Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe challenges of academic leadership in Korean higher education( 2013)In recent years, South Korean higher education has been transformed from a system driven by traditional humanist values to a system that is now highly commercialized. This has given rise to numerous challenges of academic leadership faced by the deans of faculties at both public and private universities in Korea. This thesis addresses three key research questions: ‘What challenges do Korean deans face?; ‘How do Korean deans interpret these challenges?’; and ‘How do Korean deans respond to these challenges?’ The thesis addresses these questions through accounts the deans themselves provide of their lived experiences of policy and practice, particularly with respect to the demands of academic leadership. The thesis takes a hermeneutical, phenomenological approach to research, involving attempts to listen empathetically to the deans’ narratives of their feelings and understandings. An analysis of these narratives reveals that, particularly in wake of recent New Public Management-inspired reforms in Korea, the key challenges that the deans face may be clustered around issues of governance; autonomy and authority; and how to interpret and enact the requirements of effectiveness. It also suggests that for these deans one of the major tasks of academic leadership is to reconcile the potentially competing values that these challenges represent. I argue that their attempts at this reconciliation involve a complex assemblage of new managerialism and commercialization, as well as retaining a commitment to traditional academic values.