Academics’ values in French universities. Is commitment to performance compatible with commitment to university ‘publicness’?
Résumé
This study analyzes academics’ values in relation with the reforms led in the public sector of higher education. We claim that studying values/attitudes in a given field is critical to anticipate future institutional changes (Greenwood and Hinnings, 1996), since they are often precursors of concrete practices and behaviors (Campbell, 1963; Summers, 1970). As the reforms of higher education led recently in France have stressed the notion of “performance” – present both in the NPM and Neo-Weberian narratives –, we investigate to what extent the adhesion to a culture of performance is compatible with the maintenance of the commitment to the university “publicness” (Bozeman, 2007) – which is antithetical to the ideology promoted by NPM. In addition, investigating the robustness of university publicness contributes to the debate upon the transformation of public servants’ values.