Stories from the middle: Perceptions of the roles of curriculum development managers in a Maltese further education organization

This case study research explores the concept of professionalism as expressed by middle managers in a Maltese Further Education (FE) organization. The middle managers chosen are described as Curriculum Development Managers (CDMs), and have academic and managerial roles. They may be labelled as being hybrid managers (Currie, Burgess, and Hayton 2015), with a broad range of responsibilities (Briggs 2007). A theory-led instrumental case study approach, as viewed from the lens of critical realism, was adopted in this study. Instrumental case studies are chosen when one needs to explore and comprehend a particular problem. This case study involved ten semi-structured interviews with eight CDMs and two members of the Senior Management Team (SMT), focusing on roles, skills, values, management training, and challenges faced. Responses indicated that participants perceived their roles as administering and managing, with the main challenges faced being managing staff and irrational bureaucratic structures. The main skills and values needed to do their job were labelled as efficiency and organization, and fairness and discipline respectively. Very few respondents had management training, but there was a wide consensus for the need of some kind of in-house training. This work indicates how case studies may be used to identify specific participant realities within organizations, and compare them to international literature. While this kind of study has several limitations, such as the small sample size, it might be worth expanding this research to include other FE organizations.