved management and fragmentation of servicedelivery24.

The criticism of the quality of UK university leadership notedabove also needs to be located against this backcloth. Sincethe 1980s the transition from elite towards mass forms ofhigher education provision has been accompanied by theemergence of new models of resource allocation; the shifttowards strategic management approaches; thedevelopment of more corporate approaches to universitygovernance; greater stress on market orientation andcompetition; and, growing demands for much greaterresponsiveness in universities to the needs of business andthe economy. These changes challenged and, it is usual toassume, overturned the mid-twentieth century world of

21 Bargh, C. et al (2000)22 Comparative data for Australian higher education institutions has also been collated and

will be presented separately as part of the comparative strand of the project.

23 Deem, R. (2005)24 Deem, R. (2005)

11

‘donnish dominion’25. In the discourses of management andgovernance that framed the rise of new managerialism, theneed for reform became enmeshed in arguments about thequality of university management and a growingperception of a deficit in management capacity. Abreakdown of trust is a characteristic of this discourse witholder, more collegial, approaches to running universitiessometimes denigrated as ‘management by committee’. Aconsistent theme, therefore, has been proselytising aboutthe importance of more executive styles of decision makingborrowed, in essence, from the business model. Theevolution of the second tier has been caught up in thesearguments. Before presenting our statistical profile weprovide a brief account of the trends in higher educationreform that have framed the changing world of pro-vice-chancellors.

From donnish dominion to Jarratt

In a pioneering study of power and authority in the Britishuniversities of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Moodie andEustace26 provided a valedictory statement on a world thatless than a decade later would be summarily dismissed asinefficient and outmoded. There were then some 60universities or other HEIs in the post-Robbins highereducation ‘system’. However, Moodie and Eustace foundthat there was no uniform terminology of posts or roles. Toobviate this problem they provided an extensive note onthe terminology used to identify the principal parts of themanagement model of that period, together with theirclosest or approximate equivalents. In the case of the vice-chancellor, they noted that this was the equivalent of thePresident and Vice-Chancellor at Belfast; Vice-Chancellorand Principal at Birmingham; Principal and Vice-Chancellorat the Scottish ancients; Principal at other Scottishinstitutions and some of the Colleges of the University ofLondon; and Rector, Director, Provost and Master at otherLondon Colleges.

These terms normally flowed through to the second tier in amore or less logical fashion. Hence, the term pro-vice-chancellor was typically associated with ‘vice-chancellor’;pro-principal with principal, pro-provost with provost andso on. However, Moodie and Eustace also identified somedistinctions between those in more senior or ‘deputy’ rolesand those in more conventional PVC roles. The titles DeputyPrincipal at Birmingham or Vice-Principal at Bradford were,in effect, jobs as assistant or deputy to the person in the toppost. These more senior roles were considered full-timeadministrative posts which the person appointed wouldretain on a permanent basis.

Pro-vice-chancellor and equivalent posts, on the otherhand, were considered part-time in the sense that theincumbent would be expected to continue with someresearch and teaching. This was in preparation for aneventual return to departmental life at the end of the termof office. Appointment to such posts occurred on the basisof election by ‘senate’. A key point is that the term‘administration’, as implied in the posts of assistant ordeputy vice-chancellors/principals etc., was normally usedto ‘include all those who administer the affairs of theuniversity’. This category also referred to the vice-chancellorand many others in ‘academic roles’ (as well as certainmembers of the lay council). The bureaucracy, on the otherhand, referred to ‘the professional full-time administrativestaff, normally headed by the registrar (sometimessecretary) or jointly by him and the bursar, the seniorfinancial official’27 .

The work of PVCs in the typical 1960s university, therefore, isreferred to mainly by reference to the central role played bythe vice-chancellor. By this time, the VC was usually styled‘chief-academic and administrative officer’, the latter anacknowledgement of the increasing salience of‘administration’ in academic life during the post-Robbinsworld of expanding universities and student numbers. TheRobbins Report (Committee on Higher Education 1963) hadalready drawn attention to the ‘variety and burden of workthat the modern university requires of its Vice-Chancellor’28.Ten years on, as Moodie and Eustace noted, studentnumbers had already doubled, leading them to conjecturethat the burden would become excessive as universitiesgrow in size’29. This fact appears to explain the tendency inalmost all universities to appoint deputy and/or pro-vice-chancellors.

Noting that many universities had at least one, some asmany as three, pro-vice-chancellors, they suggested thatsuch part-time deputies may ‘take the chair or receiveoutside visitors for the vice-chancellor, even if they cannottake decisions for him’. They recorded the exceptionalexample of the University of Birmingham, where the deputywas full-time and given responsibility for certain areas ofuniversity business. Several other universities had by thistime full-time deputy posts, notably the ex-College’s ofAdvanced Technology (CATs), though Moodie and Eustaceconsidered these posts to be a legacy from a previous styleof government. They were unable to predict whether thismodel would become a permanent feature in the future30.

25 Halsey, A.H. and Trow, M. (1971); Halsey, A.H. (1992)26 Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974) 27 Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974) all references in this section 55-57

28 Cited in Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974) p14929 Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974): para 150

12


Jarratt and the ‘efficiency’ agenda

Moodie and Eustace’s analysis provides an importantbaseline to the subsequent evolution of executive managerroles in higher education, including the PVC. For manycommentators, however, the major landmark in theevolution of such roles came a decade later with the JarrattReport of 198531. The Report of the Steering Committee forEfficiency Studies in Universities, to give it its full title, had itsgenesis in the appointment in 1979 of Sir Derek Rayner toadvise the newly elected Conservative administration onthe promotion of efficiency in government32, Chaired by SirAlex Jarratt and including a substantial lay representation,the Committee’s investigations during 1984-5 took placeagainst a background of sharp reductions in publiclyfunded support for universities. The formal terms ofreference are worth quoting in full for the light they shed onthe tone of the final report and its influence on subsequentdiscourses about management in the sector33:

‘To promote and co-ordinate, in consultation withthe individual institutions which it will select, aseries of efficiency studies of the management ofthe universities concerned and to consider andreport to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors andPrincipals and the University Grants Committee onthe results with such comments andrecommendations as it considers appropriate;provided that the commissioned studies will notextend to issues of academic judgment nor beconcerned with the academic and educationalpolicies, practices or methods of the universities.’

The Jarratt report (1985): para 1.134

Jarratt advocated strong, top-down university government,with the emphasis on corporate style strategic planning,resource allocation and accountability. Within this structure,the ‘centre’ would be strengthened, with revitalised laycouncils taking responsibility for strategic direction, whilesenates would be relegated to detailed academic concerns.

Jarratt was clear that improving the effectiveness ofgovernance in general and planning and resourceallocation mechanisms in particular, hinged on the

leadership provided by the vice-chancellor. Although it wasacknowledged that vice-chancellors displayed differencesof style arising from their personalities, the reporthighlighted two contrasting models: one oriented towardsstrong leadership and the exercise of executive authority,the other towards academic consensus, with the vice-chancellor being a scholar first and acting as a chairman ofSenate carrying out its will, rather than leading it strongly35.Among the list of recommendations, therefore, was that thevice-chancellor be recognised ‘not only as academic leaderbut also as chief executive of the university’36 .

The impact of the Jarratt report on the sector should not beunder-estimated.37 Together with other initiatives aroundthis time, such as a move towards greater selectivity ofresearch funding, it can be argued that Jarratt wasresponsible for a general movement for more purposefulmanagement of funds, and a strengthening of planning,especially at university centre level38. However, it is importantto separate Jarratt’s contribution to the rhetoric of efficiencyand effectiveness in the management of universities from itsimpact on the development of management structures andpractices. There is little doubt that subsequent discoursesabout management were heavily influenced by the report.However, the extent to which Jarratt brought aboutdiscernible changes in the organisation of the managementmodel or job redesign in terms of the nature and practices ofsenior management posts is less clear.

In one sense, the Jarratt exercise was just the latest (if mostdramatic) episode in a ‘quiet revolution’ in managerialeffectiveness39. As a result of the growth in student numbersand the expansion of the system authorised in the 1950sand endorsed by the Robbins Report of 1963, universitieshad begun to develop more sophisticated bureaucracieswell before the Jarratt exercise. Running bigger and morecomplex institutions required increasingly professionalmanagement. Jarratt’s contribution lay in its endorsementof a very different approach to making these bureaucracieswork. Consciously rejecting anything associated withexisting university practices, the report insisted on anindustrial-style, top-down, management model at theexpense of an older-established civil service model.

30 Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974): p127; p149-15131 For a broader overview of the reform trajectory during this period see Parry, G. (2001)32 Rayner, from the high-street retail store Marks and Spencer (a company seen as expertly

led and highly efficient), had been chosen by Margaret Thatcher, then in her first term as

Prime Minister, to help improve value for money in public services (HoC Committee of

Public Accounts, 1986). The investigation grew out of the Rayner Scrutiny Programmes,

but in this case was handled by a body appointed by the then vice-chancellors’group, the

Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK). 33 Because of the tight timetable imposed by the ‘efficiency studies’concept, the Jarratt

Committee employed professional management consultants to undertake six

institutional case studies. The six selected were: Edinburgh, Essex, Loughborough,

Nottingham, Sheffield and University College London.

34 The insertion of an ‘exclusion’zone around academic and educational issues is noteworthy

in the light of the Committee’s findings and recommendations. 35 CVCP (1985) para 3.5836 CVCP (1985); recommendation 5.5d37 For example, in the year following its publication, the universities’funding settlement

was made conditional on a ‘Programme of Action’being implemented to improve

management practices. 38 Universities Funding Council (UFC) Third Annual Report (1989)39 Scott, P. (1986)

13

As Scott40 suggested in a searching contemporary critique ofthe report, Jarratt and the reformers instinctively associatedthe established ‘civil service model’ of universityadministration with an outdated, inherently inefficient,pattern of university government: ‘council as the dignifiedguarantor of an institution’s integrity, senate as its academicparliament, and vice-chancellor as a consensual leader, allserviced by a neutral civil-service style administration’41.Turning this model upside down, rejecting a constitutionalview of university government as a partnership betweenrepresentative institutions and a powerful but disinterestedadministration and vice-chancellor, was an essential part ofthe ‘efficiency’agenda. Anything else was simply politicallyinexpedient. For Jarratt, public institutions and privateenterprise were one and the same, and the former neededto be moulded to fit with the models associated with thelatter.

University governance

Any rush to impose on the universities an industrial modelof executive, top-down, management drawing itsinspiration and rhetoric from private enterprise, which Scottfound so objectionable, was less evident in the establisheduniversities than in the local authority controlledpolytechnics. Moreover, the search for evidence of Jarratt-inspired changes in the sector tended to concentrate onarrangements for reinvigorating governing bodies than onwhat happened inside the structures of seniormanagement. As Shattock has argued, Jarratt’sprescriptions on advancing the powers of governing bodiesat the expense of academic committees (such as senate)found their greatest expression in the ways the governmentchose to release the polytechnics from local authoritycontrol in 1988 and subsequently convert them intoautonomous universities in 199242. Shattock also citesevidence to suggest that government wished to extend tothe governing bodies of pre-1992 universities moreextensive powers.

Whatever the intention behind legislative changes in thewake of Jarratt, the impact on the behaviour of governingbodies in both the pre- and post-1992 universities is lessobvious than a simple distinction between corporate-dominated and academic-dominated models ofgovernance might imply43. Moreover, if we concentrate onsenior management structures the picture is far moreopaque. In this sense it is easy to overlook the DearingCommittee’s 1997 pronouncements on the subject ofmanagement and governance. The Committee’s terms ofreference included how ‘value for money and cost

effectiveness should be obtained in the use of resources’.Certainly Dearing did not minimise the challenge of findingnew or better ways of doing things in the future, includingthe need to improve the efficient and effective use ofresources. But while the final report resisted any temptationto revert to Jarratt-style managerial dirigisme, itnevertheless chose to recommend a strengthening ofuniversity governance structures.

According to one view, the Dearing Report’srecommendation on governance represented ‘the high tideof the movement to reinforce the powers of governingbodies’44 . In this sense, Dearing linked directly with Jarratt inaiming to promote governing bodies at the expense of theroles of senates and academic boards. However, it ispossible to place a slightly different interpretation onDearing’s approach to the important relationship betweengoverning bodies and the executive. In picking up thetheme of organisational effectiveness, the final report madeexplicit reference to three important principles that shouldunderpin governance arrangements. These were: (i) respectfor institutional autonomy; (ii) protection of academicfreedom; and (iii) transparency of governance arrangements.

Each principle conjures up in different ways the significanceof research, teaching and administration in theorganisational arrangement of the university. Autonomyallows the university a degree of freedom in setting itscorporate strategy in relation to academic activities. It isrelevant in the UK context not only because it emphasisessuch strategy and the leadership task associated with it atinstitutional (rather than for example, discipline) level, butbecause it reminds us that the institutional bottom line hasa strong financial element to it. Academic freedom retainsmore than symbolic importance because it signifies thecontrol of academics over what they teach or research andhow they might do it. Transparency underpins the first two.Government is exercised by institutional autonomy andacademic freedom because of the lack of immediate ordirect controls over processes. How can it ensure thatadministration is effective? Through institutional leadershipand the transparency of its outcomes is one answer.

The significance of the Dearing ‘principles’ forunderstanding institutional leadership, however, lies in theirsymmetry with the organisational rigidities associated withresearch, teaching and administration. We will return to theissues surrounding this conundrum in subsequent sectionsof the report. For the moment it is sufficient to note that byendorsing these principles, as well as drawing attention to

40 Scott, P. (1986)41 For an alternative ‘insider’perspective on the Jarratt Committee’s deliberations and

processes see Lockwood, G. 1986.

42 Shattock, M. (2002) p23743 See Bargh, C. et al (1996)44 Shattock, M. (2002) p238

14


the ‘impressive’ improvements in efficiency in the face ofdramatic cuts in public funding per student alreadyachieved by institutions, Dearing appeared to overrideJarratt’s rather simple industrial-executive model with onethat endorsed the distinctiveness and complexity ofacademic life. To Dearing the nature and purpose of auniversity mattered, hence his attempt to broker a newcompact between higher education, its stakeholders andsociety more generally.

In contrast to Jarratt’s idea of almost unbridled executivepower, what appeared to exercise Dearing most was arrivingat a formulation that would effectively safeguard againstpossible abuses of such power. Hence in an importantpassage on academic governance, Dearing noted:

‘The powers relating to an institution’s academicwork, clearly vested in senates or academic boards,should not be bypassed by senior managers or thegoverning body. Academic boards and senatesmust ensure that they have a clear account of theirresponsibilities to guide their decisions andbehaviour, that their members are clear about theirresponsibilities, individually and collectively, andthat this is respected by the governing body.‘

National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (1997): para 15.65

This demarcation between the academic and managerialarenas of institutional life did not preclude scope for furtherimprovement in the use of resources. It did, however,appear to postulate an alternative model of institutionaldecision-making based on a stronger alliance ofgovernance and academic structures as a counter-balanceto the rising power of the executive45.

It is possible, therefore, to interpret as one of the by-products, intentional or otherwise, of Dearing’spronouncements, an attempt to secure the notion of someform of collegial, or at least consensual, approach toinstitutional management. Far from undermining the notionof ‘shared governance’ advanced by Shattock, Dearingappeared to recognise the dangers of corporate-dominatedstyles of university governance. For Dearing, arguably, theprincipal threat to academic freedom and institutionalautonomy lay not in strengthened governing bodies, but inleaving executive powers unchecked. If this interpretation isaccepted, it casts a rather different light on more recentdiscourses about governance and management.

Universities and business

The most recent intervention into the debate aboutuniversity management came with the appointment by theUK Treasury of Sir Richard Lambert, former editor of theFinancial Times, to head an enquiry into university-Industrycollaboration. Lambert’s remit was wide ranging andincluded an investigation into what was perceived as ‘slow-moving, bureaucratic and risk-averse style of universitymanagement.’ The Report’s (2003) pronouncements infavour of a business model for running universities alignedLambert closely with the industrial-executive line flowingfrom Jarratt. Lambert did not reject entirely the idea (orvalue) of the collegiality associated with committee-basedstructures. But the Report was altogether less exercised bythe problematic nature of academic freedom or institutionalautonomy than Dearing had appeared to be. On thecontrary, Lambert largely by-passed such issues, preferringinstead to emphasise the need for rapid decision-makingand dynamic management to be achieved by executiveforms of business management based in cabinet styleteams. Led by senior managers, these teams woulddelegate authority out of committees, placing it instead inthe hands of academic and administrative managers whowould operate through simplified lines of management46.As an example of ‘good practice’ Lambert commended thefact that:

‘As part of the process of managementimprovement, well-run universities are appointingmore professionally qualified and accredited staff,often from the private sector. Directors of humanresources, estates management, marketing andcommunication are commonplace in leadinguniversities…. To reflect these changes, someinstitutions are breaking with traditional andoutmoded perceptions of their administrations andre-labelling their administrative staff as “professionalservices”or “directorates”.’

Lambert (2003): 7.11

Lambert’s enthusiasm for running a university like abusiness was driven principally by the belief that this modelwould encourage better university collaboration with theoutside world and would, in any case, lead to moreentrepreneurialism and enterprise among both staff andstudents. Such approaches have been criticised becausethey tend to ignore the many facets of university life that donot (directly at least) involve working with business47.

45 Shattock is sharply critical of Dearing for being overly influenced by the Hoare Report

from Australia and for being overly simplistic about the role of governing bodies, whilst

ignoring the need to reform other areas of university governance, see Shattock, M.

(2003) p98

46 Lambert, R. (2003) paras 7.7 – 7.1047 Evans, G.R. p37

15

A central theme connecting Lambert with Jarratt, therefore,concerns the development of stronger executive structures.Although two decades apart and responding to differentterms of reference, both appear to have by-passed Dearing’sconcerns, especially in their advocacy of the so-calledbusiness model based in essence on executive styles ofdecision making as the best route to managerialeffectiveness. This shared faith, as much as the discourseitself, defines an industrial top-down model of executivemanagement as an ‘ideal’ for universities as they strive tobring together in one corporate process the academic,financial and physical elements of university life.

