Not in the Greater Good: Academic Capitalism and Faculty Labor in Higher Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I was impressed by your study so much that I volunteered to review your paper. This is a timely and relevant paper that must be considered for publication to enlarge the debate around capitalism and the education system. I really enjoyed reading your manuscript.

Instead of making suggestions for revisions, I would prefer to open a discussion on possible aspects that you could add to this paper. First, I noted that some of the reviewed articles talk about neoliberalism rather than capitalism. The two terms are quite similar but sometimes it makes confusion for a reader why choose capitalism or why choose neoliberalism. I think that neoliberalism implies more of an ideological perspective which may require a different focus. However, I was wondering why you opted for the term capitalism (of course, beyond the meaning of academic capitalism). Would mind adding one or two sentences to explain the distinction between capitalism and neoliberalism and why you opted for capitalism?

Second, I am also quite interested in this topic and I have reviewed similar studies. Personally, I am intrigued by studies that offer different perspectives or advanced insights about which ideology or approach could be against capitalistic driven society, e.g., humanistic lens. Do you have in mind possible insights that might inform readers about possible alternatives? (of course, I agree that it is easier to imagine the end of the world rather than the end of capitalism... however, we, as scholars, can try to address these moral and social concerns).

Just some thoughts for a very good paper.

Author Response

Please see attached matrix for responses and subsequent actions taken.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

·   The article identifies highlights important venues connecting the effect or influence of academic capitalism over academic labour. Its value is also in the identification of effects in different dimensions: Teaching, governance, management control, It is written clearly and organised in a way that makes the literature and the interpretive analysis the authors did accessible and understandable. This is important, especially given the fact that it is a literature review. An article like this one, would be of interest of many scholars and for critical studies of higher education more broadly. In the following comments are critical point for the authors to address. 

 

·       At times it is difficult to know about which region, country, specific location, context the article is addressing. Some of the antecedents it shows point out to the USA context, but then, in the methodology there is no statement regarding the geographical area of concern in the texts reviewed and analysed. Academic capitalism is not universally “implemented” everywhere, and the configurations of academic labour vary according to global, regional, national, local forces and conjunctures. In order to not overemphasise a universal portrait in the case the article focuses on the USA case, more specifically, I strongly suggest being clear in the text about it. If the article aspires to present a literature review with a more “global” profile, it is necessary the authors can broaden the examples and data showed in the introduction to contextualise in a more global manner the issues at stake.

 

·       It is important also the authors recognise and reflect about the limitations of their methodology in terms of languages and search strategies, at least. For instance, regarding to the search strategies employed, it calls my attention that the terms “neoliberalism” and marketisation were not included in the search. Academic capitalism sometimes refers to the shift from a public regime of knowledge to a private/market regime of knowledge, which is fairly an effect of neoliberal discourses and policies in higher education also.

·       The article proposed as an analytical strategy to differentiate capital outcomes and policies from those who are focused on public values or “traditional higher education outputs”. I suggest the authors expands on this distinction by explaining why it is important and what is the relationship between a focus capital/tradition and clarify how they understand the terms around this distinction. This will add more consistency and validity to the analytical work done.

·       There is no mention of gender, ethnic or racialised issues regarding faculty workers conditions. There is literature within the USA and beyond that demonstrates different effects of academic capitalist arrangements on faculty according to these axes. I think this must be included. There is also recent research that demonstrates the differential effect of academic capitalism in social and humanities, on the one hand, and STEM, on the other. In addition, and important for overcome the “gender-neutrality” of the article, is research that also evidence the academic/career practices that reinforce dominant masculine order within the academy when those practices are the ways through which gender effects of academic capitalism is enacted.

·       I suggest also the authors can reflect on the absences of the literature and how this can reproduce exiting inequalities, and also some deep assumptions regarding academic capitalism and academic labour. For example, there is research in the USA that reflects on gender inequalities in academic entrepreneurship -a key activity in academic capitalism-, while also expanding the analysis on the dearth of research using intersectionality as a lens to unpack how racism and gender act together in the configuration of academic labour (see for instance, Mickey and Smith-Doerr 2022 in sociology compass).

o   Another important venue to further research, following this analysis, is Dean’s positionality and power relations. Contradictory investigation may yield to conclusions of incoherence of corporatized labour policies in academia, but I would suggest that this statement deserves more nuance, perhaps reflecting on the spaces where research must focus on.  

·       There two sections: “Governance and academic capitalism” and “Expanding administrative control”. Both addressed directly issues around managerial control and expansion and corporatization. I would suggest considering merge these two.

·       In page 7 authors stated: ‘This is consistent with other research suggesting department leaders do 331 not take regular action to integrate contingent faculty. This has led to professional environments of disconnection, isolation, and lack of recognition that intensified over time 333 [58-59]. The implication is that contingent faculty do not have the agency to participate in 334 departmental politics’. I would discuss this further. My position is that this interpretation may lead to politics of integration -more participation of precarious faculty into decision-making and other relevant activities within the academic culture-, but without changing their labour status. I have seen this situation happens, and it creates mixed feelings and evaluations on the part of contingent faculty.

·    In the conclusion the authors end the text with a reflection about institutional racism. But there is not any development of a critical analysis regarding racism. The authors should be contextualised their conclusion attending to what have been addressed first.

Finally, at times I found the article, however good written, a bit repetitive. I suggest the authors to review the writing and consider rewrite some places where similar arguments are again and again made.

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see attached matrix for responses and subsequent actions taken.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is clearer in its scopes and the small changes made improve also the quality. Although, a considered reviewer would expect more considered responses (not compliance but carefully crafted responses). 

In my view, there is one persistent bias/absence that persists and needs to be addressed thoroughly for the article to be published. It is about the absence of gender and racial issues in the American Literature regarding academic capitalism. To refer to them as "equity issues" without explicitly addressing them, glosses over their complexity and overgeneralises the specific logics of their operations of power. I noticced in the responses (to various of my comments regarding this) a resistance to address these issues. I know the literature that highlights the effects of academic capitalism on gender, for instance, that is why I brought this concern in my previous review. Without addressing these dimensions the article will be easily critiqued and its important contribution diminished, and also the journal itself can be critiqued for willfully leaving this absence to be accepted. If in the authors' review tgender and racial dimensions were not salient within the American field, authors should mention this, and reflect on it. This in turn, can obviusly foster more systematic research on this area. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx