Neoliberalism and new public management in an Australian university - The invisibility of our take-over - Margaret Sims

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mary Man

Examining higher education in Australia through an autoethnographic lens, this paper analyses how neoliberalism and managerialism combine to produce an organisational neoliberal managerial culture. It argues that managerial practices create a “vicious cycle” in which managers set culture through role-based behaviour and recipients internalise it as the only workable reality. The paper contends this operationalises managerial privilege, harming higher-education functioning and risking national wellbeing by affecting both staff and students.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Ideological context and discourse

Methodology

Conceptual framing

Critical autoethnography

Neoliberal managerial culture

The vicious cycle

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 Neoliberalism and new public management inan Australian university The invisibility of our take-over Margaret Sims University of New England The higher education sector in Australia is operating in an ideological context in which the ideas of managerialism and neoliberalism combine to create a discourse shaping the lives of both workers and students. The practices that emerge inside higher education organisations as a result combine to form an organisational neoliberal managerial culture that shapes practices, operating in a vicious cycle. In this vicious cycle, managers set the organisational culture through the roles they take on in this figured world, leading to particular ways of behaving and engaging in the practice of management. These experiences are received and internalised by their recipients who come to believe their reality reflects the only way things operate. In this paper I take an autoethnographic approach to reflect on my experiences of the practices emerging from this culture as I have experienced them within one higher education organisation in Australia. I argue that we are seeing the operationalisation of a discourse of managerial privilege that, in the long term, is not only detrimental to the functioning of higher educational organisations but puts at risk the wellbeing of the nation through its impact on both staff and students. Keywords: neoliberalism, managerialism, higher education, power, bullying Introduction The higher education sector in Australia is operating inan ideological context where the ideas of managerialism and neoliberalism combine to create a discourse shaping the lives of both workers and students.These interlocking systems ‘work together to uphold and maintain cultures of domination’(hooks, 2013, p. 4) . Neoliberalism takes the position that: … human society should be run in every respect as if it were a business, its social relations reimaged as commercial transactions; people redesignated as human capital. The aim and purpose of society is to maximise profits … Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for usefulness and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive (Monbiot, 2017, p. 30) . Neoliberalism is positioned as both the new normal and invincible (Tronto, 2017) . Managerialism is the enactment of neoliberalism in organisations (Graham, 2016) where the focus is placed firmly on outcomes, performance assessment and results (G. Fraser, 2017) . Management is perceived tobe a specialist skill, a good thing (Shepherd, 2017) that cannot be performed by the professionals who are being managed,but rather must be performed by those who hold 22 Neoliberalism and new public management in an Australian university Margaret Sims vol. 61, no. 1, 2019 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 ‘managerial expertise, theories and techniques’(Doran, 2016, p. 81) .This expertise can be applied across any typeof organisation (Shepherd, 2017) and is characterised by theories of how to best constrain, control and enforce compliance in workers (DeVita & Case, 2016) . This combination of ideas at the level of society impact on the way in which higher education organisations operate. Higher education has become ‘predicatedon a business model, people should be treated as consumers, and capital as the only subject…’ (Giroux, 2015, p. 118) . The practices that emerge inside higher education organisations as a result combine to form an organisational neoliberal managerial culture that shapes practices,operating in a vicious cycle as outlined in Figure 1. In this vicious cycle, managers set the organisational culture through their ‘behaviour, attitude, treatment of others’(Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2017, p. 4), and this culture becomes internalised by its recipients who come to believe their exper

FAQs

What ideological forces does the paper connect to everyday life in Australian universities?

It links managerialism and neoliberalism, arguing they combine to create a discourse that shapes the lives of both workers and students.

How does the paper explain the “vicious cycle” of neoliberal managerialism?

Managers set organisational culture through their roles and behaviour, and recipients internalise this culture, coming to see their experiences as the only way things operate.

What research approach is used to explore these experiences?

The paper uses critical autoethnography, positioning personal experience alongside theory and practice to interpret how ideologies operate within the institution.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mary Man