What also characterises both reports is an apparentdisregard of context and culture, together with anoversimplification of the complex task of managingcollective creative environments. While Dearing’s threeprinciples endorsed the importance of the context andculture of higher education, Jarratt and Lambert appear todisregard them. This is important for how leadership rolesare interpreted.

In the Dearing prescription, networks that maintain thedistinctiveness of higher education are important.Maintaining networks across the institution comprises animportant part of institutional leadership. In contrast, theleadership task for departments or faculties does notencompass this wider institutional view. For example,deans have no responsibility beyond their immediateempires and the activities that fall within them. Course orprogramme leaders may have to co-ordinate and work withother peers and senior colleagues across the institution.Nevertheless, the focus of their work remains almost alwaysintra-faculty. PVCs, on the other hand, have to ensure thatfaculty or departments are adopting broadly similar valuesto those of the institution as a whole. Their focus, arguably,has a key inter-faculty dimension. There are tensionsbetween these vertical and horizontal divisions and thesehave implications for PVC roles, a point which we investigatefurther in subsequent chapters.

From the rhetoric of Jarratt or Lambert, then, it mightappear that higher education has succumbed relativelyeasily to the various agendas associated with newmanagerialism or new public management48 49. In reality,however, the extent to which these ideas have found theirway into management models, practices and cultures ismore contested and ambiguous50. Moreover, although thevalues and practices associated with collegiality are

assumed to have been eroded in the post-Jarratt university,there is little hard evidence to suggest that newmanagerialism has been strongly associated with academicsuccess. As Shattock has observed, those institutionsoccupying the top places in the university league tables‘seem to emphasise collegiality in their management stylesrather than any form of executive dominance’51.

What exactly is meant by collegiality, of course, is open toquestion. But insofar as it represents the polar opposite ofexecutive direction in the depiction of the managementmodel in higher education, collegiality remains a highlysymbolic, if not potent, element in trying to understand thecontemporary practice of leadership and managementroles. We return to the issues surrounding collegiality insubsequent chapters.

The pro-vice-chancellorship and the management model

The foregoing provides a brief account of more than twodecades of fairly continuous attempts to reformmanagement and governance in higher education, coupledwith a seemingly insistent strand in the literatureconcerning the poor quality of university management andleadership. In essence this has been interpreted as a generalfailure on the part of universities to adopt the businessmodel. How does the evolution of the pro-vice-chancellorship align with this discourse?

It is clear that the pro-vice-chancellor was already arecognised post in the administrative structure of the 1960suniversities. Moreover, Moodie and Eustace predicted thatPVC numbers were almost certainly set to increase asinstitutions and the system itself expanded so demandingmore, not less, administration. Although this lends somesupport to Scott’s assertion of a ‘quiet revolution’ inuniversity management already underway, any tranquillityappeared to be shattered by Jarratt’s efficiency intervention.In Jarratt’s regime, power in universities would be ceded bythe donnish dominion to stronger top management, led bythe vice-chancellor acting as a chief executive. Key playersin the top management team were the pro-vice-chancellors(though Jarratt bracketed vice-principals and vice provostsunder this generic heading) and the deans. The reportnoted that universities usually had three or four such PVCsin post, each serving for three or four years. These werenormally selected from among the senior professors whosework as PVCs would qualify them for a reduced teachingload (no mention was made of research). Jarratt recognisedseveral PVC roles:

48 Bryson, C. (2004)49 Alternative conceptions of ‘new managerialism’and ‘new public management’are often

conflated. For an exploration and clarification see Deem, R. and Brehony, K.J. (2005). The

debate is not entered into in the present report.

50 Deem, R. (2004)51 Shattock, M. (2002) p241

16


‘Often they are given particular tasks in developingacademic policy. At other times they are obviouslyvital as “trouble shooters”. But they are also a vitalpart of the mechanism for policy co-ordination inthat they frequently have ex-officio membership ofthe key committees. They also play an important partin the informal processes of policy development andco-ordination through regular meetings with theVice-Chancellor and the Registrar.’


‘However, Jarratt also emphasised that the role of thepro-vice-chancellor ‘does and should depend heavilyon tasks assigned to them by individual Vice-Chancellors’. Since the expectation was that theexecutive role of vice-chancellors would increase, itfollowed that ‘the use made of Pro-Vice-Chancellorswill be increasingly vital’. In a rehearsal of exactly thesame argument made in the Lambert report twodecades later, Jarratt also concluded that thedevelopment of management skills in PVCs would beincreasingly important but, implicitly, that theimportance of fostering such skills was being ignored.’


However, Jarratt portrayed two slightly contradictoryaspects to PVC roles. As we have seen, one was as ‘shadow’to the chief executive’s strategic role: as the latter grew instrength and importance, so it was predicted the shadowexecutive role of the PVC would increase in step. But theother was portrayed as more operational, since it related topolicy co-ordination, a role that sometimes required them

to act as ‘trouble-shooters’. Ex-officio membership of keyacademic committees was mentioned by Jarratt as a vitalpart of the mechanism for policy co-ordination. Byimplication, therefore, PVCs performed academic as well asadministrative roles, since they worked at the fulcrum of themanagement model, linking executive decision-making atthe centre with the main academic body in the faculties anddepartments. The implication is that the PVC retained a keyrole in building and maintaining academic consensus. Howthis ‘link’ role might be played out, or even its significance,did not appear to detain Jarratt for long, since the emphasisof the report was on top management and linemanagement, rather than the consequences for academicdemocracy.

Longer-term trends in the statistical profile of PVCs

This narrative has a number of implications forunderstanding the changing role of pro-vice-chancellorsduring the post-Jarratt era. If, as Jarratt predicted, PVCs wereto become integral to the chief executive role of the vice-chancellor, it is reasonable to anticipate, first, that theirnumbers might begin to increase more steeply after hisreport in response to the explicit demands for universities tostrengthen their management along corporate or executivelines. Second, we might also expect to find some evidenceindicating that the nature of their roles was changing toreflect a more executive or managerial agenda.

To test these propositions we have examined longer-termtrends in relation to PVC posts, both in terms of theirnumbers and the profiles of those in them. To do this, wehave drawn on data detailing senior management postsacross the UK higher education system as recorded in the

MEMBERSHIP OF SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAMS (SMTS)

TABLE 1

Count of HEIs

Count of SMT posts

PVCs

DVCs

Deans on SMT

PVCs per HEI

DVCs per HEI

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

46 57 69 71 117 118

65 143 175 218 420 468

18 59 96 120 248 284

3 7 9 18 44 64

2 17 5 4 12 6

0.39 1.04 1.39 1.69 2.12 2.41

0.07 0.12 0.13 0.25 0.38 0.54

17

Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) annualYearbooks. The advantage of such data is that they areprovided by the institutions themselves. We were unable toanalyse data for every institution for every year, so wesampled six benchmark years across the period: 1960, 1970,1980, 1990, 2000, and 200552 .

Table 1 presents a simple profile of institutional and postfrequencies over our 45 year census period from 1960 to2005. The number of UK HEIs with data recorded in the ACUYearbook has increased over the period, with a markedgrowth in the 1990s when the former polytechnics weregiven university status. There are a maximum of 135institutions for which data might have been available by theend of the period. The number for which data was in factavailable is shown in Table 1. This should be taken intoaccount when considering the data in other tables, but thechanging balance across categories within tables is themore informative element.

The secular trend shows a steady increase in the overallcount of PVCs (and their equivalent titles), from just 18 postsacross all eligible institutions at the start of the period, to284 by the end. The size of SMTs gradually increased overthe decades with a progressive expansion of the numbers ofPVC posts. By 2005, there were almost 21/2 PVCs for each HEIand around half also had a DVC.

When the number of PVC posts is scaled against institutionsfor each of our sample years, however, a rather differentpicture emerges from that which Jarratt put forward. Takingall institutions into account at the start of the period therewere just 0.39 PVC posts per HEI. Even by 2005 thecorresponding figure was 2.41 per institution. Although thelong-term upward trend in PVC numbers remains clear, therate of growth seems more modest. This finding is notunexpected in view of the increase in the numbers ofinstitutions over the period.

This raises the question of what the drivers on theexpansion in the number and range of posts might be. Forexample, we could separate those institutions which forreasons of their smaller size - or perhaps type - have nevercreated or appointed PVC posts. If we thus focus on thoseinstitutions with at least one PVC, or equivalent, then in1960 these institutions typically appointed to just one post.In the sample year before the Jarratt exercise, the figure hadalready risen to almost two per institution. This upwardtrend was maintained, in the wake of Jarratt, but did notaccelerate significantly. By 2005 the average number ofPVCs per HEI had risen to just 2.36.

Scale therefore seems to be a factor, but we have notinvestigated that relationship in this study. We can onlydraw attention, at this stage, to the need to disaggregatethe complex factors which may influence the size andstructure of senior management teams.

What stands out, apart from the decade-to-decade rise innumbers, is the long-term persistence of some specific jobtitles referring essentially to this same post, or a close variantof it. Table 1 disguises an element of complexity, since wehave assigned a diversity of job titles to the category of ‘pro-vice chancellor’. Most did include that within the title butsome variants appeared to occupy the same position in anSMT under a different label.

As Table 2 makes clear, the variations have proliferated,rather than diminished over time. As a proportion of thetotal, the titles ‘pro-vice-chancellor’and ‘vice principal’haveremained by far the most prevalent. But this figure disguisesa shift. In the smaller higher education system of 1960, onlyfive of the total number of posts identified did not carry thetitle ‘pro-vice-chancellor’. By 2005, there were no less than92 SMT posts across the unified and enlarged system thatcarried titles other than ‘PVC’. The second most frequentpost, by some margin and consistent over the decades, hasbeen Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC – see Table 1). Thesefigures suggest that the distinction between PVC and DVCposts has remained a significant ‘signal’over the period.

These results reflect a rather different picture than mighthave been inferred from a superficial reading of the Jarrattreport. A number of observations can be made. First, it isclear that the system has witnessed a secular increase in thenumber of PVCs and equivalent posts and that this trend wasalready clear before the Jarratt exercise. Nor is there anyevidence from ACU data to indicate any discontinuity in thenumber of posts in the wake of Jarratt. On the contrary,when viewed against the spectacular growth in the systemboth in terms of the number of HEIs and student numbers,the changes over time in PVC posts do not appear to be outof step. The other feature is the conservatism that the systemhas shown in signalling the nature of the post by its title.

Jarratt’s comments on the office of PVC appear, whenviewed retrospectively from this statistical perspective, tohave been slightly misleading. It is probable that he wasunduly influenced by practice at his six selected case studyinstitutions. While Jarratt was correct to draw attention to avariable number of PVCs between universities, hisobservation that usually three or four were in post appliedat that time to only a very limited number of institutions.

52 The ACU data exclude the former polytechnics until the ending of the binary divide in 1992.

However, details for these institutions are included in the figures for the sample years 2000 and 2005.

18


NUMBER OF PVC AND EQUIVALENT POSTS AND INSTITUTIONAL SPREAD FOR SAMPLE YEARS

TABLE 2

Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor

PVC and Sub-Warden

PVC and Vice-Principal

PVC and Director of (area)

PVC and Registrar

Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor

PVC and Assistant VC

Assistant Vice-Chancellor

Second Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Executive Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor

Assistant VC, Finance Director

Vice-Principal

Senior Vice-Principal

Senior Deputy Principal

Vice-Principal and Warden of St Bart's

Vice-Principal (Director of Information Services)

Vice-Principal and Director of Studies

Assistant Principal

Pro-Vice-Principal

Principal and Vice-Principal

Vice-Provost

Pro-Rector

Pro-Provost

Pro-Director

Pro-Warden

Deputy Director

Rector and Vice-Provost

Vice-President

Commissary

Deputy High Steward

Orator

POST TITLE 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

10 34 61 74 157 185

1 3 3 3 2

1 1 1 1 1

2 2 1

5

1

1

1

3 1

1 1

2

1

1

4 9 18 25 38 47

1 2 2

1 1

1 1

1

1

13 2

1 1

1

1 3 4 6 5

1 2 2 2 3 7

4 4

1 1 2 2 1

3 3

1 4

1 1 1 1 1

4

1

1

2

19

Even by 1990 the mean number of PVCs was two perinstitution. Our data confirm that Jarratt’s case studies wereinstitutions with more PVCs than the average. This is partlyexplained by the special nature of the institutions. Three ofthe six were drawn from the ranks of the larger civics –Nottingham, Sheffield and UCL. Edinburgh, though older,was also a large and complex institution. Of the remainingtwo, Essex, created in the 1960s, already had three PVCs by1980, while Loughborough was unusual among the ex-CATsin having both a PVC and a senior PVC. Table 3 providesfurther detail of the longer-term trend in these institutions.

Our analysis provides little evidence of a sudden rushtowards appointing more senior manager second-tier postsin the form of PVCs in the wake of Jarratt’s findings. Theanalysis lends rather more support to the idea of a longer-term or quiet revolution in management, at least asindicated by the progressive rise in the numbers of PVCs inthe system, and this is especially so when scaled against thegrowth of the system itself.

Stimulated by expansion planned before Robbins reported,some universities started to develop cross-institutionalmanagement capacity prior to the 1980’s political obsessionwith efficiency. This trend continued in the post-Jarrattworld. Although we cannot discount the possible impact of

Jarratt’s executive model on the steady increase in thenumber of PVCs in subsequent years, the trend appears tohave been impervious to this and other external influenceson higher education.

The development of research selectivity and its associatedsystem of research assessment from 1986 onwards willcertainly have had an impact on the designation of PVCposts, though not on overall numbers. We found that themost frequent specified responsibility among PVC posts isthat of the PVC for Research. On the whole, this is also theearliest ‘designated’ PVC post to appear. This almostcertainly reflects the response of institutions to the ResearchAssessment Exercise (RAE) and the need for an institutionalresponse to the strategic and management demands that itintroduced.

A profile of continuity: PVC backgrounds

This section switches from the broader trend in the growthof the post to a more detailed portrait of changes inrecruitment and promotion over the same period. Againthe picture that emerges is one of continuity.

The statistical profile paints a fairly clear picture of more orless continuous long-term growth in the number of PVCs inthe system. The vast majority of those appointed to pro-

PVC AND EQUIVALENT POSTS AT THE SIX ‘JARRATT’ CASE STUDY UNIVERSITIES

TABLE 3

Edinburgh Senior Vice-Principal

Vice-Principal

Essex PVC

Loughborough Senior PVC

PVC

Nottingham Deputy VC

PVC

Sheffield Deputy VC

PVC

UCL Vice Provost

Pro-Provost

UNIVERSITY POST 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

1

2 2 3 4 6

1 3 3 4 3

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 2 3 3

1 1

1 4 4 4 5

1

1 3 3 4 4 4

1 2 3 6 5

4

20


vice-chancellorships are career academics. Over 80 per centof all PVCs across our sample years since 1960 were‘professors’. It is possible that some of these were promotedto a chair whilst in post, but it is reasonable to assume thatthe vast majority had already established themselves assuccessful academics before moving into the post.

There are other enduring features that define the likelyattributes of those who make it into second-tier leadershiproles. The record of SMT members’ qualifications is patchy,so some caveats need to be entered. Nonetheless, someinteresting conclusions can be drawn.

If we take first degree awarded as a proxy for the initialacademic subject areas of PVCs then we find those fromscience backgrounds outnumbering those from the artsand social sciences - though not by a huge margin.Certainly there is no evidence of a science takeover in seniormanagement. However, the marginal superiority of sciencebackgrounds provides a footnote to longer-term historical

trajectories. Whereas early 20th century Oxford, forinstance, remained dominated by ‘the serried ranks ofclassicists’, at Cambridge ‘scientists governed its affairs asmuch as arts men’ 53.

The influences of Oxford and Cambridge, curricular orotherwise, are of more than passing interest in the contextof contemporary university leadership. The data show thatthe Oxbridge MA has changed in predominance from thesine qua non of the 1960 pre-Robbins institution. It hasdeclined in relative frequency in every year as the hoi polloimeritocracy established its grip.

A small, but significant, proportion of PVCs had alsoachieved high-status external recognition for theiracademic achievements, either before or during theirperiod of PVC office. This is reinforced by the profile ofmembership of Fellowship in one or more of the main UKbased learned societies and institutes (Royal Society, BritishAcademy, Royal Academy of Engineering, etc.).

FIRST RECORDED QUALIFICATION OF SMT MEMBERS

TABLE 4

BA

BSc

MA

MSc

MA % total

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

3 8 12 26 105 130

2 16 31 42 137 164

37 59 63 68 75 69

1 12 8 11 18 12

86 62 55 46 22 18

SECOND RECORDED QUALIFICATION OF SMT MEMBERS

TABLE 5

PhD+DPhil

MA

MSc

DSc

PhD + DPhil % total

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

16 43 78 108 178 194

7 16 22 24 65 60

2 5 4 48 60

3 8 11 19 8 7

62 62 67 70 60 60

53 Annan, N. (1999) p32

21

We already know from previous research on vice-chancellors’ profiles that attendance at Oxford orCambridge has constituted an enduring anddisproportionate feature on the propensity to succeed tothe top academic post in universities54. Given that thisresearch had already shown the close correlation betweenbeing a PVC and becoming a VC, we expected to find asimilarly disproportionate number of PVCs with ‘Oxbridge’backgrounds. The figures confirm this to be the case.

There are 85 HEIs among those which awarded first degreesto SMT members, of which most are in the UK. The list is

dominated by Cambridge and Oxford in the early years.They remain among the most frequent in 2005. London(including increasingly independent constituents) hasshown the greatest growth. The ‘big civics’ generally nowprovide more SMT members across the system. The place ofthe two Scottish institutions among the lead UK-wide groupis unexpected.

We also examined PVC backgrounds as indicated by theawarding institution of post-graduate degrees. Table 7confirms and illuminates the growing diversification acrossthe HE system and the emergence of talent in many places.

