Coping with paradoxical demands: the dual position of deans in French business schools

Recent studies have highlighted the major challenges faced by managers in the higher education sector and shown the contradictory demands which foster paradoxical tensions. Previous works have also underlined some specific tensions and rigidities that business school deans regularly face in their ro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in higher education (Dorchester-on-Thames) 2024-08, Vol.49 (8), p.1360-1380
Main Authors: Guyottot, Olivier, Thelisson, Anne-Sophie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
academic entrepreneur
Business schools
Cognition & reasoning
Coping
Deans
Entrepreneurs
Higher education
paradoxes
tensions
University administration
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent studies have highlighted the major challenges faced by managers in the higher education sector and shown the contradictory demands which foster paradoxical tensions. Previous works have also underlined some specific tensions and rigidities that business school deans regularly face in their role. Yet, few studies have empirically explored which paradoxical tensions deans face and how they cope with them. Our paper addresses this gap. Using a qualitative study, we explore the simultaneous and interrelated contradictions faced by deans in French business schools and address how they manage the tensions related to these conflictual and complicated situations. Our work reveals five main tensions that deans have to face and two individual categories of responses to these tensions. It underlines two types of cognitive mindsets (paradox mindset and dilemma mindset) adopted by deans to deal with paradoxical tensions and highlights how deans have become academic entrepreneurs with hybrid profiles in a paradoxical system.
ISSN:0307-5079
1470-174X
DOI:10.1080/03075079.2023.2265405