In an attempt to understand the effects of managerialism on university managers in a developing country, we set out to gather rich data on the strategy work of middle managers through a single case study at a South African university. Managerialism has the potential to solve inefficiencies in university systems and processes, as it could help to simplify the complex university management environment. Yet, our findings show that middle managers at the chosen institution are constrained by the effects of managerialism. Managerialism has resulted in a tyranny of bureaucracy which translates into disempowered middle managers, a culture of conformance over collegiality, control at the cost of innovation and experimentation and an over-articulation of strategy which devalues the strategy. To cope with the identified negative effects of managerialism, middle managers create their own systems outside the bureaucracy and provide more support to peers and subordinates.

In recognition of middle managers as influential strategists we collected 654 responses from South African middle managers detailing their spontaneous and unguided descriptions of their strategic roles in the organisation they represent. The results show that middle managers generally associate their strategic role strongly with the traditional perspectives on the roles as implementers of strategies and communicators linking their subordinates and higher levels of management. We add the roles of 'advocacy' and 'improving operational performance' to the conventional elements of strategy implementation, and the roles of 'managing performance' and 'driving compliance' to the role of downward influence. Focus group discussions contextualised and authenticated these roles within the South African private and public sectors.

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The study on which this article reports examined the determinants of usage of an online learning management system (LMS) by fourth level business students at a South African open and distance learning university using an extension of the widely used technology acceptance model (TAM) as a theoretical basis. A survey was conducted among students at their annual summer school, with 213 usable questionnaires being returned. The findings suggest that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as core aspects of the TAM and TAM2 models are confirmed, and study relevance (job relevance in the TAM2 model) and facilitating conditions as extensions are confirmed also. However, other elements of the TAM2 model and extensions were not confirmed by the research, while the relationships between these constructs, behavioural intention and LMS use were significant but not particularly strong. Thus, despite the ostensible robustness of the underlying structure and dimensionality of the TAM core constructs, its usefulness as a model to explain usage in this context and in a setting where acceptance and usage patterns have been established over prolonged periods of time is limited. The findings do, however, suggest certain initiatives to assist in increasing the perceived usefulness of the LMS.