MOST FREQUENT AWARDING INSTITUTIONS OF FIRST QUALIFICATIONS

TABLE 6

Cambridge

Oxford

London

Birmingham

Bristol

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Manchester

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

13 21 29 32 41 41

17 22 33 31 51 31

4 19 30 34 42 47

2 5 5 15 14

2 3 2 7 12 12

1 7 2 2 10 8

3 7 4 9 15 9

6 8 8 10 15

MOST FREQUENT AWARDING INSTITUTIONS OF SECOND QUALIFICATIONS

TABLE 7

Cambridge

Oxford

London

Birmingham

Bristol

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Manchester

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

8 20 25 29 30 31

7 9 20 27 46 37

4 14 23 28 46 50

1 4 6 3 17 12

2 1 2 5 7 7

3 1 2 2 5 10

1 7 2 9 10 6

2 2 4 4 12 13

54 Bargh, C. et al (2000)

22


There is a time factor to consider in these data: from whichinstitutions would the SMT members of 1970 and 1980 havegraduated? Most would have graduated before Robbins.Even by 1990 the changes in the sector were only justbeginning to affect the make-up of this tier of management.

The diversity of awarding institutions for higher degrees isgreater than that for first degrees and more of them areinternational. The spread of ‘most frequent’ in Table 7 issimilar to that in Table 6, however, and the trends areessentially the same.

First degrees from former polytechnics comprise a minutefraction of those in PVC posts. Partly of course this is afunction of age, since the polytechnics as a collective entityof institutions didn’t exist until the late 1960s. Nevertheless,the figure is startlingly small, even for the most recentsample years (2000, 2005). Extending this analysis to thosewith an ex-polytechnic awarded post-graduate degreeproduces even slimmer numbers. Overseas backgroundsare, unsurprisingly, rare until the present period.

The pattern of recruitment from within the academy appearsto be an enduring feature of the sector. Exhortations foruniversities to become more business or executive in theirstructures and styles of leadership and management havenot led to any discernible or significant changes, either in thetitles applied to second tier roles or in the typical avenue intosuch posts. There is evidence to suggest some changes atthe margins in very recent appointments, as will becomeobvious from the ‘insider’ accounts of PVC job presented inthe next chapter. There is also a new challenge to theprimacy of the PVC and DVC in second tier academicleadership roles in the form of a new breed of ‘super dean’,but this is not yet evident in the data captured in Table 1 andit is too early to discern any shift in longer-term patterns.

Part of the explanation for the enduring nature of appointingacademics to lead academia, rather than say recruitinggeneral managers from outside with more genericleadership and management skills, lies in the simpleproposition that not all PVC vacancies are open to externalapplicants. We cannot say with any precision whatproportion of PVC posts are in effect closed in this way. Weknow from existing sources that some parts of the sector,notably the post-1992 HEIs, are traditionally more inclined toopen posts to external competition. (We also have someevidence that some PVC posts in the pre-1992 institutionshave been advertised externally: we return to this issue in thenext chapter). For the most part however the typical avenueinto PVC posts remains defined and referenced by successfulexperience as a career academic, not just as evidence by thetitle of professor, but by previous engagement in some formof leadership and management activity.

We were not so much surprised as disappointed to confirmthat, in a sector where top-posts have traditionally beenmale-dominated, there is an extensive gender imbalanceamong PVC post holders.

Gender of SMT members has been determined for thispurpose from a visual review of first names, and it istherefore a potentially inaccurate assignment. In the earlypart of the period most senior staff tended to use onlyinitials but there was a progressive switch to recording firstnames so that the gender of most staff can be inferredreasonably consistently by 2005.

If we assume that those staff who continue in 2005 to useonly their initials are male, then the proportion of femaleshas increased. However, if we make the more conservativecalculation based on only those staff whose names allow usto assign them to male or female, then there has been somevariation but no discernible trend in the gender balance.

IDENTIFIABLE GENDER OF SMT MEMBERS

TABLE 8

Unspecified

M Total

F Total

F as % total

F as % F + M

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005

44 129 157 189 123 85

16 12 17 19 263 316

5 2 1 10 34 67

8 1 1 5 8 14

24 14 6 34 11 17

23

Summary

This chapter has drawn attention, firstly, to the discourses ofmanagement and governance that have framed theevolution of the pro-vice-chancellorship since the 1960s.The need for change has been consistently argued on thebasis of a perception of deficit in management capacity andquality across the sector. A breakdown in trust is acharacteristic of this discourse, with academic-dominatedforms of governance and management – often derided as‘management by committee’ – regarded as the primarycause of management failures and a general lack ofmanagement quality. A consistent theme in the rhetoric ofreformers has been an emphasis on creating strongerexecutive structures and more dynamic decision-making.Although the prescriptions for change routinely over-simplify the complex relationship between governance andmanagement in universities, they have exhibited a sharedfaith in the application of industry-derived models oforganisation and decision-making as the best route to moreeffective leadership and management, as well, it is worthnoting, as a more entrepreneurial culture. Hence, twodecades on from the Jarratt exercise on university efficiency,the Lambert Report was able to celebrate outstandingexamples of successful executive style leadership in someuniversities and moreover, in advocating more of the samein other universities, declare confidently that ‘the directionof reform in the sector is right’55.

Yet throughout the debates about governance andmanagement over this period, nagging doubts haveremained about the efficacy and fitness for purpose of theexecutive or corporate model. In contrast to theexhortations of reviewers like Jarratt and Lambert,academic studies of governance and executive leadershiphave produced detailed empirical accounts that emphasisethe persistence of traditional values and alternative modelsto explain how universities as creative organisations actuallyoperate56. Thus what for some is perceived as inefficienciesassociated with ‘management by committee’and cultures ofconsensus, for others provides room and some empiricalevidence to celebrate the specificity of the academicenterprise.

The contrast is probably overdrawn, but the apparentlystubborn persistence of older cultures and continuitieswithin higher education’s management models is striking.One example is the persistence of the committee withinacademic governance as a forum for developing consensus.The committee is not a decision making locus. It is notnecessarily inefficient or in need of abolition, because in a

collegial environment the committee is a place where theconsensus can be created and endorsed. In this sense thecommittee creates opportunities for self-management. Thepersistence of such apparently archaic structures may beinterpreted therefore not as a negative, but as an enablingfeature of higher education. Nevertheless, the argumentssurrounding committees (as much as collegiality) haveimportant implications for the role of the PVC.

Our study of the changing role of pro-vice-chancellors islocated within the historical discourse surroundinggovernance and management. Despite Jarratt’spredictions, our first cut of the data on the changing profileof the pro-vice-chancellorship suggests some enduringfeatures that are not easily explained by an inexorablemarch towards executive structures. These data indicatesome clear secular trends in both the numbers anddistribution of the pro-vice-chancellorship across the sector.From these figures it would appear that the principal driverof the upward trend in PVC numbers since the 1960s wasthe expansion of the system associated with the transitionfrom elite to mass forms of higher education provision Thetotal number of PVCs in the system has certainly increasedover time, but so too has the number of institutions. Whilethe nature of the management model may also havechanged over time it is clear that shifts in scale as much asthe style of institutions cannot be discounted in anyexplanation of secular trends in the profile of the pro-vice-chancellorship.

3. BECOMING A PRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR

Introduction

The statistical profile presented in the previous chapterprovides a baseline for a more detailed consideration of thecontemporary role of pro-vice-chancellors. We have arguedthat the historical evolution of the role is characterised bystrong elements of continuity, particularly in the enduringnature of job titles, the typical avenues of promotion intothe job and the backgrounds of those who make it into thesecond tier. From this historical portrait the present chapteris the first exploring contemporary ‘insider’ accountsportraying what the world of being a PVC looks like from theperspectives of those in the job.

The focus in this chapter is on how one becomes a PVC. Itcommences with some personal experiences of theselection and appointment procedures used by the sector

55 Lambert R. (2003) para 7.556 Bargh, C. et al (1996) & (2000); Deem, R. et al (2001): Shattock, M. (2002)

24


to recruit new PVCs. We are interested in the actualmethods used to identify a pool of potential recruits forsenior appointments. How are they identified? Whatattributes and skills are required? How are these evidenced?Who does the selecting? How open is recruitment? Fromthe methods of making senior appointments the secondsection turns to PVCs’views of their preparation and trainingto take on the job.

The aims are to construct a broader account of how peoplework their way into senior leadership posts and to identifythe attributes and experiences valued by the appointmentprocess. Later outputs from the project will covercomparative material from European and Australian highereducation systems. Analysis of these data will provide a setof wider benchmarks against which to compare andcontrast evolving roles and models in the UK system. Thefinal part summarises our findings.

Selection and appointment procedures

Our research confirmed that appointment procedures toPVC posts vary considerably across the sector. There is alsoevidence that some universities are changing theirapproach to senior appointments, borrowing practicespreviously the preserve of other parts of the sector. Thecontinuities evident in the broader profile of recruitment tosecond tier jobs remain largely undisturbed, but there is awillingness in some quarters to challenge establishedorthodoxies and borrow practices previously consideredthe preserve of other types of universities. However,institutional policy relating to appointment of senioruniversity officers is normally enshrined in universitystatutes and, at this level at least, there are some importantand entrenched distinctions between the pre- and post-1992 universities.

A key role in the pre-1992 universities is reserved foracademic influence, normally exercised through the Senate.For example, Ordnance 3 of the University of Warwick, oneof the 1960s new universities, sets out the procedure for PVCappointments. A lead role in the process is reserved for theSenate, with professorial influence exercised through theappointment of Senate members to an ‘Advisory Committeeon the Appointment of Pro-Vice-Chancellors’. Thestipulation for members is that they have ‘some directknowledge and experience of the roles and responsibilitiesof Pro Vice-Chancellors or other senior managementresponsibilities within the University’ (see Statute 8(2)). Atthe University of Sheffield, one of the large civic institutionsfounded before the First World War, Section 7 of the statutesdeclares that nominally PVCs are appointed by the

University Council. However, here too the Senate has a keyrole, providing not just a report or advice to the Council onany such appointment but in furnishing the names ofpossible candidates who are members or former membersof the Senate. Similarly, Ordinance 6 of the federalUniversity of Wales, Aberystwyth, empowers the Senate tonominate pro-vice-chancellors, the appointment formallybeing the responsibility of the Council.

Since the statutes also make it clear that pro-vice-chancellors are responsible to the vice-chancellor and ‘act asdeputies to the Vice-Chancellor’ (e.g. University of Essex), itmay seem surprising that the same documents are less thanfulsome about the particular role in the appointmentsprocess to be played by the vice-chancellor. Most contentthemselves by reserving for the vice-chancellor the role ofrecommending to the Council the number of PVC posts.Several, such as the University of Bristol (Ordinance 11),allocate to vice-chancellors the task of preparing PVC jobdescriptions and person specifications, advertising thesame within the university and calling for applications frommembers of the university staff. Others, such as Warwick,reserve for the VC the right to consider the personsrecommended by the Advisory Committee of the Senateand either (i) recommend the appointment, or, (ii) refer arecommendation back for further consideration.

Not all statutes go this far. In many cases the vice-chancellor’s role is not normally specified, leaving influencefrom this key office to be exercised behind the scenes andthrough various forms of formal and informalrecommendations and selection processes. Even where therole of vice-chancellors is fairly tightly specified, it is clearfrom our site visit data that their role and influence normallyextends in directions beyond the formal prescriptions.

In the post-1992 institutions, traditionally the process isreserved for the vice-chancellor and governing body. Thescope for academic involvement, at least via theconstitutional formalities specified in charters, is highlycircumscribed. Several PVCs confirmed that their ownappointment panels comprised the VC and perhaps DVC,together with members of the governing body, but did notinclude any role for academic boards or academics.

These formal or constitutional arrangements forappointment and selection reflect different modes ofthinking about the most appropriate methods of choosingsenior university officers. In the civic institutions and thoseof the post-Robbins period during the 1960s, seniorappointments were assumed to be the business of the

25

academic community. Senates and academic departments,it was assumed, were the ultimate repositories of supremeauthority in universities57. The idea that appointments tosenior positions were the legitimate business of governingbodies or, indeed, the vice-chancellor, was simply not seenas credible in an era when senate and academicdepartments were still regarded internally as the dominantlocus of power. Even in the immediate post-Jarratt worldsuch attitudes lay largely unchallenged in many of the olderuniversities. One vice-chancellor provided a clear picture ofhow one of the major civic universities continued to operatealong traditional lines:

‘In the period when I became the PVC at [institution]it was basically ‘buggins turn’. The existing PVC andthe VC took soundings and then approached aselected individual. It was expected that they wouldhave been prominent on committees, probably theChair of a …Board. There was continual reinventionof the individual role according to experience andnecessity, and there was no formal training of anykind…’

Former PVC pre-1960 University

‘The established pattern in the pre-1992 universities was toview PVC posts as part-time and temporary appointments.The assumption was that those appointed would retainlinks with their departments, remain research active andreturn to their full-time academic posts at the end of theirappointment period. Indeed, writing in the 1970s, Fieldenand Lockwood58 argued strongly that their experiencesuggested ‘a correspondence exists in terms of an individualacademic’s ability in his discipline and his administrative ormanagement ability’. Fearing a future in which theuniversities assigned management responsibilities solely tothose no longer active in research or teaching theywelcomed the trend towards rotation as a means ofincreasing participation in management and avoiding ‘therigidity and complacency which can result from longtenures.’

Fielden and Lockwood (1973): 50-51

An alternative model was to be found in the formerpolytechnics, however. Later in the 1980s, the process ofsetting free the polytechnics provided a deliberate, evenideologically inspired, business oriented alternative to theacademic style of governance59. For these institutions localauthority interference in management, a legacy of the

earlier determination to have ‘a sector under social control’,had manifested itself in lack of confidence about their abilityto rationally manage their own affairs60. Conforming to amanagerialist culture borrowed from business was oneresponse. In these ‘new’ universities PVC posts weredeemed permanent appointments, advertised externallyand, theoretically at least, open to a more diverse pool ofpotential recruits.

Because they are enshrined in the codified constitutionalarrangements of the universities, these models continue todistinguish practices in the pre- and post-1992 institutions.However, our interview data describes a more complexpicture. From the experiences of those in such posts wehave drawn two principal models describing currentapproaches to selection and appointment. Each model hasseveral variants, but the core features of the variants aresufficiently similar to warrant inclusion into one of the twomodels. We characterise these models as (A) ‘Selection byinvitation’; and (B) ‘Competitive recruitment’. A third model- (C) ‘Election by senate’ – was also identified during theresearch but is rare. In some institutions it is combined withother appointment models.61 Our analysis concentratestherefore on Models A and B. Each is illustrated withreference to selected vignettes drawn from the site visitinterviews.

Model A: Selection by invitation

The first model is in essence a patronage model of selection.The appointment is de facto in the gift of the vice-chancellorwho invites people, normally from within the university, tobecome a PVC. Respondents with experience of this modelreferred to it variously as the ‘hand’ or ‘tap on the shoulder’.These colloquialisms describe a semi-formal system ofinternal selection found in several of our site visitinstitutions, all of them pre-1992 universities. In this model,individuals are identified as potential PVCs andappointment occurs as an outcome of a series of‘conversations’rather than formal interview.

In its purest form the selection model is in the gift of thevice-chancellor who acts as the principal patron in theappointment process. In the following extract a former PVC,now a VC, provided a personal account of his experience ofthis model:

‘I hadn’t expected to become a PVC and there wasno…sense that pro-vice-chancellorships wereadvertised or even announced in any way…. Therewas a Committee on PVCs which technically was

57 Moodie, G.C. and Eustace, R. (1974)58 Fielden, J. and Lockwood, G. (1973)59 Kogan, M. (1989)60 Pratt, J. (1997) p294, p303

61 Our sense is that in operational terms it is VCs who nearly always have the whip hand in

terms of PVC appointments, regardless of university statutes. However, because of its

rarity in UK HEIs the election model is not discussed further in this report.

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chaired by the vice-chancellor…. There was nointerview. What happened was that they tooksoundings among existing PVCs about people thatthey might think would be any good in the job andthen took soundings off the people that had beenmentioned…. So two of them came to see me in myoffice and talked about it. Interestingly enough …. [theVC] had not said anything about it….. So we talkedabout it and it was all slightly inconclusive. I expressedan interest and then had a conversation with … [theVC] later, when it became much more concrete.

It was that kind of process, you know, how you usedto elect the leader of the Conservative Party in theold days, taking soundings, no interview, you didn’tmake an application, you didn’t say ‘If I became aPVC I would do x, y or z’.

Well what sort of things did they ask you?

Well…it was a relatively brief, casual, conversationreally. I think they came in and said your name hasbeen mentioned as someone who might be apossibility….that kind of very casual conversation.They didn’t appear to have any set of questions oranything like that.

They didn’t have a particular agenda?

No, they had no particular agenda, no. The very factI can’t remember very much about it shows that itwas fairly unstructured really, because it wasn’t thatlong ago!’

PVC, pre-1960 University

This experience is not untypical of other experiencesrecounted by both current and former PVCs. Severalrespondents confirmed that they too had not known thatthey had been identified as potential PVCs or even that avacancy was imminent. Nor were they clear why, or throughwhat process, their names had even emerged as potentialapplicants.

Model B: Competitive recruitment

The second model is distinguished from the first bytransparency in both process and selection criteria. It ischaracterised by the formal announcement of vacancies aswell as publication of job details including personspecification. Candidates apply for the post and subjectthemselves to the demands of the selection process,

typically involving combinations of formal and semi-formalinterviews. The model may of course involve behind thescenes conversations between the vice-chancellor or othermembers of the senior team and potential applicants, but inessence the purpose is to open the recruitment process tocompetition between a wider range of candidates.However, there are two significant variants to this model.

(i) Internal competition

In this variant competition is restricted to the institutionmaking the appointment. Application is open to anymember of staff, though for all practical purposes theappointment is likely to be filled from a more restricted poolof applicants able to show previous experience ofleadership perhaps at departmental or faculty level. Severalin our sample of PVCs had experienced this model at firsthand. In the following account a PVC explained:

‘An advert came out, yes. And I talked to a lot ofpeople, like you do with these things, I talked to theperson who had the job before, I talked to a lot ofother people about it, what was involved and therest of it. Because even though I had an idea, itwasn’t obvious to me what the distinction wasbetween the posts…. We knew they were in chargeof various areas….

What about the appointment procedure? Can you tellme a bit about what you had to do to actually get thejob?

