Read on Twitter
What is happening at the University of Leicester is too important not to discuss. ULSB is a hub for research and teaching that: critiques management, business and organisations; promotes sustainability; interrogates governance and accountability; seeks alternatives, etc.
Before being merged with the economics department, the old management school was lauded by the management academic community for producing such research. Students were happy to study this more critical subject too – pre-merger it was regularly in the THE/Guardian top 20 lists
Research wise, the school tried to foster an inclusive approach and through their centre for philosophy and political economy were able to host amazing talks and events with non-business scholars. EG Stengers, Spivak, Caffentzis and Federici were important speakers at CPPE events
During, and after, the merger, there were attempts through changing “leadership” structures to de-emphasise this critical focus on teaching and research. Much to the merged school’s detriment, degrees were added and changed, modules nixed, institutional support withdrawn for CPPE
In the last 2-3 years, teaching was refocussed away from more “critical” and theoretically informed studies of business, to more “generic” management and business degrees. Attempts to develop niche degrees were culled at the paperwork stage
Staff morale plummeted, student satisfaction and NSS scores fell dramatically, and the merged school tumbled down rankings. It now ranks in the bottom 20 of the Guardian 2021 list.
16 staff members in the school are in the process of being made compulsorily redundant. Why? The official position is because these 16 people are engaged in the kind of research that built the reputation of the school
This isn’t a romanticism for the old school. This is a call for support for colleagues affected by the apparent lunacy of mismanagement
@profsimonlilley was told today that he was targeted because of his publication record and his affiliations. See below.
This is absurd, because many of us in business schools are regularly told to target the very same journals that Simon, and many of the others being made redundant, have published in. The very same journals that sit in the upper rankings of various journal quality guides
Either managers are being incomprehensibly stupid; or they have deemed journals like Organization, Organization Studies, Culture & Organization, Accounting, Organizations & Society, and Critical Perspectives on Accounting to be artefacts of illicit scholarship.
And presumably no good for teaching purposes either
It is also no coincidence that 8 of those 16 people being made redundant also happen to be union branch officials or reps @uculeicester
So not only is the management group and leadership ignoring their own performance criteria, but openly attacking and victimising union members. Ostensibly, this all looks like management is purging the business school and union busting in one connected action
I hope this is not the case, and I hope that I’ve misunderstood management's intentions. I hope this is not the attack on academic freedom that it looks like. I hope it’s not the victimisation of labour unions that it looks like it is.
Please show support to the 16 scholars. Please sign the open letter here. Other actions of support welcome too. Letter below https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6LKASpFkpwidMcqFrNl_dKzI07as4ZbtOQAiuJWpSlWwNIA/viewform
