Hybrid Managers in Higher Education: Power, Identity and Challenges

Abstract

In higher education institutions, like in other professional bureaucracies and public organisations, the hybrid-manager role is the link between professionals and management and is responsible for helping deliver organisational strategy. Hybrid-managers are characterised by their straddling of the managerial and professional roles – deemed to face particular challenges associated with identity conflict. However, a more nuanced examination of their role and its enactment, that goes beyond identity conflict, has been called for – especially outside of the healthcare context. This paper reports the emerging findings of a pilot study on Heads of Department – a classic hybrid-manager role in UK universities. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the emerging findings highlight the different ways in which academic hybrid-managers navigate their two worlds – shunning or integrating them to varying extents - and the reasons for this. The findings also start to uncover the ways in which power is perceived in the role, with a view to better understanding how different types of academic hybrid-manager employ power for different ends – contributing to our understanding of the effectiveness of academic hybrid-managers and more widely, for improving the effectiveness of public organisations.