Revisiting the five problems of public sector organisations and reputation management—the perspective of higher education practitioners and ex-academics

Abstract

The extant literature has identified five problems related to public sector organisations and their reputation management: politics, consistency, charisma, uniqueness and excellence. This study examines whether and how the problems of reputation management occur in public higher education by collecting qualitative data from 40 interviews. The study sheds light on the perceptions of a group that has been largely neglected in previous studies: namely, doctorates who have exited academia, or ex-academics. In addition to ex-academics, interviewees also included their employers and university leadership. The analysis follows a thematic qualitative approach with an abductive logic. The study provides empirical evidence of the content of the problems in higher education and discusses recent related transformations in higher education. The findings show that, in terms of reputation management, the most challenging matters appear to be knowledge transfer and the applicability of research to practice. These challenges are cross-cutting and apparent from different angles across all five problems of reputation management. This study contributes to the academic literature on reputation management in the public sector by applying prior conceptual categorizations and employing a comprehensive set of empirical data with a fresh perspective. The study presents implications for higher education policy makers and managers and emphasises the need for university management to minimise the duality between different types of workers, as this duality threatens university reputations in general and consistency in particular.

Exploring doctorate holders’ perceptions of the non-academic labour market and reputational problems they relate to their employment

“…This implies challenges for reputation management (Waeraas and Byrkjeflot 2012). Kuoppakangas et al (2019) adopted Waeraas and Byrkjeflot's (2012) categorisation and applied it in the context of public higher education organisations by gathering empirical data. In public higher education, the politics problem is visible in issues such as public ownership and the steering which guides the formulation of a university's strategy as well as shrinking core funding and the search for external funding, among others.…”

“…However, that is often problematic for public sector organisations, as they are often characterised with multiple identities, employ a range of professionals and deal with a variety of priorities and values, some of which are contradictory and inconsistent (Waeraas and Byrkjeflot 2012). Regarding higher education organisations, the consistency problem becomes visible, for instance, in terms of duality between different types of employees as well as in differing identities and the self-presentation of faculties, sciences and disciplines (Kuoppakangas et al 2019; see also Ylijoki and Henriksson 2017).…”

“…Public organisations also often deal with serious problems which are not likely to disappear, such as poverty, social problems and crimes, among others (Waeraas and Byrkjeflot 2012). For higher education organisations, the charisma problem might mean, for example, challenges in providing and transferring timely and applicable knowledge for stakeholders outside academia or finding a common language with them (Kuoppakangas et al 2019).…”

“…Public organisations, on the other hand, are often perceived as rather similar, since they are political and hierarchical entities and are often not expected to compete with each other to find ways of differentiating themselves (Waeraas and Byrkjeflot 2012). Competition between public universities may result in uncertainty for those working in universities outside centres of growth (Kuoppakangas et al 2019).…”

“…However, to our knowledge, previous studies have neglected the discussion on reputation and potential reputational problems that doctorate holders relate to their employment in the non-academic labour market, although this topic might shed further light on reasons for doctorate holders' limited employment outside academia (Haapakorpi 2017). The study adopts doctorate holders' perspectives, interested in the group which that has been largely ignored in previous studies: doctorate holders who have exited academia (see also Kuoppakangas et al 2019;Suomi et al 2019). By addressing potential reputational problems at the doctoral level as doctorate holders themselves perceive them in relation to their employment in the non-academic labour market, the present study will contribute to the knowledge of reputation management in terms of both theory development and practitioner insights.…”