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Collegiality and Communication: This Time it's Personal

2023; Emerald Publishing Limited; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1108/s0733-558x20230000086007

0733-558X

François Van Schalkwyk, Nico Cloete,

Higher Education Practises and Engagement

Abstract Relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class, and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses but have also entrenched political imperatives in its universities. As a consequence, the university is a highly politicised space. This is not new. What is new is a communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). We explore the effects of politicisation and new modes of communication using the case of a controversial article published in a South Africa journal and the ensuing polemic. Drawing on both institutional theory and Castells’ description of the network society, we conceptualise collegiality along two dimensions: horizontal collegial relations which exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct; and vertical collegiality which describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management, and which is necessary for the governance of the university as a complex organisation. We conclude that the highly personal nature of communication that is propelled by digital communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While issues pertaining to collegiality in South Africa may at first glance appear to be unique to the country, we believe that in a globally transforming academy, the South African case may offer novel insights and useful lessons for other highly politicised university systems. Keywords Collegiality Governance University Communication South Africa Network society Citation van Schalkwyk, F. and Cloete, N. (2023), "Collegiality and Communication: This Time it's Personal", Sahlin, K. and Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (Ed.) University Collegiality and the Erosion of Faculty Authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 86), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 143-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000086007 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2024 Francois van Schalkwyk and Nico Cloete License Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited. These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. Introduction Globally, the idea of university collegiality is assumed to be under threat (Moran et al., 2021). Collegiality has been painted as companionship and cooperation among academic colleagues who share responsibility, implying that researchers and teachers are governed by the collective group of professional academics of which they form part (Waters, 1989; Weber, 1922/1978). According to Burr et al. (2017) collegiality can be defined as the relationship between individuals working towards a common purpose within an organisation. They point out that the concept has its origins in the Roman practice of sharing responsibility equally between government officials of the same rank to prevent a single individual from gaining excessive power. The main culprit undermining collegiality is most often seen to be the phenomenon of managerialism or new public management, which assumes that efficient management can solve almost any problem; and that practices which are appropriate for the conduct of private-sector firms can also be applied to public-sector organisations. Managerialism, in contrast to collegiality, does not provide opportunities for exploring consensus because it promotes responsiveness and compliance with authority (Dearlove, 1997; King, 2004). Collegiality emphasises trust, independent thinking and sharing between co-workers, encouraging autonomy and mutual respect with benefits for organisational efficacy (Donohoo, 2017). If one thing can be concluded from the international research project on university collegiality that forms the basis of this special issue on collegiality in the university, then it is that the post-modernists were on the money: context (still) matters. To illustrate, it might come as a surprise to some that not all universities have a tenure system for academic appointments. Many universities may have senates and councils, but how they are constituted and their relative authority in relation to other emerging governance structures (such as boards) varies considerably – sometimes even within the same country. The term ‘collegiality’ in China is anathema; something more akin to ‘professorial or departmental governance’ is more familiar. And the COVID-19 pandemic exposed a variety of institutional responses by universities to the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed by governments across the globe. The summary dismissals and cutbacks in Australian higher education, for example, were unprecedented. We therefore open this paper on university collegiality in South Africa with two context-setting events before suggesting and testing a framework for understanding collegiality in contemporary universities; a framework that optimistically draws on two different sociological approaches. We then present a case of a highly politicised South African university where communication related to both university governance and scientific matters take place in the public domain. The consequence of heterogeneous communication spaces such as the social media as a threat to university collegiality is explored. Background The first context-setting event took place on 15 March, ‘the ides of March’ – the day on which, in the year 44 bc, 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, assassinated