Roland S Persson Opens in new window., "The management and mismanagement of academic staff worldwide":

The purpose of this article was to explore the degree to which academic staff worldwide have been satisfied with their work in higher education, and whether they have experienced a work environment conducive to creative and innovative output in teaching and research. Making higher education instrumental in increasing innovative output by marketisation, massification, performativity and accountability, is an explicit objective in the emerging global knowledge economy. The premise underlying the study was that creative and innovative outputs are intrinsically tied to, and dependent upon, supportive and benevolent work environments. The research was designed as a systematised literature review of 91 selected empirical articles and literature reviews in multiple languages, published from 1996 until the present, representing 34 countries on all continents. The analysis suggests that academics worldwide tend not to fare well under new public management, being the knowledge economy’s favoured tool of control and implementation. Contrary to expectation, however, neoliberal policies and new public management seem not necessarily need to be blamed for stress and work dissatisfaction. It would appear that it is rather the academic leadership and its management who have a key role in deciding the health and wellbeing of their staff.