Well, the first thing is to send in your full CV and soon….and covering letter talking about, if you like,looking across these characteristics and sayingwhere you fit the job description…. Then we had tomake a presentation to a committee which wasformed of senior members of the University,including the Vice-Chancellor and Registrar andDeputy Vice-Chancellor and a lay member ofCouncil. What we had to do there was make apresentation to start with…. It was a one hour 15minutes. First 15 minutes were a presentation: ‘Howcan [title]’….designed to show a broad appreciationof what’s going on in the University, rather than justin your subject area…. That was quite challengingactually….. Then questions from the panel on yourpresentation. And then the rest of the time wasinterview, general questions.

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Was it arduous?

A bit arduous, though I don’t get nervous aboutthings. One advantage of knowing people is thatyou don’t get as nervous if you don’t know them,but you can’t predict what they’re going to say.

But it wasn’t too bad? It wasn’t an absolute grilling?

Well, it was probably a sort of gentle heating over dyingcoals, or whatever. So that was the set up and the jobdescription was quite clear I think what was expected.’

PVC, 1960-1990 University

(ii) Open recruitment

The second variant opens competition to internal andexternal applicants. Those who had experience of thismethod described a much more formal route into the job.In the following extract the PVC describes his experience asa successful internal candidate in a much more overtlycompetitive and open process:

‘There were two jobs going at the time, as PVCs. Ihad to submit an application, outlining the areas ofresponsibility, across the whole range for those two.The internal applications were dealt with by aninternal preliminary interview process. Externalapplications were dealt with by one of the[headhunter] companies….they had about 90applications and the headhunters interviewedabout 25 or 30 and presented 15 externals to thevice-chancellor. And I think there were about 5 or 6or 7 internals, which were dealt with entirely by thevice-chancellor and the interview group. They theninterviewed the 15 presented by the headhunters,and came up with a shortlist…of 8 of which I wasthe only internal. And that was a two day process.

Was that onerous?

Yes, well we used to – all senior jobs… were all twoday processes…. Tours round… meeting people,death by knife and fork in the evening….. And in themorning the first stage of interviews were theappointment panels and each interviewed eachcandidate and at lunch time only a smaller numberwent through to the formal interviews, so from eightin the morning it went down to four in the afternoon.

Were there any particular areas of focus?

I had to do a presentation to senior staff, in themorning, as well…. Well a lot of the focus was onareas of responsibility that I had identified that Iwould like under my portfolio. An assessment of mystrengths and weaknesses in how to take on thoseresponsibilities. I didn’t get what I wanted!’

PVC post-1990 University

The final example illustrates experience of opencompetitive recruitment where the successful candidatecame from outside the institution. In this case the post, for apro-vice-chancellor in a pre-1992 university, had beenadvertised in the national press:

‘I’d been thinking about leaving… [my previouspost] for a short while. … I felt if I was going to moveout… I’d need to do it fairly soon, otherwise onegets to a certain age where people think you’reprobably too old to move…. I decided that mybackground might be of interest to the universitysector and I’d enjoy returning to the universitysector….. A number of PVC roles were advertisedduring that period….

There was no sense that I was in peoples’ mindswhen it was advertised. As far as I was concerned itwas a genuine advert and I applied as an unknownquantity. I was unknown to [the VC]…. Mypredecessor had been unlike the other PVCs beforeme…. Although he was a career academic[University] academic, he had been in his PVC rolefor some time…whereas I think the others normallydid three year stints. I think the feeling was that thisparticular role…required a fuller time commitment.And required a longer tenure to make something ofit…. I think that was the reason why they thoughtwell given that we are looking for someone thatwe’d be happy to see in the role for some time, whydon’t we advertise it as a real job….

It’s an open ended appointment…. There wasn’t alot of discussion about that. But I did make it clearthat I wasn’t going to be very willing to give up apermanent job in [sector] for a fixed-term job with nofuture…. The fact that they wanted to appoint me atall meant that they were moving away from that [re-entry] model. I don’t have a credible academic baseto go back to…. I don’t have an academic homehere, I’m not a typical academic PVC….’

PVC 1960-1990 University

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These examples illustrate some fundamental differences inapproaches to the selection process. Against the clearlyenunciated procedures and criteria associated with thecompetitive recruitment model, the equivalent elements inselection by invitation can appear opaque, evendiscriminatory, by comparison. Several whose route intothe job had been via the patronage model admitted tohaving no clear idea why they had been identified as apotential PVC or even in some cases that a vacancy wasimminent. Nor were they clear why, or through whatprocess, their names had even emerged as potentialapplicants. Since selection criteria are not formally specifiedin this model, the process may leave even successfulcandidates speculating on just why they had beenidentified for selection, as the following excerpt from aformer head of department illustrates. The respondent wasasked why he thought he had been approached as apotential PVC. He responded:

‘Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I think what they didwas, I think, this is probably going to sound arrogantnow, but the VC was looking for people who hadshown they had a skill as managers. It was a verylarge department. It…went through a massivetransformation from being a hum drum…thing intoa, well, it got a 5 in the RAE…financially make itsuccessful so it returned a significant surplus, buildup a graduate school. We did well as a department,but it wasn’t just me. But I think that was seen as,this person is strategic; this person can turn thingsaround; and so on…. So I presume that’s why I wasselected. I don’t know whether other people wereasked, I mean, I’ve no idea. There must be someprocesses; it’s a bit of a mystery to me…. People whohave been asked, have got good reputations ofturning departments around, building them up,have the respect of their colleagues…. So I thinkthose must be the criteria.’


Whatever the model of course, all institutions contain areservoir of potential leadership talent. Those who havebeen ‘blooded’ in various roles – typically heads ofdepartment or deans of faculty – are historically the primecandidates for selection. However, all in this group will sharebroadly similar management and leadership experiences,so some additional criteria are required in order todistinguish those with real potential for PVC roles.

One VC admitted that identifying potential PVCs from thispool is done ‘with great difficulty’. It involves ‘knowingpeople’, their strengths and weaknesses. Soundings aretaken from other senior colleagues, including serving PVCs,to gain a picture of who the VC can work with, ‘who will begood’. As one VC observed:

‘In order to choose good [PVCs] I do a lot of walkingaround. I know all the professors…. [I take] a verysubstantial look at individuals’ strengths whenchoosing who to appoint.’

VC pre-1960 University

The decision as to which method of selection to employmay therefore derive from an initial assessment of the likelytalent available internally. Sometimes the prospect ofappointing from the ‘old lags’ (VC) in the departments orschools is sufficiently unappealing to result in a decision toadvertise externally. If however the pool looks as though itmight yield some people of high potential then the VC maydecide to construct an initial ‘invitation’ list - potentialleaders who have been ‘selected but not anointed’(PVC).

The selection by invitation system requires, in the words ofone PVC, ‘people to get on the radar’ if it is to workeffectively. Those without the ‘visibility’ attached todepartmental and faculty roles are unlikely to be detected,though it is not impossible of course. Some respondents feltthis automatically introduced some gender bias into themodel of selection, since women are typically under-represented among the professoriate generally and insenior departmental and faculty in particular. Otherscountered that the advantage of the patronage model isthat it facilitates selection where potential leaders, male orfemale, had not necessarily thought of putting themselvesforward for consideration. We have no evidence on whichto judge the merit of these arguments. We merely reportthe finding and place it in the context of the models ofselection currently being operated across the sector.

Certainly the persistence of a system based essentially onpatronage had surprised some of the PVCs interviewed,even though they owed their position to it. Severalconceded that its great weakness is that it may producecandidates who owe their allegiance more to the VC thanthe institution itself. As one DVC put it, ‘They are thecreation of their patrons and will live and die with him [orher]’. On the other hand, it can also engender intense loyaltyto the leader.

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It is important to emphasise that both models of selectionmay be operated in the same institution. Our site visitsrevealed at least four cases where PVC appointments hadbeen made following a process of external advertisementand engagement of ‘head hunters’. Three of these were pre-1992 institutions where the successful candidates nowworked alongside PVCs appointed through the invitationmodel. On the other hand, we encountered no cases of thelatter model being employed in the post-1992 institutions.The preferred method among these institutions iscompetitive recruitment, though, as one of the examplesabove suggests, this may nevertheless result in an internalappointment.

Finally, although the invitation model may appear to accordmore extensive power to the VC as patron, the evidencefrom those institutions operating both selection modelssuggest this contrast to be less stark than might besupposed. But whatever the model, the appointmentprocess derives most of its direction and energy from theVC’s office. Although the dignified elements of governancearrangements may formally delegate powers to nominatenames or implement certain procedures, the ‘efficient’elements in the day-to-day management of the institutionensure that executive powers are normally retained in thehands of the vice-chancellor. While some deputy vice-chancellors are technically hired (and fired) by thegoverning body, even in these instances it is inconceivablethat the post holder would be able to operate effectivelywithout the sustained support of the vice-chancellor. Asone VC observed, ‘Formally they [PVC appointments] aresigned off by the Council. If they refused I would leave’.

Preparation for the role

As the statistical portrait indicated, PVCs are drawnoverwhelmingly from the ranks of senior academics –people with high achievement and recognition in theirdisciplinary fields of play, coupled with experience ofleading academic departments or faculties. We have alsodrawn attention to the overt recognition given to suchachievement in the models of selection employed toappoint PVCs. In this sense, those who become PVCs arelikely to have been adjudged as competent leaders andmanagers even if the frameworks on which such judgmentsare made are inclined to be less than consistent. As Henkelhas shown, part of this validation process involves acquiringa public identity that ‘feeds into the sense of an individualprofessional identity and self-esteem’, one reinforcing theother in a ‘virtuous, if often fragile, circle’62.

The reification of this practice and experience of leadershipis an important part of the cultural attributes of the systemof promotion and development in higher education. Twoportraits from the interview data illustrate how identity,practice and self-confidence, if not self-esteem, are involvedin how PVCs make sense of their preparation for the role.The first example is drawn from an interview with a PVCoccupying a permanent position in a post-1992 universitywho reflects on the value of his experiences as dean of alarge and diverse faculty:

‘How long were you a dean?

Approximately seven years.

How valuable was that experience as dean beforemoving to become a PVC?

With the academic responsibilities I have it wouldhave been very difficult if I hadn’t been a dean. AsDean I was responsible for all parts of the Faculty, andit was quite a large one. The important thing is thatyou have experience of a diverse faculty…. I didn’thave the extent of the line managementresponsibilities I do now. I line manage directors, ofcentral services. I don’t have any significantbudgetary responsibilities which I did have as a dean.

If you think back across your experiences, whether asdean or head of department, what do you think werethe main attributes that you had to develop during thatacademic career to equip you to be a PVC?

People management is number one. And acceptingthat managing people takes care and time andthoroughness. And number two is budgetaryresponsibility. Understanding budgets and makingsure the faculty hit its budget requirements with theUniversity. Then number three is academicstandards. I’m afraid it’s in that order in terms of thetime I used to spend on things as a dean. In the endacademic standards were critical, but I think I couldsay that was how my time was spent…. I think youtend to think that academic standards are youroverriding priority and in the early days of being adean, managing 250 – 300 staff, you’ve always gotone or two difficult, difficult cases going on with thatnumber of staff. In the early days you kind of resentthe time that you have to spend on them. But then,you know, you end up in the odd industrial tribunalyou appreciate then the need to, so yes.

62 Henkel, M. (2000) p187

Does that mean you need to become reasonablyhardened to things before you become PVC?

I don’t think hardened is the right word. You justhave to become experienced. I’m not a toughperson. I’m not a soft touch. I’m not a toughie, butI’m experienced. I think that experience allows youto explain to people difficult things, rather than justsort of jump in with your boots.’

PVC post-1990 University

The second example is a DVC:

‘How have you gained the ability to take on a DVC role,I mean particularly have you had any training anddevelopment and support?

None. That’s not fair, not fair at all. None in regard tobeing head of department really, or dean as it was.That should be qualified in the sense that, you know,I did go on training and development courses abouthow to… appraise people, and you know, themechanics of management, but you know, they’renot really very helpful, I mean they’re only helpful asfar as telling you how to appraise somebody or firesomebody or whatever. All the really difficult stuff isaround the relationships and motivating people.And I just learnt that on the job, through bitterexperience, success and failure, as a head ofdepartment, stroke dean as it was. Since I’ve takenon this job, I now put quite a lot of time intoprofessional and self-development, partly throughthe leadership foundation…..

And…as you say, you learnt a lot of the basic skillsthrough the head of school, what you need to donow…

I think it’s very difficult to learn this stuff, I mean ithas to be – the way to learn it has got to be rooted inpractice, doing it at the time.’

DVC 1960-1990 University

The forms of learning articulated in these examples arestrongly experience and practice based. Such learningabout leading is not derived from a traditional instructor-centred ‘training’ paradigm – an approach derided by onewriter as responsible for turning out ‘highly skilledbarbarians’63. Indeed, formal leadership developmentprogrammes targeted directly on aspiring higher education

leaders have been rare. It is not so much that respondents inour study were instinctively anti-training in outlook; ratherthey reflected a strong sense that preparatory programmesneed to be tailored to the specificities of the context andstrongly experience based if they are to be of any value.Such views echo those of Antonacopoulou and Bento whostress the need for ‘co-creation, interpretation, discovery,experimentation and a critical perspective.’ They continue:

‘Rather than learning ‘leadership’ as it is known byothers, learners make sense of their ownexperiences, discover and nurture leadership inthemselves and in each other, not in isolation but incommunity. ‘

Antonacopoulou and Bento, 2004: 81-82

Conceptually we may also suggest that those academics thatmake it into the selection process (including of course thoseactually selected) are prime examples of the wayorganisational actors demonstrate their identity throughbelonging to communities of practice64. In Wenger’sformulation of identity formation there are three modes ofbelonging. These are: (i) engaging in the processes ofnegotiation of meaning; (ii) imagining or creating images ofthe world and seeing connectivities extrapolated fromexperiences; and, (iii) aligning energy and activities to ensurea fit with broader structures and broader enterprises65.

Translating these concepts to the present study, we can seeeach of these processes – engagement, imagination andalignment – as part of the career preparation of PVCs. Theseare people whose engagement with academiccommunities has been forged at every level and is typicallymaintained at the highest. Their mode of belonging to thiscommunity, their understanding of its shared practices, isnecessarily important to their identities as practicingacademics. They are also people with the creativity ofimagination to challenge and even extend the boundariesof their disciplinary crafts – through cutting edge researchor novel modes of teaching or in their vision for takingforward their departments or faculties. In this sense they arecapable of not only expanding themselves, but indeveloping aspirations for others, whether the craft itself orothers whom they may lead or mentor within the craft.Imagination, then, can be connective and aspirational.Finally, through alignment, the potential PVC is also able todemonstrate a part in, and contribution to, the broaderacademic and institutional enterprise. We might alsoextend the concept of alignment in that not only does itimply some degree of personal alignment to the institution,

30


63 Bisoux 2002, cited in Antonacopoulou, E.P. and Bento, R.F. (2004) p8164 Wenger, E. (1998)

65 Wenger, E. (1998) p173-4

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but a collective alignment or mutual sense of belongingthat empowers and inspires others to see their place in thelarger enterprise.

The key element in this formulation when applied to PVCs isthat they have demonstrated, through their ability toengage with others, ways of belonging that reinforce themutuality of the community of practice66. They have alsoshown their willingness to demonstrate accountability forthe enterprise by taking some responsibility for it, or at leasta part of it, typically in the role of head of department orfaculty. Finally, they have shown the imagination necessaryto use and extend the repertoires of practice associatedwith the community to which they belong. That is, the PVCis typically someone who has demonstrated theircompetence or ability to perform in ways that confirm theirposition within the community of practice. As Wengersuggests, the repertoire of a community of practice can beextensive, typically including: ‘routines, words, tools, ways ofdoing things, stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions orconcepts that the community has produced or adopted inthe course of its existence, and which have become part ofits practice’67.

Viewed from this perspective we can begin to make sense ofthe pronouncements of practicing PVCs when they talkabout preparation for the role. One PVC rehearsed whatwas a consistent theme across all the interviews:

‘It would be ‘impossible’ to be a PVC without havingbeen a Head of…. [Department]. Because you needto have developed the right skills, in diplomacy andpeople management, and you need to understandhow the institution functions or you won’t be able toachieve anything. It would be very difficult to comeinto leadership at….as an outsider because of thisneed to understand the system.’

PVC, pre-1992 university

Through such shared repertoires of practice PVCs were ableto take up their posts and survive being, in the words ofanother PVC, ‘dropped in it – the only induction I had was twohour briefings with my predecessor’68. Several respondentsconceded that while preparation for the role was minimalthere were aspects to being a PVC that were not necessarilyamenable to formal training. As one PVC observed:

‘I think it’s just an issue of what happens when youbecome PVC and how you build up that repertoireof expertise that distinguishes the things that youcan safely be left to get on with on your own, andthe things you can’t, that you have to consult. Thething that frustrated me right at the beginning wasthat you didn’t seem to be able to do anything onyour own. You had to consult seemingly endlessly.Because the PVC role is connected with other thingsyou couldn’t dig a hole without informing at least 27other people that you were going to dig a hole, andin some cases you might have to ask permissionwhether you were going to dig a hole, and it seemedthat everything that you touched there wassomeone who not only had a view, but felt they hada veto. I think I’ve got less worried about that now. ‘

PVC, 1960-1990 University

At the core of the issue of preparation and training tobecome a PVC, then, lies the nature of the role itself. Whenone respondent, PVC in a large pre-1992 institution,confessed that he felt he didn’t think he needed ‘training’forthe job, it was not because of academic arrogance, which hewas careful to distance himself from, but because hegenuinely believed the nature of leadership andmanagement in universities demanded something thatcould not be gleaned from purely formal approaches tomanagement training. Another DVC expressed a similarview, but in different terms:

‘Academics in senior management roles are aseparate animal: we’re academics with responsibilitybut no power or money. Our bluff could be called atany minute. We’ve got other worlds to go back to –we’re not professionals, but we can mug up onsubjects very quickly, we’re trained in the rapidassimilation of knowledge, we’re trained in runningmeetings, to speak and seek consensus.Transferring our academic skills to administration isok… we have an eye for detail… for buildingconsensus. It is about managing a complexorganisation and the need to take all the staff withyou.’

DVC, 1960-1990 University

66 Communities of practice are central to Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning but

their shape, scope and location within organisations is the subject of much debate.

Wenger contends that although such communities exist even where the organisation

may not recognise them, their development can benefit from expert internal

leadership. Although this is an intriguing argument with implications for how we might

conceptualise the leadership roles of PVC we merely note its possibilities in this context.