Julius Caesar in the Roman senate. On the same day in 2022, we invited 10 scholars – all of whom are familiar with a senate of different kind – to spend a day together in Cape Town to discuss the topic of collegiality at South African universities. It soon became apparent that there was less interest among the attendees in institutional policy and forms of collegial governance, and a greater appetite for discussions related to issues of communication, interpersonal trust and identity politics, all of which were described as unsettling collegial relations at South Africa’s universities. The tone of the conversation resonated with Macfarlane’s (2016, p. 31) observation that ‘ventriloquizing the values of collegiality has become a performative riff in academic life’. And with Moran’s claim of the vacuousness of collegiality as captured by what he calls the Tinkerbell effect: that the collective act of believing in collegiality, sometimes despite the evidence, brings it into being (Moran et al., 2021). The second event took place in a soulless room in the economics department at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The event marked the launch of a new book on the topic of amnesty negotiations during South Africa’s transition to democracy. Jeremy Seekings played host to the prominent political scientist and author. Seekings’ wife, Prof. Nicoli Nattrass, was in attendance. During question time, amidst robust deliberations on the concept of amnesty, a sudden attack erupted from the right flank of the room. Seekings was accused of being a racist. An Angolan postdoc calmly and eloquently pleaded with the attacker to follow protocol. Another more vocal attendee implored the chair to silence the disruptor. Security was called. None was at hand. The reason for the unprovoked war of words? Nattrass (2020a) published an article in which she claimed to have established that black South Africans are disinterested in studying biological sciences. Seekings was a proxy target. Clearly, two years hence, the article still stuck in the craw of some academics at the university. Several key points emerge from the events of March and November 2022. First, the rise of individualism and identity politics in South Africa has led to demands for a renegotiation of the taken-for-granted norms of scientific institutions (including universities) and this, in turn, is undermining constructive communication. ‘Transformation’ – increasing the numbers and proportions of black South African students and staff in higher education – is presented as a zero-sum policy, implemented by following a top-down management model and a focus on numbers but few actual targets. It could be argued that this makes for an untenable situation in which all university policies and processes must comply with transformation imperatives without a clear idea of what the endpoint might look like, a state of affairs that has been described as ‘transformation impossible’ (van Schalkwyk et al., 2021). Of direct relevance to the notion of a collegial university, is that transformation is being implemented within an institutional culture of underlying tensions which can and have been described as ‘toxic’ and have on occasion erupted into open ‘culture wars’. The consequence is an erosion of the idea of the collegial university. While a romantic notion of a collegial paradise lost was squarely rejected by the March group, it would be equally dangerous to resort to a type of ‘collegial extremism’ in the form of warrior tribalism in universities, of the kind that appears to be taking root at some South African universities. It remains unclear in South Africa how the tension between the personal and the collective, between identity politics and shared norms, will be resolved, both in the university and in science more broadly. What became clear from the two events is that, in the interim, collegiality is at best under threat and at worst a social relic in South African universities. From the above background, we identify three key phenomena related to collegiality in changing university systems. The first is that collegiality is both relational and institutional. Relational thinking ‘is an invitation to challenge social phenomena, to think in terms of fluid social processes rather than isolated individuals or external and solid structures’ (Dépelteau & Powell, 2013, p. xv). Collegiality should be understood as an emergent social phenomenon that cannot be produced by an individual (or by an organisation) itself, but derives through social interaction with others, accumulated in embedded resources in social networks (Lin, 1999). At the same time collegiality flourishes or wilts in the institutional domains of science and the university. Second, relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses over the past 20 years but have also entrenched political imperatives in the country’s universities. Third, the university as a highly politicised space is not new. What is new are the consequences of the politicised university in the context of a changed communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). The highly personal nature of political communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While the issues raised above and at the Cape Town meetings may not necessarily be unique to South Africa, we believe that South Africa is currently a place where issues of trust and identity politics are experienced most acutely, and perhaps all the more so in a transforming academy. The South African case may therefore offer novel insights and useful lessons in other highly politicised university systems. Conceptual Framework: Operationalising