University of South Australia; Supervised by Elaine Butler; EdD.
Commenced in or prior to 2005 - Completed prior to 2005.
Field of Study: Educational Management & Administration
Is research directly related to the work of professional staff in tertiary education? Yes

Contact: judy.szekeres@unisa.edu.au

Abstract: Four interrelated reports, the first being "The Invisible Workers" which analyses a range of literature - academic, journalistic, government and fictional in the light of four discourses which are part of the meta-discourse of corporate managerialism. The second is "Who keeps the Organisation Running" which analyses a collection of interviews with administrative staff undertaken over a six month period across the three SA universities using a hybrid method based on grounded theory. It focuses on the work they undertake, their experiences of changes to the workplace, experiences with technology and interactions with academic staff. The third is "Tell Me a Story" which uses narrative analysis of stories told in interviews to gain a greater understanding of common experiences of workers located in different workplaces. And the final section is "This is My Song" which is an auto-ethnographic account of the author's work experience interwoven with the experiences of participants and selected literature to link together the findings of the first three sections and draw some conclusions about the management of administrators in universities.