67 Wenger, E. (1998) p8368 DVC pre-1992 University

Yet these views about preparation for PVC roles can easilymask a wider question about who finds their way into therole and how effective they are. There is little to commendin an approach to preparation that can leave some newpost-holders confused about what to expect and even lessclear about how to get things done. It’s not so much thatrespondents in the study felt they didn’t have the aptitudes,experiences or requisite skills necessary to do a good job. Itwas more that they didn’t understand how best to applythem in the new-to-them milieux of senior institutionalleadership. The result was admirably summed up by onePVC who observed of his first year in post:

‘I didn’t so much do things wrong, I just didn’t domuch.’


Summary

Previous chapters of this report have questioned the ‘deficit’view of management and leadership capacity as a recurringtheme in the rhetoric of reform in higher education. Thiswas certainly the dominant motif running through the 2003White Paper on ‘The future of higher education’69. In spellingout the challenges for the sector, the government madeclear its belief that while there were some examples ofexcellent leadership and management there were alsoinstitutions that had been ‘propped up rather than turnedround’70. The solution proposed lay in developing‘outstanding management and leadership that is not juststrong, but visionary and thereby better able to set andachieve clear goals for improving quality’71. Underpinningthis solution is an assumption that the sector should identifythe ‘best international expertise in leadership andmanagement’ in order to help ‘build a cadre of professionalleaders and managers’.

Our research into the preparation and training of PVCs helpsto unpack some of the rhetoric around this proposition. Inone sense our findings appear to lend some support to theidea of an unsystematic, even amateur, approach topreparation and training. Certainly, the majority of PVCsinterviewed in the research intensive institutions had notundertaken any formal leadership skills or preparatoryprogramme prior to taking up their posts. Insofar asdevelopment opportunities were identified and exploited byPVCs it was generally in- rather than pre-post. Some weretaking part in development programmes as preparation forthe next step up the leadership hierarchy. Although notnecessarily specific to higher education, participants

indicated that such experiences are seen as useful preciselybecause they are generic and bring them into contact with awider range of senior managers in other sectors.

These findings suggest that learning to be a PVC is notgenerally the province of formal training schemes, trainingdepartments or even specialist management consultancies.In Wenger’s conceptualisation of organisational learning,there is little in the preparation of PVCs that can beidentified as ‘extractive training’; that is, there is a generalunwillingness to commit to the creation of managementtraining schemes that extract ‘requirements, descriptions,artefacts, and other elements out of practice’ and convertthem into artefacts such as ‘courses, manuals, procedures’72.

In this sense, learning to become a PVC does not necessarilyrest on formal definitions of management in terms ofmanagement competences. In general the universities in ourstudy have eschewed the sort of competence architectures -‘job descriptions, performance standards and route maps forcareer planning’73 - that characterised the flowering of interestin management competence during the 1980s and 1990s.Nevertheless, this is not to suggest that they are entirelyunsystematic in their approaches to qualifying people forleadership roles. Nor should the absence of formalised or‘extractive training’ to become a PVC be construed asevidence of a lack of preparation for the job.

On the contrary, whilst formalised leadership training priorto appointment was not found to be a typical feature ofPVCs’ previous career development, almost all thoseinterviewed emphasised the importance of practice andexperience as a point of departure for being PVC.Nevertheless, this raises a career structure issue. It is notobligatory to have been a PVC to become a VC. Nor doDeans or Heads of Department have to become PVCs to getfurther. Nevertheless, there is clearly an expectation that incustom and practice it helps. It is not so much the symbolicvalue of such labels, but the experiences and immersionsassociated with them.

Several policy questions for the sector are raised by thisexperience based disposition. Can recruitment andselection processes be shown to be achieving the rightresults in identifying, preparing and supporting those bestsuited for senior leadership roles? Can they also claim to benon-discriminatory and fit-for-purpose in a changing worldof contemporary higher education? Although severalleadership development programmes have beeninaugurated, what might they learn from the findings

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69 DfES (2003)70 DfES (2003) para 7.1271 DfES (2003) paras 1.41- 1.45

72 Wenger, E. (1998) p24973 Salaman, G. (2004) p61

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presented here? There is also a separate but related issueabout institutional approaches (or the lack of them) towardsinduction arrangements for those new-to-post.Interestingly, while a lack of formalised training for the rolewas commented upon widely, respondents in the studywere generally unwilling (or unable) to point to any simpleremedies.

Competence to be a PVC then is manifested in engagementwith practice – both as academics and as managers. It isthrough the reification of practice in the variouscommunities to which they belong that the potential PVC isprepared for the roles ahead. Many of those interviewedrecounted numerous exemplars of how their experience ofshared repertoires of practice associated with thesecommunities was indispensable to learning how to be a PVC.

4. BEING A PRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR: RESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT POWER?

Introduction

From selection procedures and preparation for the post, themain concern of this chapter is with what PVCs actually do.It seeks to uncover from accounts of PVCs themselves howthey see their roles and the various ways they actuallyperform them. We attempt to construct a more nuancedpicture of change and continuity grounded in the collectiveexperiences of our PVC sample. Only through such anapproach, we suggest, can we begin to make sense of themagnitude of the leadership development challengerepresented in the post of PVC.

The chapter is divided into four sections. The first sets outour interpretation of what PVCs are expected to do. Weargue that although the post is characterised by manifoldroles in the end it can be condensed into how theyunderstand the often ambiguous and sometimescompeting relationship between strategic and operationalissues. The second section provides some exemplificationof how these foci translate into specific tasks and how PVCsactually interpret them to get things done. We seek tounderstand not just what attributes and skills are involved,but how different PVCs might bring them into operation.This is followed by a brief consideration of the pressureexerted by performance assessment and how this relates tonotions of ‘career’in senior leadership roles. The final sectionprovides a summary interpretation of how second tier rolesmight be characterised in the setting of higher educationinstitutions and the implications for understanding howtheir roles are evolving.

Maps of strategies, operations and policies

University ordinances often specify PVC responsibilities, atleast in outline. Typically these include: academic strategy;chairing key university committees; managing andsupporting deans and/or heads of departments, leadingresearch, learning and teaching, as well as various forms ofknowledge transfer and enterprise activities; budgetpreparation; projects allocated by the VC; academicpromotions procedures; relationships between academicand support staff; and, communicating and relationshipswith external organisations. The list is not exhaustive, but itprovides a flavour.

However, ordinances do not convey either the specificitiesof roles or the conventions of how they might carry out theirfunctions and duties. Nor of course do they indicate howroles are differentiated between PVCs. While in someinstitutions constitutional responsibilities and managementtasks are specified in some detail, in others the ordinancesmay state simply that the expectation is that the PVC acts asthe deputy to the VC. Hence the legal framework atinstitutional level can provide only a partial picture of PVCroles. In a system characterised by a long history ofuniversity autonomy it is not surprising perhaps that evenwith state attempts to introduce far-reaching changes in theways in which universities are regulated and managed theimpact of the reform imperative on leadership practicescontinues to lack uniformity or consistency.

Divergence might be anticipated in a system that isdecentralised and where institutional approaches aresubject to the varying effects of changes in themanagement model imposed by the chief executive.Personalities and values, whims even, can have palpableeffects on how things are organised and how they areapproached. And yet underlying the temptation to seeeverything as contingent on context (or eccentricity), oursurvey uncovered some consistent trans-institutionalthemes that define how senior leadership andmanagement tasks were approached. Because PVCsoccupy a unique position at the interfaces between thedesigned organisation, its cultures and practices, theirevolving roles provide a valuable lens on each of thesethemes.

The PVC occupies a unique location between the chiefexecutive and what we believe to be the three great‘empires’of the university. These are:

• Teaching schemes – usually linked to disciplinarybased departments, schools or faculties

• Research groups – again usually disciplinary inorientation and departmental in location, but notuniversally so in an increasingly trans-disciplinaryworld

• Administration – not just the service ‘bureaucracies,usually arranged around functions such as finance,estates and IT, but in terms of academic governance

There is a hierarchy, of course, since the second tier is thehalf-way point between the chief executive above and thedelivery units below. Moreover, the second leadership tier isitself being stretched so it may be more appropriate in someinstitutions to imagine the PVCs occupying a ‘mezzanine’level between the VC and deputies, at the top, and deans offaculties or heads of schools further down.

Nevertheless, few PVCs (or DVCs for that matter) see theirrelationship, especially with the inner landscape ofacademic empires, as simply hierarchical. As we haveargued, universities are not command and control typeorganisations. The hierarchies are invariably cross-cut by arange of professional and disciplinary axes that limit anddeflect the immediate reach of senior managers. Thecentral challenge facing PVCs, therefore, is finding ways ofmediating (and influencing) the VCs strategic thinking andthen bringing this to life in an operational sense within thedelivery units of the institution. A simple statementperhaps, but one that is core to understanding being a PVCand how the role is performed. Does this mean that thepost of PVC is mainly operational rather than strategic? Theanswer is necessarily ambivalent, for three reasons.

First, many of the PVCs in our survey were themselvesambivalent about this aspect of the role. In a sense, strategyis everywhere and nowhere. We mean by this that almost allthe PVCs considered their role to be strategic in some form.Several presented this as the primary element in thealchemy of second tier leadership. As one respondentobserved, not getting too involved in operational issues tothe exclusion of the bigger picture was difficult to avoid, butit is important. ‘I enjoy leadership’, another PVC commented,continuing:

‘I also enjoy being involved in strategicdevelopment and sort of policy making, rather thansimply the operational issues. I’m very engaged withoperational issues, but I like to be part of strategicthinking, the development of plans for theimmediate- and long-term future. I always kidmyself that I can see into the future, and I can

anticipate some of the sort of threats andopportunities that will be coming.’

PVC pre-1960 University

To avoid being sucked too far into operational affairs afurther respondent indicated that he ‘protects’ certain daysin the week to spend time reading, scanning web sites andthinking strategically, rather than writing, arguing thisenabled him to arrive at more informed decisions.

In the following vignette, a PVC reflected on howinvolvement in strategy worked in practice. It is also clear, asthe previous example illustrated, that although beingstrategic needs time to reflect on the big picture, theproportion of time actually spent on the task is marginal:

‘Some of it is sitting and thinking ahead, inasmuchas I get any time at all for that. That’s done withpeople in my portfolio area….staff from academicsupport office and a few others. That’s sitting andsaying: “Well where are we going with teaching andlearning or information services…. And definitely inthe vice-chancellor’s [executive group], some of thetime….

So it’s a bit of horizon scanning, bigger picture stuff?

Yes, how are we doing, what we’re doing? How canwe be successful? What do we need to do to besuccessful? …What’s happening in the sector? Howare we positioning ourselves? That sort of stuff. Sothat’s one thing, but that probably occupies, to behonest, about 5-10 per cent of my time.

Do you consciously have to carve time out to do that?

Yes, it’s interesting, this week for example we’ve gotsome development work with the Vice-Chancellor’s[executive group] … we’re having a whole daytogether and my theme is…. Thinking ahead towhat will be. And I’ve started doing some work for it.We only allocated this a week or two ago and,actually I’m getting quite into it, but I haven’t gotenough time to do that…. That was the strategic bit.’


Drafting strategy papers on key themes identified by the VC,leading discussions inside executive group meetings andtaking debate into the wider university forms part of mostPVC roles.

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Yet a second reason for our ambivalence about strategyconcerns not just the lack of time to think strategically, butthe shifting and stretching territory of the secondleadership tier itself. We have alluded to this in the previouschapter. Whilst most, if not all, PVCs claim they are involvedin strategy in some sense of the word, it is clear that somemore than others have more opportunity to influence thestrategic thinking of the VC.

This variation results primarily from the emergence ofdifferent types of PVC role. In the UK context, it is temptingto locate the major fault line in relation to influence in highlevel strategy formulation between DVCs and PVCs. There issome justification for believing that deputies may wieldmore influence than the PVCs, but it is not inevitably so. OneDVC considered all PVCs to have a role in ‘big strategy’because of their involvement in the VC’s top level advisorygroups. It may also be, as we have already argued, that theDVC constitutes are different level of tier of second-in-command leadership, but this is not universally so.

However, on the basis of the roles encountered in our researchsites we can propose five different models of PVC roles withthe potential for differential involvement at the strategic level.We say more about these in relation to the managementmodel in the final chapter. Although it is almost certain thatthe sector contains slightly different variants of these models,we propose them here as broadly representative of typesrather than empirical realities in all their dimensions. The keycharacteristics are summarised above.

The common denominator of these types, born out by theinterviews with those in the sample HEIs, is the scope theygive to exert some form of influence on the strategy process.Most are part of the SMT and hence privy to strategy

considerations at that level. But some SMTs aredifferentiated affairs with a pecking order of senior post-holders who work more closely with the VC than others.Almost certainly all PVCs will have purchase on strategyprocesses through involvement, typically with heads ofacademic units, in some variant of a larger seniormanagement group.

Yet, we must not rule out the power and personality of theVC as an influence, positive or negative, on the scope forcreativity or challenge in the strategic sphere. Some in oursurvey indicated that opportunities to engage in high levelstrategic thinking with the VC were rare: ‘The vice-chancellor has very clear views’, one PVC observed, and ifyou wanted to take a different line you would need ‘all youreggs in the basket’. This was a coded reference to thereputation of the VC for diverting or circumnavigatingpropositions or challenges from those in the second tierthrough heavyweight intellectual demolition.

Notwithstanding such personal factors, membership ofSMTs and wider management groups gives to most PVCsopportunities to bring forward ideas, contribute to debateand assess the chances of being able to deliver strategy intheir areas. Although in some of the site visit institutions keyresponsibilities resided in the DVC’s office it is not clear thatthis is automatically accompanied by an enhanced role instrategic development to the exclusion of PVCs. Even forDVCs, immersion in operational considerations andensuring compliance, as we referred to it above, can easilyovershadow their strategic roles. As one DVC commented:

‘My job is to run the academic business of theuniversity day-to-day. To come up with academicstrategy at one level and to run the university. So

MODELS OF 2ND TIER LEADERSHIP ROLES

DVC Academic or non-academic Budget and line management responsibilities

PVC Executive Academic Budget and line management responsibilities

PVC Policy Academic No budget or line management responsibilities

PVC Dean Academic Faculty or other unit line management combined with cross-institutional role

PVC Service Academic or non-academic Primarily but not exclusively to lead administrative or professional services with line management responsibilities

TYPE DESIGNATION RESPONSIBILITIES

TABLE 9

the executive deans report to me and all of that. Somy job is…very operational in terms of managingthe day-to-day….[areas of responsibility]

The bit of thinking I’ve got is the academic shapeand direction of the institution…. I’m the onecommanding the troops that have got to do [it]. …

I suppose I’m the implementer really. If together wedevise the policies and they’re [other PVCs] out theredoing the thinking about them and making theconnections out there, then I need to make surethey’re implemented. I suppose that’s the distinction.’


The close connection between strategy and operationsevident in these comments was echoed in many of thePVCs’ accounts. The issue of quality and the potentialimpact of activities on the ‘brand’exerted a strong influenceon this process. Primary responsibility for ensuringcompliance rests in the relevant PVC portfolio area. Forexample, in the run up to RAE 2008 several PVCs (Research)were tasked with developing institution-wide codes ofconduct for the selection of staff in the exercise, taking intoaccount the varying requirements of research strengths,peaks of quality, equal opportunities and so on. Whilst theresearch portfolio may be heavily influenced by theassessment cycle, other portfolios might reflect shorter, butno less intense, cycles of quality considerations. Forexample, PVCs (Teaching and Learning) typically scrutiniseexternal examiners’reports, approvals for new programmes,and other indicators of compliance with institutionalstandards. Occasional fire fighting when things go out ofline will be involved, the PVC being required to respond toprompts from the internal administration about areas ofconcern and ultimately take responsibility for bringingerrant departments back into line.

The third form of mediation between strategic andoperational roles is introduced by their involvement inpolicy and its implementation. The border betweeninitiating policy through the writing of position papers andother policy documentation, and project implementation isoften blurred. The challenge is how to tread the linebetween policy development and responsibility for itsimplementation. Delegating the task of implementation isthe preferred course of action, though frequently PVCsadmitted they are sucked into this process in order to ensurethings get done. Out of policies developed or advocated byPVCs other roles emerge – advocacy, perhaps for areas or

budgets, working the system to advance a particular causeor vision. In the following vignette we observe how a PVCdescribes how easily strategy and policy intertwines:

‘What do you actually do?

I attend a lot of committee meetings, I convene a lotof committee meetings and I contribute to policymaking and practice within the university itself. Alot of it is that helping other people to make themost of their roles.

Like a facilitator?

It’s almost a mediating role sometimes, betweencentral, and advocacy. It’s that kind of, you’rebetween, if you like, the very centre and thedepartments and units and so on. And you’reworking in both directions for and with them.

To what extent are you therefore, as you say, advocacyin a sense, almost like cabinet government role, whereyou have a portfolio and your advocacy is for yourarea, almost at a level of securing a budget?

Yes, it’s arguing for budgets as well. I argue forbudgets, so I will defend my people when it comesto budget review… I don’t have a very strong role inthe budgets, mine tends to be on the practice andthe outcomes of what they’re doing…. I know, or Ihope I know, what they’re up against in making theirclaims…..

You mention policy and policy making. How do youdefine policy and policy making in this context?

In my own particular area, the whole area of …didn’t have much in the way of policy…. And whilewe have a lot of departments that are researchcouncil funded and give excellent opportunities totheir students, there are areas where we don’t…. sopart of my role has been to develop …policy for …the whole cultural, social and education aspect ofthe ….student experience. So it’s the developmentof a kind of policy and strategy….

So it’s got a strategic dimension?

It’s got a strategic dimension. I’m not very good onpolicy for policy’s sake, unless it’s got a ‘what are weactually going to do’bit….

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You presumably have to have a vision of what youwant to achieve in [this area] in policy terms. Is thatsomething that you have personally, or you develop inconsultation with colleagues?

It evolves. Some things are already there. And somethings are desirable and in discussion with othersshould come out with something in the middle, Isuppose to a certain extent. You decide whichthings that are there you want to keep, which youdon’t, or will be phased out….you have to have thatvision of where you want it to be in the end. Andtherefore a strategy and tactics for getting there. Iquite enjoy that bit in the middle.’