Research on University Collegiality Lazega (2020) regards collegiality as one critical dimension that accounts for social change; the other is bureaucracy. In the case of the university, the separation is perhaps not as clear-cut, at least not in historical terms. The university is a different, if not special, organisational case. Historically speaking, the university, at least following the Humboldtian model, constituted an organised space for the practice of science. It was self-organised and, relatively-speaking, chaotic (Clark, 1986). What bureaucratic structures were put in place were occupied and ruled by (former) academics. As levels of investment in universities and, consequently, levels of accountability, increased (particularly in the period following the Second World War), hierarchical organisational structures became institutionalised (Krücken & Meier, 2006; Parker, 2011; Zapp, 2017). At the helm of the university have emerged specialised professionals tasked with managing its performance in order to report to and satisfy external stakeholders’ (investors’) expectations, while ‘below’ academics continue to do their academic work in what Clark (1986) called the ‘academic heartland’. One outcome of the rise in professional management and administration personnel at universities is that academics are being crowded out from the operational governance of the university. This development remains partial rather than wholesale. Depending on the national (or provincial) context, senates may still wield some power and the leadership of universities and faculties are still in the hands of academics (Kligyte & Barrie, 2014). Academics, as part of their academic duties, are still expected to participate in committees and other decision-making structures set up to run the university. Whether the objective of these structures is increased efficiency (in economic terms) or the protection of scientific standards (to ensure the truth-seeking objectives of the university), will vary depending on non-academics’ participation in the governance of the university and, of course, their own ideas of what the university as an organisation should achieve. In reality, neither financial nor intellectual imperatives dominate, and what plays out is most likely a combination of the two, with varying levels of dominance depending on local and national socio-economic context (see Jansen, 2023, for an extreme imbalance between scientific and economic objectives at selected universities in South Africa; one that results in the plundering of universities to serve the economic needs of impoverished communities). In line with the above understanding, and following the discussions of the research group, we concur that collegiality can be conceived across two dimensions. Sahlin and Eriksson-Zetterquist (2023, Vol. 86), set out these two dimensions of collegiality: one arranged horizontally, and which relates to relationships between colleagues (often in the same sub-organisational unit or knowledge field), and the other arranged vertically, and in which relationships within organisational decision-making structures are comprised of both colleagues and other members of the same organisation. Horizontal collegiality is guided by a code of conduct while the vertical collegiality by a code of governance. Vertical collegiality describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management (some of whom are former academics, although this may increasingly not be the case). Vertical relations exist for the purpose of organisational governance. Horizontal collegiality describes relations between academic staff, typically within faculties, departments or other organisational sub-units home to academics. Horizontal relations exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct. These collegial relations extend beyond the university, most typically within defined fields of research specialisation and across a growing global network of scientists. Organisational collegiality is therefore place-bound to a greater degree than horizontal collegiality which most-often functions in a space of information flows, in effect, networks of scientific communication. We present this graphically in Fig. 1. We place two contexts in which collegiality is shaped along the two axes: university–institutional and relational–science. We also indicate different governance outcomes dependent on the relationship between organisational and self-governance at any given university. In other words, we suggest that different configurations of strong and weak governance along each axis is possible and will result in different types of university collegiality: University collegiality characterised by compliance to the command and control exerted at the level of organisational governance. In other words, strong organisational governance and weak self-governance, resulting in academics acquiescing to demands of university management and leadership. Hence: ‘tame academics’. It should not be assumed that organisational governance is necessarily corporatist or market-driven, although this seems more likely than not to be the case. University collegiality as stable – where both organisational and self-governance are seen to be strong, and where academics appear to be able to exist and function relatively comfortably in both governance domains thus exhibiting ‘quantum’ properties. As with most two-axes frameworks or models, the top-right quadrant may be seen as the ideal state. However, we do not suggest that is necessarily the case. University collegiality characterised by strong self-governance with weak governance of the organisation. Academics in this scenario as seen