Abstract:
As the central steering body of academic human resource management, appointment procedures have repeatedly become a focus of university research. The professionalization of these procedures is currently being promoted by various reform efforts, however, no organizational-theoretical investigation of the decision-making behaviour of the committee members has been conducted so far. The innovative research interest pursued in this article aims to reconstruct hidden dynamics in the field of appointment procedures and to explain and systematize existing implicit knowledge on an empirical basis. In doing so, the handling of selection criteria by commission members as well as the question of how the actors involved shape the remaining scope of interpretation, when formal guidelines and criteria catalogues reach their limits, are examined. The results of the underlying interview study indicate that a variety of decision-making strategies is used to reach a list of appointees, whereby supposedly rational action does not necessarily lead to a satisfactory result. There seems to be a discrepancy between claim and reality, when the formally postulated objectivity cannot be reflected in practical actions of those involved. This article shows how the area of conflict between pragmatic approach and requirements of formalization can be dealt with and which action-guiding conclusions can be drawn in terms of higher education development.
Über die Autorin:
- Valerie Hug,
Hochschule Bremen
