From Collegial Organization to Strategic Management of Resources

The article looks into the consequences for recruitment ofOrganisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s recommendations thatuniversities should manage their resources strategically to foster excellence. Usinginstitutional ethnography as described by Dorothy Smith in a sociology department inNorway, it shows how strategic recruiting for excellence resulted in nominatingcandidates who were not able to teach the sociology program. Operationalizing potentialfor excellence as the number of (international) publications in the last 5 yearsresulted in nominating candidates with narrow fields of expertise who had been offeredfavorable conditions to publish internationally. When academic quality is translatedinto the number of international publications in the last 5 years, it undermines thepolicy of gender equity in academia by ruling out women who use paid parental leave tohave children during their PhD period. The focus on publications in English alsothreatens to marginalize sociology’s contribution to public debate and nationalpolicy