to operating as relatively chaotic from an organisational point of view, which is not to suggest that they are not able to be productive. University collegiality that is weak both in terms of self- and organisational governance, likely to be characteristic of a university in which both academics and management are frustrated (because of their ability to complete tasks) resulting in inertia. Opens in a new window.Fig. 1.Horizontal and Vertical Collegiality in the University. Collegiality presents as an ideal social phenomenon through which to consider the interaction of relational and institutional social structures (Dusdal et al., 2021) or, more specifically between science as a communication network and the university as an organisation, two social spaces in which academics interact with one another on a daily basis as they pursue their overarching task of making new discoveries to establish new truths about the world. Science arranged as a relational arrangement (i.e., network) of interconnected truth-seekers first emerged as a consequence of its shift to the public domain and the resultant axial role of communication (lectures, letters, articles and books) in the creation and validation of new scientific knowledge (Eamon, 1985). Communication between scientists gave rise to a formal publication system (academic journals), peer review and other mechanisms for the self-regulation of knowledge production (Eamon, 1985). In a social system that is largely autonomous (science has carved out a monopoly over the validity of truth claims), self-regulated, and dependent on voluntary participation in many of its core activities (e.g., participation in the assessment of claims and in the formal evaluation of peers), norms are particularly salient and necessary in binding together the community of scientists (Anderson et al., 2007). Whether the Mertonian norms still have a bearing on the behaviour of scientists may be questioned as their communication landscape has been disrupted fundamentally with the emergence of digital communication technologies and a global network. Attention-seeking methods – often laden with emotion – have emerged as particularly effective, in a network in which anyone can communicate instantly and globally (Castells, 2009; Williams, 2018). Thinking, reflecting, placing oneself in the shoes of the other – dialecticism – and developing arguments over a period of reflection and revision that do not slide along on blame, slip into personal attributions and are not subject to the kairos of the digital world, are largely being lost. In the past, newspaper sub-editors were the gatekeepers: they checked facts, asked for evidence and penned headlines, and implicitly toed the institutional ideological line. The oversight of some journal editors plays an equally important gatekeeping function. The mediating role of these gatekeepers is now largely lost in the media and can no longer to be assumed in the case of academic journals. With it, due caution being applied to what is published is no longer self-evident. This is the democratising promise of open science, but it is not without risk, notably the misuse of unsettled science for ideological or nefarious ends. In South African universities, identity politics is further destabilising and disrupting relations to the point at which it is no longer supportive of the productive communication. These changes are, as a consequence, undermining collegial relations as communication tends to serve self-interests or, at least, narrow interests, rather than the interests of the collective. Merton’s norms of science point to a particular understanding of the organisation of science – its institutional nature. Institutionalised science mainly assumes its structure in the form of the university. A rich literature exists which explores the institutional nature of the university. The main criticism of neoinstitutional theory is that does not adequately account for the agency of actors that function within institutional domains, and account predominantly for stability rather than for change. This has seen the development of new institutional theories (e.g., institutional logics, strategic action fields). However, attempts to apply multiple theories, including those that account for the new communication landscape in which science operates, are few and far between (Dusdal et al., 2021). Nevertheless, if collegiality is nurtured and diffused through tacit social mechanisms (Bennett, 1998; Palfreyman & Tapper, 2014), then it seems plausible to persist with sociological theories to best understand its persistence, change or demise. Such theories must account for what Lazega (2020, p. 1) describes as ‘our organisation societies [that] create a new of technocratic social order constructed through social engineering in which digital platforms [are] … reformatting individual and collective activities’. He suggests that what is needed is a redefinition of organisations through the joint regulation of ‘stratigraphies’ of collegial and bureaucratic regulation. Digital platforms are premised on new forms of communication; technocratic social order speaks to organisational structure. Joint regulation and stratigraphies imply the combination of different levels and types of thinking within a social arrangement. And, finally, as noted above, communication cannot be side lined in a study of the university as an organisation ostensibly designed to serve science. Few attempts have been made to integrate communication into neoinstitutional approaches in organisational studies: attempts that do not cherry-pick component parts of each theory to create an artificial amalgam. As Cornelissen