Management and academic profession: comparing the Finnish professors with and without management positions

Management is one of the most studied phenomena in higher education. Most of these studies are conducted in the framework of higher education policy, academic work and quality of education and research. The management is often seen as an independent variable explaining the changes in higher education in the context of New Public Management and managerialism. In many studies, it is often forgotten that, the managers of academic organisations are academicians, not actors working for the government and funding bodies for implementing their agendas. Typically, management positions are employed by the professors. In our paper, we are interested in (1) who the managing professors are and (2) how their perceptions on performance-related issues differ from their colleagues who are not holding management positions. Our study is based on a survey conducted in 2015 in Finland and representing the entire population of Finnish professors.