“Neoliberal changes create tough environments”

Michał Zawadzki is an associate professor at the Department of Urban Management and Industrial Engineering. He is researching neoliberal reforms in higher education, together with Tommy Jensen, a researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics.

“What we mean by ‘neoliberal’ is the particular way of thinking about reality in which everything is defined in economic terms – including research and education at a university. Everything has to be marketed and academics compete with each other for limited resources.”

This is detrimental to the work environment, according to Zawadzki, who has studied the situation both in his former home country Poland and in Sweden.

“We argue that these neoliberal changes create tough environments for academics that may not be directly related to bullying, but do enable this type of behaviour.”

Interviewed researchers in Poland

In one study, he interviewed 36 early career researchers at universities in Poland, a country that has relatively recently switched to a market economy. How did neoliberal reforms affect academic workplaces?

By way of examples, he cites demands that academics publish in top-ranked journals, attract a lot of research funding and teach students in a business-like way so they have a better chance of getting a job.

“The main impression from the study is that Polish junior academics actually believe that neoliberal reforms will bring positive changes to their workplaces. The people we interviewed think these changes are good for the university and that meritocracy will ensure that junior scholars experience equal treatment,” he says.

Superstars stay

In the interviews he encountered the view that it is people who do nothing, who are lazy, who will be fired. Also, that only the superstars and those who really work hard will be able to stay on in academia.

“There are a whole lot of myths and ideologies in the heads of our interviewees. They believe that the problems are due to something that happened in the past in Polish academia, something we define as ‘feudalism’. Our respondents believe that liberal changes are a solution to this situation. Following their opinions, old professors should quit universities and leave space for those who work really hard.”

Becoming morally blind

Zawadzki’s main concern is that neoliberalism and capitalism are such powerful ideologies that they make people morally blind. They see what is happening in the workplace, but do not reflect on how they should treat other people. They believe that if they compete with each other, then that is fair play. But this is not always the case, Zawadzki notes.

“In the neoliberal academic world, bullying is used as a tool to eliminate others and is often not perceived as wrong. Academic superstars can eliminate their colleagues from the university, and, unfortunately, this is often justified, since they published a lot of ‘excellent’ papers in top-ranked journals or they brought a lot of money from research grants. Even if they are bullies, their actions are defined as morally neutral since they brought a lot of money to the university.”

Bullying at universities

Another study is about his own experiences of bullying at a European university. It is an example of ‘autoethnography’, describing how he witnessed a colleague being bullied. The eventual solution was to tell, to become a ‘whistleblower’.

“It was very difficult, but I began to talk with my friend Tommy Jensen, the other author of the article. As we write in the article, this is not really something that needs to be hidden. But it was only after I started talking to him about what had happened that I felt the courage to tell and report the bullying. One of the most important findings of our research is that it is important to find a friend you can talk to.”

An island of joy

He ended up changing jobs and has now been working at Uppsala University for several years, as Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management. He describes his department as “an island of happiness” and this is exactly the kind of working environment he strives for.

“Universities as organisations should be a place where we can feel safe, engage in research, teach students critical thinking and so on.”

In addition to critical thinking, he also wants to implement a “loving pedagogy” in engineering education. This is another strand of his research and something he is working on as a teacher.

“I think that management and engineering students should have the opportunity to experience good values such as love, responsibility and togetherness in the classroom. And not necessarily just how to become a competent entrepreneur.”

Annica Hulth