et al. (2015, pp. 4–5) write: [G]reater attention to dynamics of communication has the potential to enhance the richness and explanatory power of our theories and models of institutions … where speech and other forms of symbolic interactions are not just seen as expressions or reflections of inner thoughts or collective intentions, but as potentially formative of institutional reality. Ocasio et al. (2015) note that while communication in particular contexts has typically been considered as instantiating or reproducing institutional logics, the reverse argument, that communication constitutes logics, holds great potential for advancing our understanding of the durability and change of logics. Ocasio et al. (2015) formalise and elaborate theory on how specific processes of communication demarcate cognitive categories of understanding, help individuals form collective bonds or relationships around those categories, and link these categories to specific practices and experiences. These processes constitute the basis of how cognitive categories become culturally shared and conventional in institutional settings. The assumption is made that the communicative constitution of such categories is central to the establishment of common vocabularies of practice as well as broader institutional logics, or value sets and behaviours that are seen to govern practices in a particular setting. Cornelissen et al. (2015) introduce the concept of ‘communicative institutionalism’. They describe communication as a process through which collective forms such as institutions are constructed in and through interaction, instead of being a conduit for enacting discourses. They argue that attempts to bring communication into institutional theory tend to fall short because they do not account adequately for how communication constitutes the basis for institutional maintenance or change. Such studies still subscribe to the view that institutions constitute the dominant form in which society is organised. They maintain a separation between institutions as one form of social organisation and, for example, networks as another. The various approaches do not attempt to bring together the two types of social organisation into either a single or complex-relational social structure. Nor do they explore the possibility of new organisational forms and theories, a possibility that is left open by Ashcraft et al. (2009, p. 22) who see communication as the ongoing, dynamic, interactive process of manipulating symbols toward the creation, maintenance, destruction, and/or transformation of meanings, which are axial – not peripheral – to organizational existence and organizing phenomena. And yet, there are many similarities, just as there are notable differences between institutions and communication networks. Cornelissen et al. (2015) and Castells (1996) regard communication as formative of social organisation. The difference is that in the former the social form assumed is the institution and, in the latter, a network. Both networks and institutions are social arrangements consisting of social actors. The behaviour of actors in both institutions and networks are prescribed by logics in the case of the former and by programs in the case of the latter. Both have self-defined rules for inclusion and, by implication, exclusion. Neither is dependent on individual actors for their survival. There are differences also. Networks are more adaptable and flexible – they can rapidly delete and add nodes to adapt to external shocks. Institutions are also resilient but because they are risk-averse and slow to adapt. In other words, institutions are cumbersome, their default position is to resist change emanating from external pressures. Control in networks is arranged horizontally or, to be more precise, is determined by the position of some nodes/actors in relation to others. Control in organisations is arranged vertically with actors occupying higher positions exerting control over those below them. Two sociological perspectives are therefore brought to bear on the collegiality framework: neoinstitutionalism and the network society. These are broad theoretical swathes representing different ways of thinking about the social world rather than neatly articulated sociological theories. They also are ‘practiced’ in different scientific disciplines. Two specific schools of thought within each approach and with equal explanatory promise stand out from the more expansive approaches: the institutional logics perspective advanced by Thornton, Ocasio, Lounsbury and others (Thornton et al., 2012), and Manuel Castell’s work on the network society (Castells, 1996, 2009). They are selected because they are grounded in two key issues directly relevant to collegiality. Institutional logics speaks to issues of organisational governance within the institutional domain of the university, a domain in which multiple logics (professional, market, corporate) compete. Thornton and Ocasio (2008, p. 101), drawing on their previous work, define institutional logics as the socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, including assumptions, values, and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experiences. More recently, Haveman and Gaultieri (2017, p. 2), define institutional logics as systems of cultural elements (values, beliefs, and normative expectations) by which people, groups, and organizations make sense of and evaluate their everyday activities, and organize those activities in time and space. Institutional logics are socially constructed, based on a shared, interpersonal understanding of social objects. Each institution has a central logic that can be used