[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-594965-105":59,"doc-detail-594965-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","behind-voluntary-redundancy-in-universities-the-stories-behind-the-story","Behind voluntary redundancy in universities - The stories behind the story","","Explores why mid- and late-career higher education teaching professionals in Australia and New Zealand accepted “voluntary” redundancy packages during university restructuring. Using an interpretivist narrative enquiry, it draws on accounts from 12 academics to test the gap between legal framing of choice and the underlying histories, power relations, and socio-political conditions that shape decisions. The study argues that official institutional narratives function as facades, producing master narratives that obscure the contingent, emotional, and irrational factors present in human accounts.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/behind-voluntary-redundancy-in-universities-the-stories-behind-the-story/594965/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/behind-voluntary-redundancy-in-universities-the-stories-behind-the-story/594965.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Mary Man","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-06","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What is the central question about voluntary redundancy in this study?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Why did 12 mid-career academics really take redundancy packages, beyond the official institutional story that frames the decision as a voluntary “choice”.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What research method does the paper use?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"An interpretivist narrative enquiry based on reflectivity, asking participants why they took voluntary redundancy and collecting written or verbal accounts.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the study interpret the difference between legality and actual choice?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It argues that while severance agreements emphasize voluntary motivation, the decision points to a range of histories and conditions, making the “choice” far less free than the voluntariness concept implies.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},594965,1792335890,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},7421720224475,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nBehind voluntary redundancy in universities  \nThe stories behind the story  \nMartin Andrew Otago Polytechnic  \nAt a time when universities internationally participate in continual processes of restructuring, repositioning and reprioritising, calls for ‘voluntary’ redundancy among teaching and learning staff become frequent events. Australian and New Zealand academics, whose stories inform this study, have, particularly, been made subject to severance, voluntary or otherwise, at a time when the modernised university has become the managed, neoliberalised university and, over time, the ‘ruined’ or ‘toxic’ university. This study is a narrative enquiry aiming to capture, re-present and examine the stories of mid-and late-career higher education teaching professionals during this unsettling period of disturbance and flux. In the light of studies on ‘voluntary’ redundancy and scholarship critiquing the mechanisms of power and repression of the corporatised university, this researcher asked 12 mid-career academics why they really took redundancy packages with a view to exposing the experienced truth behind the official institutional story that academic professionals ‘chose’voluntary redundancy packages.  \nKeywords: academic identity, narrative enquiry, neoliberalism, toxicity, voluntary redundancy, Max Weber  \nIntroduction and framework  \nThis study brings forward possible and likely truths that lie behind tenured academics’ decisions to take voluntary redundancies despite their jobs involving edifying, rewarding and ‘passion’ work. In other words, the legality of the severance agreement stresses a voluntary motivation, a choice; but the actuality behind the decision points to a range of histories, of backstories. This researcher asked 12 mid-career academics why they really took redundancy packages. Their stories reveal a raft of themes now commonplace in the literature of the ‘ruined university’. This paper aims to develop the theory that what appears at an institutional level to be voluntary is infact as far from a choice as imaginable.  \nIt is risky to speak of ‘truths’ when my methodology is that of an interpretivist narrative enquiry into individuals’decisions to leave tenured positions via ‘voluntary’  \n14 Behind voluntary redundancy in universities Martin Andrew  \nredundancy. I will speak more explicitly about the epistemological and ethical components shortly. My reference to ‘truths’ needs contextualisation. It comes from my reflections on the methodological anti-positivism andresolute interpretivism of the anti-capitalist sociologist, Max Weber (1864-1920) . I was drawn, particularly, to his 1915 description (in The Methodology of Social Sciences, trans. 1949, p.176) of ‘the skeletal structure of causal attributionsand truths’ (das feste Skelett der kausale Zurechnung) . Such‘attributions’, he maintained, lie behind the ‘facade’ of narrative history and their presence differentiates a work of knowing from a fiction.  \nThis led me to wonder how these fabrications, based on the superficial story (the facade), become the official stories. In other words – and it is not possible to paraphrase without calling Foucault to mind – official history is fabricated by the legalistic stories of the powerful. This historical process  \nvol. 62, no. 2, 2020  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nleaves behind the potent versions of truth embodied in the stories of the disempowered. Foucault (1980) argued that knowledge and understanding are constituted and socially constructed under conditions of power. The production of knowledge reproduces particular discursive practices, such as those of compliance and performativity in universities, which become indicative of individuals’ various alignments with social groups, including those of, variously, the powerful and the resistant.  \nThese reflections on Weber are relevant because those of us recording stories of","cbCaij1723HofZ1N","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaij1723HofZ1N","pdf",196552,11,"English","# Introduction and framework\n## Narrative enquiry and research aim\n## Epistemological and ethical framing (Weber, anti-positivism)\n## Power, discourse, and master narratives\n## Method: participant prompts, data collection","[{\"question\":\"What is the central question about voluntary redundancy in this study?\",\"answer\":\"Why did 12 mid-career academics really take redundancy packages, beyond the official institutional story that frames the decision as a voluntary “choice”.\"},{\"question\":\"What research method does the paper use?\",\"answer\":\"An interpretivist narrative enquiry based on reflectivity, asking participants why they took voluntary redundancy and collecting written or verbal accounts.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the study interpret the difference between legality and actual choice?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that while severance agreements emphasize voluntary motivation, the decision points to a range of histories and conditions, making the “choice” far less free than the voluntariness concept implies.\"}]","Behind voluntary redundancy in universities - The stories behind the story | PDF",1792080182,28]