Getting things done

The dependence on others – whether within theadministrative infrastructure or elsewhere within theuniversity – was a recurring theme in how PVCs describedthe process of getting things done. Working with theadministration, academic groups and units, colleagueswithin the senior team or the chief executive requires PVCsto adopt different modes of working. Despite differences inportfolios, experiences, institutional contexts and cultures,the common denominator linking being a PVC is that theywork and network with people to get things done.

The majority of PVCs (and DVCs) in UK institutions do nothold budgets and have no direct line-managementresponsibilities. This feature is beginning to change in someinstitutions, especially so in the case of DVC posts. However,unlike resource centre leaders, such as deans of faculty orheads of departments, most PVCs operate withoutbudgetary levers, yet they are responsible for strategy andpolicy in their portfolio areas.

Making things happen, therefore, is approached in differentways. One DVC understood the work as ‘a series of projects’,not unlike academic research, which is also project oriented.Yet whereas research projects link delivery with linemanagement, in the carrying out of leadership projects theDVC and PVC is heavily reliant on others over whom theycan exert little or no direct control. Instead:

‘We do it by a kind of bluff – we exert authority.Patronage is important – we have the delegatedpower of the VC. We have authority also thatemanates from the SMT…. There’s something about

not holding a budget. Power doesn’t come frommoney, but it does come from being responsible. ‘


Most respondents were less sanguine however about thenature of their authority, though few presented asignificantly different narrative of how they got things tohappen. They chair committees, acting almost as‘professional chairs’, control agendas and work with peoplein the spaces between meetings. It is not micro-managingas such, but it is keeping ears open, tracking what is goingon and making sure they or their senior colleagues at thecentre are not taken too much by surprise by anything.

The continued importance of the committee system maydismay many commentators who see in them the archaicand cumbersome remnants of collegial structures ofgovernance. Yet few PVCs described their roles in suchterms. On the contrary, they recognised that unlike in theirprevious roles as heads and deans where powers andbudgets usually combined to get things done, as a PVC,working through the committee structure may be the onlyway to exert authority not just to achieve change, but toprevent things happening where there was a perceiveddanger to standards and reputation. The following vignetteis exemplary of how the different ingredients of collegiality,quality and compliance coalesce in such fora:

‘If you are in a position of needing to have a talk with adepartment, what authority do you carry?

Yes, and it’s interesting, that’s a very, very goodquestion, because, because it’s not clear. In a senseyou…well, it’s a question I asked the VC, quite earlyon…. I found it difficult to know what I could say willhappen and won’t happen, because everything isthrough other people. I think it’s a sociallyconstructed, to an extent, authority…. We do havecertain delegated authority [from the VC], but it’sgeneral, it’s stronger when it’s specific. So if adepartment in the end is not towing the line, or isdoing something that’s just not in the University’sinterests… I have the authority, I think, to raise itwith them; I have the authority to – I haven’t pushedthe boundary because they tend to respond. Ihaven’t reached the position where… a departmentsays, “No, this how we’re doing it”. Because I chairteaching committee I’ll say, “Well ok, let’s just raise itin teaching committee.” And then teaching

committee will take [a view] and it’s their peers andthey’re just going to have to tow the line. Althoughthere is one, just recent, issue where I’ve said: “Youcannot do this. It is not the way something is done.”And they said: “Well, who are you to say that? What’steaching committee’s view.” And I’ve said: “Look, ifyou don’t think I’m right on this, I’m perfectly happyto raise it at teaching committee. But it will bewasting your time, because you’ll have to wait fortwo months on this thing. And I know how they’llrespond. But I’m very happy to do it.” It’s the firsttime anybody’s sort of challenged in that way.

Did they back off, if I may ask?

They did, but they backed off because they’dmisunderstood…I don’t feel particularly threatenedby that, because I worry about making decisionsincorrectly as well. And committees, you know, itdoes make you feel a bit more secure at times thatsomething is right.’


The committee structure, arguably, remains the PVC’s bestfriend, though some saw the need to scale back the numberof committees they either chaired or attended. It retains itsimportance as a tool of management not just because itholds colleagues to account in terms of academicgovernance, but because committees are located at theinterstices between management structures and academicwork practices. In this sense, committees offer to PVCs awindow into the inner landscape of research, teaching andother parts of the mission. It is a reminder that being morelike a senior manager in business may not be an appropriatemodel in an academic landscape where the controls areindirect and the pressures (sometimes) contradictory. Asanother PVC observed, slightly mischievously, ‘I have whollyimaginary authority’.

The idea that D/PVCs have only imaginary authority and relyon bluff is partly rhetorical of course. The role is withoutdoubt one of influence rather than overt authority. As onesenior PVC, but soon to be VC suggested, the role uses ‘aculture of persuasion’. Abrasion and pushiness are at timesnecessary, but the skill is choosing the right moment to beso and to be highly selective in displaying this side. Asanother DVC, observed, a university is not like the army:

‘Leadership has to be within a collegiate, facilitativeculture, where many people, for example down to

the level of principal lecturers, have to lead andinspire others.’

DVC post-1990 University

The DVC in this case spoke for others in observing theshallowness of their position where budgetary levers wereweak or inconsequential. Following restructuring intofewer, larger units, budgets in his institution, like manyacross the sector, were delegated to and ‘owned’ by unitheads. Such delegation enabled big decisions to be madeat that level without approval from the centre. This was anadvantage in some respects, but the disadvantage was asense that the big picture risked being lost as the universitybegan to feel more like an institution of five colleges.

Managing these centrifugal forces, here as elsewhere, isitself a key task, one that many D/PVCs argued reinforcestheir role in developing, managing and using relationshipsand networks across the institution. Herein lay one of themost significant arguments in favour of retaining within theessence of PVC the notion that they are in effect senioracademic leaders rather than general or simply professionalmanagers. Academic credibility is universally interpreted byD/PVCs as an absolutely critical dimension of their statusand capacity to get things done.

Leaders in research intensive institutions in particularemphasised the importance of being seen as a hands-onacademics in terms of maintaining a research profile. In thenext example, a PVC (Research) explains how authority issocially constructed and deployed to get things to happen:

‘It’s very difficult to get people, especiallyacademics, to deliver things. It’s not easy. There aresome people who are [delivering] because theyknow what the game is, and there are other peoplewho aren’t. You’ve got to find strategies for both ofthose. Not to overload the first lot, not to leave thesecond lot alone, basically. But I have no, I can’t turnto anyone and say “Look, I’m your line manager, youmust do this.” Not in this current job…. I canproduce policy, if you like, and I can go to the Deansand I can go to the [area] Directors, which I’m doingat the moment, and ask for comments on the policy,because I say “You’re going to implement it. Therewill be a point when this is handed over to you, toimplement. So at this point you’re going have to tellme whether I’ve got the wrong end of the stick ornot.” … My job is getting the message across topeople…

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Implicit in what you’ve said, is it’s important to havecredibility?

Oh absolutely. I can’t do it without that. I would feelextremely uncomfortable going to tell people, youknow, I can manage to maintain a research profile….

It’s leading from the front?

Absolutely, I put my neck on the line…

So it’s almost in a sense having academic credibility,rather than a managerial credibility?

Oh, absolutely. Academics don’t understand theword managerial.’


Similar sentiments were elicited from across the sample ofD/PVCs. Many posts in the pre-1992 sub-sector are retainedostensibly as ‘part-time’ appointments precisely to givecredence to time being set aside time for research. Severalrespondents claimed that they ‘would lose their street credif they ceased to be research active’. This image wasexpressed in terms of its importance not just to the messageit sent to their colleagues, but the maintenance of a craftedsense of academic identity74. Elsewhere in the sector,particularly the post-1992 institutions, full-time andpermanent (hence theoretically professional) post-holdersalso explained their ability to get things done in terms ofacademic credibility.

Yet, we are sceptical that the attribute of academiccredibility was sourced solely from a current reputation as acutting edge researcher or teacher. Some in our samplecould (and did) point to such currency. But the likelihood isthat most brought to the post a sense that they had beenthrough the relevant academic processes to bringexperience and know-how to the post. Several in theresearch intensive institutions admitted that the idea ofmaintaining an active research profile was impossiblewithin the confines of the day-job. If they did manage to doso, it was more by dint of their collaborators and researchteams than their own involvement. A few even admittedthat a work-life balance was difficult enough, without thepretence that they were leading from the front in research.

But we do not doubt the importance of academic credibilityas a powerful story-line in the accounts of D/PVCs. Theywished for the most part to emphasise the importance of

academic over managerial credibility as a critical element intheir role.

‘It’s clear that we’re a separate animal, we’reacademics, with responsibility but not power ormoney.’


‘Although they do have formal authority, it is rarelyexercised in a formal display of their powers.Indeed, if things are working well then powerdoesn’t come into the equation since D/PVCs needto work together with colleagues on the basis ofmutual trust.’

Both D/PVCs, then, are primarily facilitators. They need tocommunicate with people, and also listen to their views. Asone PVC explained, ‘my role is to get information out,together with a sensible analysis and then engage indebate’. Generally this is approached within an atmosphereof collegiality and is built on good relations. No doubt thisdescription might have been contradicted had ourmethodology incorporated a sweep of both the leaders andthe led. However, what counts in the present study is howPVCs themselves interpret their approaches to the job.They, too, presented ample evidence of a reflexivity abouttheir role and how they do it. They knew, as one expressedit, the ‘downsides’ of getting too close to their colleaguessince often the job could become ‘tricky when I have to dosomething horrible.’ Maintaining a degree of distance isessential: they ‘mustn’t confuse the role of being a friendand a drinking mate with the role of being a PVC’ (PVC pre-1960 University). Another observed that the job can easilydegenerate into

‘A ragbag of responsibilities involving too muchnose wiping.’


Yet the social distance between PVC and colleagues acrossthe institution is also in part a function of scale. Keepingrelationships going with large numbers of people is difficult.Although most PVCs observed that they worked hard at thetask, several admitted that sanity was preserved bymaintaining somewhat closer and, critically, more informalrelationships with a much smaller number of colleagues.Occasional drinks sessions after work, particularly withdeans or heads of school, provided a sounding board forwhat was really happening on the ground, a chance togossip and exchange views off the record.

74 Henkel, M. (2000)

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Beyond the academic landscape, PVCs also have to findways of interacting with the administrative structures. Forsome in our research, this is a territory fraught with difficulty.Several conveyed coded references to uneasy relationshipswith certain heads of professional services. One PVC hadbeen tasked by the VC to report on structures andrelationships in relation to one service area. Culturaldifferences over management styles and ethos betweenacademic and service functions had surfaced andrelationships had suffered. In a different institution, anotherPVC complained that the service departments were bothanonymous and dysfunctional. Recently appointed, one ofthis respondent’s steepest learning curves had been in howto deal with the obstacles to progress erected by someadministrators. Having reached a nadir in terms ofobfuscation and delay, the PVC had re-launched anapproach based on asking naïve questions, working withthe committees on a more informal basis, identifying thekey people who were ‘dying to get things done’ and,critically, consciously challenging through personalbehaviour some of the cultural mores of the system.

Underlying these experiences are some deeper tensions.Those in primarily professional/ administrative posts withprimarily service roles represent an alternative model ofprofessional competence to that of the gifted academic PVCas ‘amateur’. Our research encountered this amateur versusprofessional tension in several locations. Although roles arebeing restructured and reconfigured in different ways,arguably these have (so far) failed to address the problem ofhow to combine a professionalisation imperative with thecontinued need for academic credibility. The former cannoteasily displace the latter. It is primarily for this reason thatacademics rather than professional managers continue todominate the ranks of second tier roles.

Universities do have cross-institutional and co-ordinatingroles – and more are being invented – that are led by non-academic professionals, rather than academic PVCs.Invariably, however, they continue to report to a PVC, atleast implicitly. Examples can be drawn from the emerging‘third’ mission. As universities extend their ‘enterprise’ andinnovation activities, working more systematically incollaboration with business and wider society, they areestablishing a range of functional services to provide thenecessary expertise and support for such activities.Nevertheless, in the institutions we visited those in suchservice roles worked with, and reported to, PVCs whoseportfolio title reflected the extended mission.

Typically institutional leadership of knowledge transfer,enterprise or outreach activities of one kind or another maybe combined with a portfolio for research or externalrelations. It is not unusual for managers of universitybusiness offices of one sort or another to be line managedby one of the service directors but report to a PVC. As onemanager of a university business officer explained, there is a‘thin dotted line’ to the Service Director, and a ‘thick dottedline’ to the PVC. While the former represented theoperational dimension of his role, the latter signified thestrategic. In effect, he admitted, he worked on a day-to-basis in a way that was ‘semi-detached from the PVC’providing expertise and professional support (Manager,Business Office, 1960-1990 University).

The need for some practitioner-versed involvement in cross-institutional and coordinating roles, even in emergingspecialist areas such as commercialisation activities, spin-out companies, or intellectual property issues moregenerally, continues to distinguish academic institutionsfrom those in other professional service occupations.75

Significantly where we did encounter PVCs whosebackgrounds had varied slightly from the moreconventional linear ‘academic’route into the role, there wasemphasis on previous experiences, knowledge orimmersion of the cultural attributes of academicinstitutions. We draw two inferences from this evidence.First, it would appear that the area of enterprise or thirdmission, still problematic in terms of its relationship andintegration with the core first (teaching) and second(research) mission, is propelling some institutions towardsappointing PVCs with less conventional backgrounds,though this is far from universal. Second, althoughprofessional expertise and support is available (and needed)across most portfolio areas, it remains difficult to conceive ofacademic leadership being supplied by individuals withoutextensive and relevant cultural experience.

Although we encountered some strains between theacademic and administrative structures, frustrations werenot universal across the sample. Most PVC interviewees haddeveloped excellent working relationships with servicedirectors and key administrative colleagues, even thoughrunning through the interviews there is a pervading sensethat the infrastructure (clerical as well as administrative)supporting the second tier is perilously thin. For the PVC,the critical issue is less the distinction between academicand administrative, amateur and professional, but thequality of personal relationships. The PVC is criticallydependent on forging good relationships and encouraging

75 Comparison with organisational leadership in other service organisations is not part of the research specification. It is of interest though that by retaining academics as senior managers

universities bring to the leadership task a practice related focus on organisational function, in contrast to other areas (health and law for example) where senior management roles may be

performed by people who come in from elsewhere.

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colleagues to deliver in their areas of expertise, even wherethere is no immediate line-management relationship. Thefollowing example illustrates this dependency:

‘How do you get things done, if you don’t linemanage?

Well, that’s quite interesting. I mean, that’s not onlyin this job, actually. I’ll tell you what my big problemis, that for years I’ve done everything myself. So I’mused to doing everything, ok. Even though I was ahead of department, I would give people things todo and then trust them. But I lost that trust whenpeople didn’t deliver…. In the end I’d do it myself.And I found that if you want something done, thenyou do it yourself.

That’s quite onerous isn’t it?

Oh it’s very onerous, but you feel it’s done properly. Ido trust people, up to the moment they don’tdeliver on something.‘


Although the sense of isolation running through thisvignette is particularly acute, it was not wholly out of linewith several other accounts. Some admitted the role couldbe quite lonely. ‘Hot desking’, rather than permanent office incorporate suites, is a facet of some PVC lives. A place back inthe department assumes significance not just for a possiblefuture ‘re-entry’ into departmental life, but as a continuingspatial expression of community membership. For others, ofcourse, abandonment of departmental existence wasmandatory, replaced by office and life on the corporate floor.The important point is the diversity of PVC existence.

Yet underpinning all is a sense of responsibility withoutpower. PVCs are responsible for key projects, forimplementing as we suggested, the VC’s will; they carry thecan if they’re not implemented. Their personal integrity ison the line. How do they assess their successes and failures?How do others assess them?

Performances and pressures: careers in the balance?

We stated at the start of this chapter that the formal legalframework of university statutes and ordinances providesonly a superficial guide to PVC roles. However, this does notmean that the job is entirely without formal or definitivearchitecture with which to describe expectations of andperformance standards for those in senior leadership roles.

Although universities remain fairly unsystematic in theirapproaches to qualifying people for leadership roles, oncein them there is usually a more rigorous regime for settingtargets and performance indicators. Whilst our researchconfirmed that this process is both transparent and formalso far as the participants are concerned, it is a boundedprocess in that it tends to remain confidential to the playersinvolved. Those outside the loop will not be privy in anyformal sense to the nature of targets, the review process orits outcomes.

Performance agreements are not a statutory requirementand several institutions in our survey did not have formalPVC targets or appraisal systems. In one research intensiveinstitution, for instance, it was suggested that there was asystem of performance review involving an exchange ofletters each year, but there were questions about itseffectiveness. Whilst they were trying to be more rigorousand cohesive, there was also a conscious attempt to avoidexplicit performance targets since these would reduce theflexibility perceived to be required to manage theinstitution (PVC pre-1960 University). In another similar, butless prestigious (in research terms), institution there was nojob description or performance indicators, but there was anannual appraisal with the VC. Despite this no formal targetswere set for the ensuing year (PVC pre-1960 University).

However, most institutions had been operating formalisedperformance assessment for some time. Typically theprocess engages PVCs in negotiating and agreeing with theChief Executive a series of performance indicators (PIs)derived from the strategic plan. The indicators set outagreed institutional goals which are then translated andrefined into a series of target performance indicatorsmeasurable against broader strategic goal. Hencedocumentation we have seen ordinarily indicates around 6-10 general goals relevant to the portfolio area. One area forexample might be an improvement in quality systems. Thegoal would then be broken down into a series of morespecific strategic goals designed to develop frameworks forenhancing quality across the institution. These in turnwould track into a set of agreed target PIs, including forinstance a demonstrable improvement in relevantinstitutional rankings. Annual performance review wouldbe benchmarked against these indicators and a proportionof salary or bonus would be retained against acceptableperformance to targets.

For most in the survey, performance assessment along suchlines was an accepted part of the role. Some expressed

42


enthusiasm for the formalities of the system. ‘I’m a firmbeliever in appropriate appraisal’, one respondent observed,adding:

‘I think it’s realistic, but I think one knows from one’sown experience from the past what is achievableand I think that’s important appraisal when you’resetting one’s own plans, and it’s also whatadditional, what I find of interest and what reallyinspires me is to do a task, do a task well, but alsohaving done that to move to another task, so it’s thecontinuing development.’


