Biographies and Careers throughout Academic Life

The book draws on the 2007 Changing
Academic Profession international survey in order to document the personal
characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity/commitment and job
satisfaction of academics in 14 countries with different levels of economic and
social development and different higher education systems. With nearly 26,000
academics surveyed in 19 countries (of which 14 are reporting their results in
this volume), the empirical basis of the book is the most up-to-date and
far-reaching in the area.

With major changes taking place both in the
local and global contexts of higher education and in the working conditions
within individual universities, as exemplified by increasing managerialism and
performance-based funding, it is important to consider the impact of these
changes on the profiles and working lives of the academic profession across
differentcountries. But it is also important to look at the ways in which the
faculty’s changing profile impacts on the organisation and management of
universities and on the delivery of their central functions.

Although not always obvious in the
short-term, academic work and its conditions attract, incorporate and promote
different types of individuals who, in turn, exert considerable influence on
the nature of academic work, higher education institutions and, potentially,
society. As faculty members are central to the teaching, research and service
enterprise activities of higher education, it is important to understand their
personal characteristics, career trajectories, sense of identity and
commitment, and job satisfaction. These are central for understanding the
academic profession in general and, in particular, the factors affecting their
involvement and productivity in the work of their institutions. Theseare a
complex result of a mixture of contextual factors (e.g. the status and
regulatory framework of the higher education system, the features and
atmosphere of the particular institution) and personal factors (e.g. gender,
educational attainment, family background, attitudes to work and broader social
values).This book examines the different situations facing the academic
profession in individual countries and provides comparative studies of country
differences.