The changing nature of academic middle management: a framework for analysis

The objective of this chapter is to present an analytical framework that encourages further research on middle management in higher education and that will help us to further understand how universities are being led and managed. It is argued that notwithstanding the contributions in this volume, in general, middle management in higher education is under-researched. Given that middle-management positions are becoming increasingly important because of a number of external and internal environmental changes, this in itself is problematic. To the extent that middle management in higher education has been the object of study, with a few exceptions, this has been done largely through case studies in an Anglo-American context. Drawing on the Competing Values Framework, a framework is proposed that could facilitate a more empirical research agenda linking leadership styles to organisational effectiveness.