Although most seemed comfortable with the idea ofappraisal, including 360 degree and other personalassessments, there were some who expressed a sense ofbeing under considerable pressure to meet expectedperformance targets. Such concerns invariably seemed totrack back to a perception that preparation for the job –despite the importance ascribed to experience in previousmanagement roles – is inadequate (see Chapter 3 above).As one PVC complained, then just a few months into thepost, there had been virtually no opportunity to prepare forthe job formally and little sense of what it would entail:

‘Ask my children if they’ve seen me in the last month– no, it is a very, very demanding job. I have workedunacceptably long hours in the first few months ofthe job and I need to stop doing that… It is possibleto be pulled in too many directions and add things,accretion, you know another project, anotherspecial group…. I am trying to do something aboutthat, I mean I have started a process to reduce thenumber of committees and produce a bit of focus,and devolve the oversight of some bits to otherpeople so that I can run straight on with the newstuff…. And I think it’s a high priority for me ‘cos youcan’t keep working at that level.’


The sense of being overwhelmed in the first months of therole, shared by other respondents in the survey – there’s ‘alot to learn’- undoubtedly added to the pressures associatedwith personal performance. In the same institution, one ofthe more experienced PVCs admitted to cringing at thethought of some of the things he did in earlier years – crassmistakes – even though they seemed the right thing to doat the time. In another institution a respondent admitted

anxiety about ‘things not done’ or about ‘things that havehappened more slowly than I would have liked’ (PVC pre-1960 University).

Significantly most respondents also talked about theimportance of self-assessment in the role rather than simplythe formal system of performance assessment. Their senseof achievement in the role included a range of ratherdisparate notions. These ranged from the highly specific,such as success in the RAE or success in Quality AssuranceAgency audit; through the more general, such as being seenas fair to the academics, earning the respect of deans andheads of department, ‘not to be seen as just the [ChiefExecutive’s] man’, receiving positive feedback from Heads ofSchools, or colleagues taking a more corporate view; to thesimply vague, such as how the institution is progressing, ornothing going drastically wrong.

Careers as PVCs are no doubt influenced by such concerns,yet they are not necessarily defined by them. Performanceis undoubtedly a critical factor and the learning curve issteep. As one new to post PVC admitted:

‘I’ve got a more robust sense of it now than I hadback [at the start], when I really did feel rather tiredof it – just tired. Yes, complicated job with all sorts ofaspects to it. So I think I can see that there are areasthat are probably more difficult than I anticipated,some of which I think may be resolved by the factthat we have made some new appointments…. Ithink I’ve learned a lot about getting things done atthis level.’


Even some of the more experienced feared that the model isunder pressure. Knowing enough to take on certain briefscan stretch even the most gifted. Such immersion is a testerpossibly for those who may see themselves progressing intotop posts as chief executives. But for a variety of reasonsthere were many in our survey for whom the ascent to thetop was curtailed. Age, in a negative sense, is as importantas opportunity. For some reaching the second tier hadcome too late for the last leap forward to be a realisticambition; for others it was not a desirable step in any case.Those in permanent positions, typically in the post-1992institutions, without the prospect of another significantcareer move knew the game and looked on their role ascareer capstones. Those in the pre-1992 sector, stillpredominantly reliant on four year renewableappointments, often had the prospect of possible re-entry

43

to departmental life and resumption of research andteaching duties. Few seemed to view this prospect withrelish. Most seemed to think it would in any case be unfairto their departmental colleagues to land back in theoperating units fresh from senior leadership.

Without career advancement in senior leadership, whethersideways or upwards, many PVCs viewed ‘re-entry’ withmisgivings and usually entertained only the prospect ofretirement, early or otherwise, as an alternative. Several VCsexplained that they consciously looked to recruit to PVCposts those with realistic prospects of progressingultimately to the top posts. Some even include thisprospect as a formal attribute in the person specification ofjob advertisements. Yet the reality, as several respondentsconfirmed, is that this cannot be a reality in every case. Thesweet seductions of the head hunters engaged to producelong and short lists of suitably qualified and experiencedapplicants for PVC and DVC posts almost invariably producea mixed bag of contestants. Who goes where and why is notdictated merely by ability but by a combination of personaland institutional circumstances that remain as dynamic asthey may be ambiguous. Pressure, performance and peoplecombine in ways that are unpredictable but they do so in atheatre that isn’t (yet?) very organised. As one PVC observedthe system undoubtedly needs to find a better continuingcareer structure, particularly where ‘going back’ is not reallyan option.

Summary

The idea that PVCs have responsibility without power is apersuasive story line of many in our survey. They recognisethat they do have formal authority, but acknowledge that itis rarely exercised. Not surprisingly, if things are going well,they don’t need to exercise their authority and powerdoesn’t come into the equation. Yet it is an exaggerationperhaps to think that PVCs have only imaginary authority. Itis true that many PVCs perform their role without the leversassociated with budgetary control, something that mosthad experienced in previous roles as departmental heads orfaculty deans. Some PVCs do control budgets of course. Butfor the majority of PVCs in the UK context at least roles areperformed on a different basis. It can be characterised as acollaborative approach based on forging of criticalrelationships.

Standing as the mid-point between the academics and theadministrators, but charged with the interpretation andimplementation of the VC’s will, the PVC typically relies onmelding the historical appeal of collegiality with the

imperatives of corporate management. Sometimes theymust buffer and mediate between the two. At others theymust achieve their desired goals in more executive styles.Hence, they do what they do in various ways: throughinformal and highly personal relationships with key players,through powers of argument and persuasion, and throughoperational control of the key committees of academicgovernance. In the organisational images suggested byMintzberg76, the PVC is not just part of the residual form thatis the university as a ‘professional bureaucracy’, but is aleader of more fleet footed and ‘responsive adhocracy’. ThePVC is thus a symbol of stability, continuity and tradition aswell as a fulcrum of change and environmental uncertainty.

Three areas exemplify this argument. The first concerns thelingering effects of collegiality on university leadership. It isgenerally argued that collegiality has withered in responseto the rise of new managerialism and new publicmanagement77. However, as Bryman’s78 research for theLeadership Foundation has shown, the literature oncollegiality is not distinguished by its clarity, either in themeanings attached to the term or in its practical application.He identifies two principal uses attached to the term. Oneconcerns consensual decision making involving the fullparticipation of staff – a meaning of collegiality oftenviewed from outside the system with suspicion because it isassociated with a culture of resistance and with an approachto decision making that is as slow as it is cumbersome. Theother reflects the notion of mutual supportiveness amongstaff. The problem with both meanings, Bryman argues, isthat it is difficult to assess whether collegiality in eithersense is declining, how important it is to staff and whether(and if ) leaders can and should do anything to bolster itspresence. Although collegiality is still considered animportant cultural attribute of the system, in view of itsconceptual fuzziness the term risks acquiring ‘an almostmythical character’79.

We share this concern with the bluntness of collegiality as aresearch instrument. Nevertheless, as we have attemptedto show in the preceding exemplars and analysis, the notionof collegiality suffuses the narratives of our sample of PVCs.The interview schedules did not raise collegiality explicitly.Rather it was PVCs who raised the issue, often obliquely andsometimes problematically, but always in ways thatdemonstrated the continuing salience of the concept. Theydescribed it in various ways and, we suspect, invoked in itdifferent meanings. But there is no doubting the symbolicvalue of the concept in their accounts of how they getthings done. We argue therefore that collegiality as a theme

76 Mintzberg, H. (1979)77 Bryson, C. (2004)

78 Bryman, A. (2007)79 Bryman, A. (2007)

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underpins all the others since it concerns institutionalvalues, history and the future. Whilst we acknowledge thatPVCs are expected (some more than others) to thinkstrategically, not just about the direction of change but howto implement it, it is the inheritance of collegiality thatconditions how strategic intentions are to be delivered.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that in value-basedorganisations collegiality remains a potent influence. Thereare opportunity costs as well as risks attached totransformation and change. They should not beapproached lightly for there are inherent dangers thatmight run counter to the core cultural values of theinstitution and higher education more broadly. What makesuniversities valuable is not just the contributions they canmake to wealth creation and the knowledge economy oftoday or even tomorrow, but the core values on which theyare built and on the conservation of which they maintaintheir social, economic and cultural distinctiveness. The PVCmay be expected to act as an innovator in some contexts,but at the risk of hyperbole, all remain ultimatelyresponsible for conserving for the university of the futurethe ideals and values of the past.

But it is not just collegiality that is embroiled in core values.The second theme relates to issues of quality and culture.Silver has argued forcefully and on the basis of researchevidence that universities do not have a monolithic culture.Academic practices, identities and cultures are dispersed bysubjects, disciplines and other loyalties80. Although it is acommonplace that what happens in one part of a universitymay have no or little impact on another part of theinstitution, the paradox nevertheless is that the modernuniversity is acutely aware of its brand image, the more so asrelations with stakeholders and students becomeincreasingly ‘marketised’ and the operating environmentdecidedly more competitive.

In a loosely coupled organisation, which we have argueddescribes the university, it is very easy to tarnish the brandand lose the trust that is essential to the maintenance ofvalue and hence market position. It is essential to ensurethat there are common standards of quality that are fit topurpose of maintaining brand quality. Quality in this sensemay take many forms and may be played out in various forain both the research and teaching domains. The addition ofthe third mission of economic activity and impact raisesnew questions about quality, not just in terms of thestandards that might be applied to such activity, but itswider impact on the established missions. Whatever the

PVC’s title, portfolio or area of responsibility, wherever theymay locate and derive their own disciplinary loyalty orculture, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that they are,when empowered by the VC of course, the final arbiters onmatters that ensure the university maintains its integrity asan institution: the sum is very much greater than the parts inthis sense. Corporate culture may be difficult to locate in auniversity, but corporate responsibility is altogether moresalient.

The third, and linked, theme concerns compliance withthese university standards. Departments, schools or unitsthat are culturally more innovative and prepared to dothings differently may need encouraging, or, conversely,checking. Judgment will be required so as not to stifleinnovation or, perversely, reward stasis. This role is essentialnot just to the brand but to the working of the institution.While there is no reason in principle why those heading theoperating branches of the university should not beresponsible for ensuring their own compliance, in practicethis adds a layer of risk that would leave the institutionhostage to fortune. Seeing across the piece, therefore, isanother facet of the PVC’s role, again almost irrespective ofthe particular job responsibility, academic or culturalidentity. This is why the fairly recent creation of the hybridPVC and Dean – the so-called super deans – constitutessuch an interesting and, for some commentators, riskyexperiment. It remains an open question whether the sameoffice can in effect be responsible for both the broaderuniversity view as well as the faculty.

5. CONCLUSIONS: DO UNIVERSITIES NEED PVCS?

This research has focused on changing roles of pro-vice-chancellors. It has explored the perspectives of PVCsthemselves to construct a portrait seen from the inside ofbecoming and being a senior leader within contemporaryUK universities. However, the resultant picture has beensupplemented by two further sets of perspectives. One ishistorical, examining data on the evolution of the pro-vice-chancellorship, setting this in a wider discourse about thealleged failings of the management model in highereducation. The other is organisational, focusing on thenature of the university and how to understand its practices.

The purpose of the final chapter, then, is to draw ourargument together into a broader set of conclusions. It

80 Silver, H. (2003)

45

focuses not just on the roles of PVCs but their place in themanagement model in UK higher education. Our aim is notspecifically to provide a check-list of leadershipcompetencies that will lead to more effective leadership orinstitutions. This is not to deny that universities and thesector as a whole needs to think more systematically aboutapproaches to leadership development or thecompetencies that support them.

But this is not the primary purpose of the research. Rather itis to ground the debate in some firm empirical evidenceabout the nature of the role within the second leadershiptier and to contextualise that evidence within a clearerunderstanding of the relationship between leadershippractices and the organisational structures and cultures ofthe contemporary university. Our conclusions thereforetake on this task. They are intended not so much as an endbut a beginning to the process of reflection on theoutcomes of our interviews and a consolidation of theemerging conclusion. The report is a part of that process,with subsequent elements, in particular comparativestudies of equivalent issues in Australian and Europeanuniversities, to follow later.

The chapter is arranged in three parts. First, we consider themanagement model in higher education. This locates therole of the PVC within a particular structural configuration ofsecond tier leadership. But our discussion is somewhatwider than that. We consider the nature of the university ascontext, drawing together a sense of its purposes andcultural attributes as defining features of leadership tasks.Second, we draw out the key structural changes inboundaries of the management model that are impactingon PVC roles. These prelude the final part of the chapter –the main findings and key conclusions on why universitieshave PVCs and what constitutes their special contribution tothe leadership task.

The management model: a leadership gap?

The historiography of higher education management in theUK contains a discernible discourse of discontent. For 20years or more, going back at least to the Jarratt efficiencyexercises of the mid-1980s, it has been assumed bysuccessive governments that university leadership is weakand compromised by its reversionary predilection forcollegial styles of management.

As we noted, for Jarratt, the answer was to reconfigure thevice-chancellor as a chief executive officer at the centre ofstrong top-down university government with an emphasis

on corporate style strategic planning, resource allocationand accountability. More recently the Lambert Reportmade explicit the government’s lack of confidence in theway universities run themselves and even singled out PVCsfor criticism, arguing that they had insufficient experience ofmanaging large budgets81.

Whilst not wishing to create the impression that viewedfrom the inside everything is rosy, our findings suggestthese are superficial views of the nature of the leadershiptask in higher education. The persistent tendency to equatecollegial styles of leadership and management withineffectiveness and corporate styles of strong top-downdecision making with effectiveness misunderstands thecultural attributes of the university and how to get the bestfrom its practices. Two sets of issues surround this debatewith, in each case, implications for how we read the purposeand place of PVCs.

The first concerns the nature and purposes of the university.Despite exhortations to become more like businessorganisations, universities remain resolutely different inmany key respects. They are not for-profit organisations andeven though they are increasingly ‘marketised’, at least inthe way the state seeks to organise and regulate access totheir products and services, ultimately as institutions theyare not for sale. As Birnbaum82 reminds us, the value of theuniversity lies essentially in trust. On the whole peoplebelieve they will get value from a university – whether theyare purchasing education, specific knowledge, know-howor advice – but they may not be clear why or how this valuewill manifest itself.

These strictures are important for understanding whyworking and managing in a university may be different tobusiness. But the picture is further complicated by themultiple and sometimes conflicting missions of theuniversity. Pursuit of international excellence in research, forinstance, is normally not done in isolation from otheractivities, not least teaching. At the same time, moreteaching oriented institutions are invariably disinclined tobe persuaded that research, in some form, is not for them.Besides, each strand in the mission can itself be brokendown into numerous, often highly differentiated, activitiesand engagements. The point to emphasize is thatuniversities speak to multiple communities, internal andexternal and that the organisational forms of the universityhave developed in order to reflect these disparate goals andthe pressures associated with them.

81 Lambert R. (2003) para 7.23 82 Birnbaum, R. (2001)

46


The second set of issues concern the need to accommodatesome fundamental and potentially awkward historicalrigidities. Contemporary universities and other highereducation institutions are larger, more differentiated, moreglobally oriented, more segmented, and in terms of theimpact of new technologies, more distributed than everbefore. The main directions of movement, particularly inbut not confined to the large research university, appear tobe across the established structures associated withtraditional departmental structures. Arguably this rigidity isretarding progress in new directions, for example across andbetween disciplines83.

We argued earlier in the report that the basic empires of theuniversity – teaching schemes, research groups and theadministration - remain substantially unchanged since thebirth of the modern Humboldtian university of the laternineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite thetransformations associated with the rise of mass and evenuniversal higher education, the historical continuities inrelation to these empires are striking. In the teaching,research and, to a lesser extent, administration empires, inthe persistence of the inner instincts of collegiality andcollegiate practices, we find successive and often interlinkedlayers of university practices that have proved historicallyimmune to ideas of ‘rational’ management deriveduncritically from industry or even professionalbureaucracies.

However, it is not simply that in its customs and practicesacademic work is necessarily anarchic – though there is aview of universities as organisational anarchies84. It is stillless the case that activities to do with teaching and learning,curricula and assessment or research cannot be managed.But it is to argue that higher education continues to becharacterised by a fundamental separation of work and itsprocesses from the formal organisational structures ofmanagement. In the setting of higher education, thedeeper cultures of the disciplines and the empires ofteaching and research survive, not unthreatened orunchanged, but largely intact.

Part of the explanation for this separation is to do with ourunderstanding of professional work in the academy. This isbuilt around concepts of professional training and thesubject specialisms, cultures and practices of the academyand its various academic disciplines85. Notions of freedomand autonomy are sufficiently entrenched to prevent any(easy) external management interference in such basic

areas of academic work connected with the exercise ofprofessional judgment as applied, for instance, to academicstandards or to questions of academic competence.Academics manage academics in this sense. It is the need toaccommodate such fundamental continuities within anoperating environment for higher education that is nolonger as stable or predictable as in previous eras thatdefines the management task. We have argued thereforethat those who lead need not just the political andnetworking skills required for dealing withcompeting/multiple interests and resource demands, butdirect experience or immersion in the values and practicesof organisational function. The university is as much apolitical organisation as a professional bureaucracy.

Shifting boundaries: a ‘stretched’ second-tier?

Although universities as institutions are framed withinconstitutional settlements that are usually stable and longlasting, periodic organisational redesign has becomeendemic in higher education86. One of the most radical,though still relatively rare, forms of re-design involveswholesale mergers or acquisitions between previouslyseparate institutional entities. More usual and less obviousoutside the secret garden of the institution are internalrevisions set in train by university leaders. These ordinarilyreflect the chief executive’s personal perception of the needfor some form of redirection of the institution, its orientationand positioning in relation to markets, or its strategicapproach to developing its competitive position therebyachieving greater efficiencies in some or all of its coreactivities.

Shifting the management model may have implications forthe role of the PVC, not least because such rearrangementmay disturb existing boundaries and their associatedindividual and group identities87(88).

On the basis of our field research in 13 UK universities weidentified two broad organisational models with somevariations at the margins:

The first is the re-configuration of the university into asmaller number of faculties. Several vice-chancellors in ourfield research (and we know of others beyond it) havechosen to reorganise their institutions by collecting cognateacademic disciplines into several large faculty structures.Typically, the approach has been to reduce the number ofoperating faculty to between three and five units, each ledby re-energized faculty deans which we designated as

83 Nature (2007)84 Cohen, M.D. and March, J.G. (1974)85 Becher, T. (1989); Becher, T. and Trowler, P.R. (2001)86 Bargh, C. et al (2000)

87 Paulsen, N. and Hernes, T. (Eds.) (2003); Santos, F.M. and Eisenhardt, K.M. (2005)88 The implications for the role of the PVC in managing boundaries during times of

organisational change offers some fertile ground for further research, but the issues are

not pursued in this report.

47

‘super deans’. These deans have major strategic andoperating roles, especially the case where they areresponsible for the entire budget of the faculty.

We encountered several cases where reorganisation alongthese lines has caused institutions to institute a formalreview of pro-vice-chancellor and other senior roles,including scrutiny of whether such PVC roles are evenrequired. In the event the outcome has been to reaffirm theimportance of the role and to incorporate it into thereorganised organisational structure. No institution in theUK has (so far) chosen to abolish the pro-vice-chancellorship, though they have re-aligned them in such away as to raise some fundamental questions about theapparent parity of roles and responsibilities across differentparts of the second leadership tier. Perhaps it is lessobviously a flat second tier, but one that is becoming‘stretched’ in order to accommodate a more hierarchicalrelationship between different types of PVCs.

Two variants of PVC roles appear to have emerged out of themove towards academic concentration in faculty systems.The first, more traditional, approach has been to retain PVCsas senior academic officers. In this guise the PVC is allocatedresponsibilities that are institution-wide in their coverage.In these circumstances deans or heads of department mayreport either to the vice-chancellor directly or, in somecases, to one of the PVCs or, more usually, a deputy vice-chancellor. Here the second tier of PVCs and servicedirectors constitutes a senior leadership layer above thefaculty deans.

Another, less common, approach has been to re-design therole of PVC by combining it with that of faculty dean. In thishybrid form, the PVC/Dean (PVCD) is allocated dualresponsibilities. The PVCD is both PVC with cross-institutional functions and dean with executive facultyresponsibility. This means the PVCD typically participates in,and takes (collective) responsibility for, setting the strategicdirection of the institution as a whole and the developmentof associated policy lines. But the PVCD also embodiesacademic and budgetary responsibility for the faculty andits performance. Hence, in this dual guise it is to beexpected that PVCDs will participate in the cycle ofinstitutional planning and review, but on two sides of thetable.

For those institutions that have followed the route ofcreating PVCD roles a key question will be whether a moretraditional PVC role, or set of roles, is also required alongside

that of the PVCD. For the moment it seems the approach isto continue with both types of PVC role. In our site visitinstitutions there were no cases where organisational re-design had caused a decision to abolish traditional PVCroles.

In contrast to the super-faculty model many institutionalheads have chosen to persevere with various forms ofdistributed organisational models. In some cases theapproach is based on devolving responsibility and budgetsto academic departments. In this model, heads ofdepartment may report directly to the vice-chancellor,leaving PVCs with no line management responsibilities.

In others cases a faculty structure of sorts may overlayvarious combinations of departments. In such cases thefaculty may be headed by a dean, but in contrast to the‘super faculties’ model, budgets continue to be devolveddirectly to departments or schools. Hence, although thefaculties are run by deans, budgetary responsibilities remaindistributed to heads of the operating units.

The most significant variation in this model may be relatedto the differential roles and responsibilities of DVCs andPVCs. Our site visits revealed several universities in whichthe DVC worked very closely with the VC to a different briefand with more obvious ‘senior’status to the other PVCs. It isimportant to note however that such are the variations oforganisational practices that it is also perfectly possible tofind exemplars of more concentrated faculty systems whichalso operate with a closer VC – DVC dualism as an uppersecond tier element. Although it is helpful to think in termsof some typical management models, the reality is that fewuniversities will conform to any model in every detail.

Change and continuity: the PVC role reconfigured?

Change and continuity, then, appear to characterise andshape the context of the PVC. Despite the transformationsassociated with mass higher education and the burgeoningcalls on the university as a knowledge provider, transmitterand innovator, it appears from our study that the sector as awhole, both in the UK and beyond, continues to believe inthe notion and value of some form of pro-vice-chancellorship.

We are confident in concluding, from our interviews andfrom subsequent reflective analysis, that PVCs continue tohave an important and special role to play in contemporaryuniversities. Despite a widespread feeling that the system is‘moving on’, it is evident that it is PVCs that help to cementthe top-down business of running a multi-million pound

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enterprise to the bottom-up independence and self-management that is associated with the best teaching andresearch. Even in post-92 institutions, the significance of thecollegial culture remains an important part of what makes auniversity effective in its core functions. The continuingpresence and need for of PVCs, and the influence they bringto bear, are the manifestation of this within universityleadership.

They key characteristic of the PVC role is that only they andthe chief executive have a cross-institutional perspective.Only they – and those with the same delegatedcompetency - can facilitate the initiatives and standards thatdeliver the mission and maintain the institutional ‘brand’across the ‘baronies’ of the Faculties. PVCs haveprogressively increased in abundance since 1960, notbecause of management directives but because the morecomplex challenges faced by academic institutions haveincreased the need for individuals who weave and maintaina complex web which enables the institution to function.

Having seen what PVCs do, we can make the case for theircontinuing value in a simple model. (Figure A) Higher educationinstitutions (HEIs) are organised along two principal axes (A in diagram). The academic units provide the disciplinarystructure that forms one axis and may be aggregated by research

group, degree scheme, department, school or faculty. The corefunctions provide the other axis, and the structure indicated bythose functions is repeated at any level of aggregation: it is similarfor individual academics, their departments, their Faculties andthe institution as a whole. The core functions are conventionallysummarised as teaching, research and administration but aremore diverse in their modern incarnation.

The traditional role of PVCs is facilitating and cross-institutional (B). But it is one of influence, not command,and lacks direct management levers. The appearance ofSuper-Deans with strong management influence within aFaculty, often accompanied by clear financial control,introduces a more overt (and appealing?) managementstructure (C). However, this lacks institutional cohesiveness:Deans may compete with one another and – at the extreme- disrupt institutional outcomes. The PVC role is preservedbecause it retains that institutional perspective and deliversthe crucial non-financial bottom line that characterises thehigher education (and generic third-sector) mission. If thisis to be effective, then it is essential for senior managementto recognise and moderate the inherent tensions in thesystem (D) to achieve both the financial goals that enablethe disciplinary structure and the [word] goals that enableoverall strategy. The increasingly frequent appearance ofFaculty super-Deans might be a threat to the effectiveness,

DIS

CIP

LIN

AR

Y U

NIT

S

FUNCTION

TEACHING RESEARCH ADMINA

SU

PE

R-D

EA

NS

IN F

AC

ULT

IES

FUNCTIONC

Explicit management,possibly financial

control, within units

DE

AN

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PVCsD

DE

PA

RT

ME

NT

S

PVCsB

Networks ofinfluence across

units

Tensions pivotingaround unit budgets

and institutional goals

CONTINUING VALUE OF THE PVC ROLE

FIGURE A

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even to the existence, of the PVC, but this should not beoverstated and the need for balance was recognised byinstitutions we visited.

Changing management structure is not the only threat tothe role and effectiveness of PVCs. There are many moreinstances of factors that cause institutions to get less out oftheir second management tier than might otherwise be thecase.

The VC’s recognition of what the PVCs are there to do andhow they might best do it is opaque, perhaps because theytoo have a cross-institutional, but in their case over-riding,role. Not all PVCs appear to be empowered confidently toimplement their tasks. Explicit recognition of what makesan effective senior management team, the value ofdelegation as a management tool and the significance ofempowerment would be a valuable objective for leadershipdevelopment. 89

A significant part of the PVC’s influence is derived from theircontinuing membership of the academic college. They havetaught and carried out research with distinction. Mostmaintain an academic presence in their translation. Whilethe reality of this may, for some, be merely tokenistic, it isnevertheless an essential part of the myth that in arisingfrom the academic body, so to it they will return. In fact wefound few PVCs who relished the thought of such re-entryand the assumptions that underpin the notion are a realsource of friction in the role of many PVCs.

PVCs have remarkably little formal introduction to theirroles. They have often been appointed by opaque andinformal processes, though this is changing. They learn onthe job and have little formal training. They rarely havesubstantial support teams, but may have to negotiatechallenging relationships with professional Directors inservice roles. Yet relationships are the pivot of theirexistence for their power is through influence, notcommand. Committees – the very oxygen of academicgovernance - are where they lead, creating the consensusand buy-in that enables the institution to work throughacademic self-management. They maintain the networksthat present the disciplinary bazaar to the market as acoherent whole that proclaims its value and brand.

Summary

The role of the PVC, then, confronts the basic problem ofproviding effective linkages between academic processesand corporate outcomes. Finding ways of addressing theinner tensions between structures and work practicesrepresents a fundamental challenge for senior managers inhigher education. Many vice-chancellors appear to beresponding to the challenge through various adjustmentsto the design of the organisational management model,sometimes, as in the case of one of the ancient universities,as part of a more sweeping packages of changes associatedwith new forms of governance.

In our site visit institutions, however, vice-chancellorsjustified the need for keeping PVCs firmly within themanagement model. Whatever the specific features of theorganisational design at any one time, the pro-vice-chancellorship continues to occupy a pivotal place in theinteractions between structures and practices. Their role isseen as central to the working of mass universities as multi-functional organisations with their burgeoning need forinformation flow and innovation. However, the roles ofPVCs stretch across and sometimes, more significantly,between several communities or fields of play. This can beproblematic since professional work and designedmanagement structures don’t necessarily sit together easily.

But the headline finding from our research is that the PVCoccupies a distinctive place within the organisationalstructure of the contemporary university. Although chiefexecutives are routinely adjusting and refining thestructures and reconfiguring PVC roles within them, thereare some enduring features that justify the continued needfor PVCs within the management model. Our researchfound a consistent view from within the system that the PVCis not only a facilitator of the VC’s vision, but also an initiatorof action to achieve that vision. Indeed, we can go furtherand argue that such is the centrality of this role – or moreaccurately set of roles – to the working of the dual structuresof academic work and management, that if the pro-vice-chancellorship did not already exist in some form, it wouldneed to be invented.

89 This question is addressed from different angles in the Leadership Foundation sponsored research studies to be published in 2007/8 by Woodfield, S. and Kennie, T. Composition, challenges and

changes in top team structures in UK higher education institutions of Top Management Teams; and Breakwell, G. Characteristics, roles and selection of vice-chancellors.

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APPENDIX: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND

METHODS

The original research proposal set out seven main questionsabout the changing nature of the pro-vice-chancellorship:

• What is the extent of differentiation between the role ofpro-vice-chancellors, deputy vice-chancellors andother senior management team posts?

• What is the nature of the relationship between pro-vice-chancellors and other members of the senior team,including vice-chancellors and other senior academicand administrative managers?

• How important is the role of the vice-chancellor insetting the parameters of pro-vice-chancellor roles?

• How are pro-vice-chancellors selected and trained fortheir jobs?

• What are their strategic and operational responsibilities?

• Are there clear career trajectories, including analysis ofprogression/exit routes into and from the pro-vice-chancellorship?

• How do UK practices compare with evolving models inEU and Australian systems of HE?

• What are the principal trends in terms of PVC roles andwhat are the policy implications?

To address these questions as systematically as possible theproject employed a combination of desk based and surveymethods. These comprised the following elements.

1. Desk-based research

Documentary and data collection

Documentary analysis – at system and institutional level – wasdesigned to provide data with which to analyse the historicalevolution of PVC roles. The primary data source has been thepublished institutional entries profiling PVC post holders inthe annual Association of Commonwealth University Thesedata focus on PVC numbers, their distribution across differenttypes of HEIs, job titles and relationships to specific cross-institutional responsibilities. Data were assembled for sixsample years: 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2005.

Literature review

There is a relative paucity of secondary source materialbearing directly on the role of PVCs. The review concentratedon approaches to leadership roles and organisationalconfigurations contained in both the formal publishedliterature as well as appropriate ‘grey’ literature. We alsocollected data derived from a sample of institutionaldocumentation such as corporate plans, strategic plans andmarketing information. These data were used to establishcommonalities, continuities and contradictions betweeninstitutions, gaps in coverage and underpinning assumptionsin relation to numbers, roles and selection. Analysis wasfurther directed to the identification of typologies in relationto different strategic and organisational approaches touniversity senior leadership.

2. Survey approaches

Site visits

The site visits concentrated on institutional and personalapproaches to PVC roles and their relationships with seniormanagement teams and operating units. We constructed aninitial structured sample of 16 institutions. These wereselected to represent a diverse spectrum of HEIs in terms ofsize, type and regional distribution. In the event we receivedinvitations to visit 13 HEIs. These are recorded in anonymisedform by type and regional distribution in the table below.

In the selected institutions we were usually able to conduct indepth interviews with all or a majority of the senior teams,including the VC or Principal and the heads of a sample ofservice and support areas working to PVCs. In someinstitutions the approach was lighter touch, confined tointerviews with a smaller sample of D/PVCs. A total of 47interviews were conducted across the 13 institutions. Theprincipal survey instrument in each institution was one-to-one, semi-structured interviews, each normally lasting fromone to two hours. The interviews were governed by a researchprotocol ensuring the anonymity of individual participantsand their institutions in published outcomes of the study.

Key informant interviewsThese comprised a series of in-depth semi-structuredinterviews with key informants, such as former VCs innational roles and others with system-wide overviews ofhigher education. These were selected to reflect criticalexperience and knowledge of leadership theory, practiceand development. We interviewed seven informants in total.

53

The primary purposes of the interviews were: 1) to subjectour hypotheses regarding the historical evolution of pro-vice-chancellor roles to external critique; and, 2) tocontribute to our understanding of the internal cultures ofinstitutional leadership and management.

Comparative studyThe final element was designed to provide some comparativebaselines with senior leadership roles in European andAustralian HE systems. Evidence was collected through acombination of semi-structured interviews, email and

telephone contacts with VCs, DVCs, and PVCs or theirequivalents in Australian (6), Swedish (2), Danish (2), French (1)and Swiss (1) universities . The purpose of the interviews wasbroadly similar to the UK element with the addition of a suiteof questions focusing on broader system characteristics. Thiselement of the study will form the subject of a separate report.

STRUCTURED SAMPLE OF UK HEIS: INSTITUTIONAL TYPES, REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION AND INTERVIEW TOTALS

Eastern 1(2) 1(2)

East Midlands 1(5) 1(5)

London 1(4) 1(1) 2(5)

NI

North East 1(2) 1(2)

North West 1(5) 1(5)

Scotland 1(6) 1(6)

South East 1(3) 1(4) 1(2) 3(9)

South West

Wales

West Midlands 1(8) 1(2) 2(10)

Yorks & Humber 1(3) 1(3)

Total 6(25) 3(15) 3(6) 1(1) 13(47)

REGION PRE-1960 1960-1990 POST-1990 SPECIALIST TOTALSINSTITUTIONS MISSION

NOTES

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55

NOTES

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NOTES

Dr David SmithPrincipal Research Fellow, Deputy Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Education (CPSE), & Joint Director of the Higher

Education Policy Unit (HEPU) in the School of Education, University of Leeds

David is also Director of Knowledge Transfer, in the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law at the University. He trained as asocial and economic historian being awarded SSRC Studentships at the Universities of Lancaster and Liverpool to study for his MAand PhD. After teaching at Liverpool Polytechnic he held research posts at the Universities of East Anglia and Warwick before movingto his present post in 1993.

His research and writing covers a broad field of higher education policy in both historical and contemporary settings, including thegovernance and management of universities, access and widening participation and research policy. He is the author of a range ofbooks, articles and policy reports. Current projects include an investigation of knowledge transfer in the creative industries fundedby the AHRC and a study of dual regimes of further and higher education funded by the ESRC.

Dr Jonathan AdamsChief Executive, Evidence Ltd

Jonathan has published widely on research policy and assessment. In 2004 he chaired the EC Monitoring Committee for theEvaluation of Framework Programme VI and in 2006 chaired the European Research Fund for Coal & Steel Monitoring Group.Jonathan was formerly Dean for Strategic Development at the University of Leeds (1996-2001) and prior to that was a science policyadviser at the Department of Education & Science. He originally trained as an ecologist at Liverpool, Kings College London, Newcastleupon Tyne and Imperial College London. He worked with Evidence on Hefce’s Fundamental Review of Research Policy and Funding(1999-2000) and on Hefce led projects on ‘Maintaining Research Excellence and Volume’(2001) and on ‘Highly Skilled Technicians inHigher Education’(2001). At a more local level, he has been involved in the development of a new format for academic planning ata leading Russell Group University, and in reviewing the training needs of research post-graduates and linking these to a new M.Res.degree. He has also been instrumental in developing elements of the White Rose consortium’s ‘Enterprise Learning’and ‘BusinessExploitation’projects.

Evidence specialises in research performance analysis and interpretation. It works on contract for Government departments andagencies and for universities and other research based organisations in the UK. It has a range of products and publications assessingHE research quality including the UK Higher Education Research Yearbook.

David MountEvidence Ltd

David’s academic background is in resource management and conservation, and training and development. He has held posts inNational Park and Nature Reserve management, focusing on the training and development of personnel involved in these functions,and on related policy development. He worked with Evidence on Hefce’s Fundamental Review of Research Policy and Funding (1999-2000) and on Hefce led projects, ‘Maintaining Research Excellence and Volume’ (2001) and ‘Highly Skilled Technicians in HigherEducation’(2001). At a more local level, he has been involved in the development of a new format for academic planning at a leadingRussell Group University, and in reviewing the training needs of research post-graduates and linking these to a new M.Res. degree.He has also been instrumental in developing elements of the White Rose consortium’s ‘Enterprise Learning’ and ‘BusinessExploitation’projects. He is a visiting lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, and at the University of Sheffield.

Current/recent projects include: Development of training policy for the Countryside Agency; Management and delivery of aprogramme of environmental awareness training for senior staff from the Alfred McAlpine Group; Research within AONBmanagement.

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