Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

still far away from the day to day educational operations. Of course with the intention
that it will become part of the concern of everybody. For the other members of staff in
education, research and the services it remains to be seen if these concerns are identified
with, although somehow they are confronted with these subjects in their daily
work. And it remains to be seen if board, deans, directors and advisers really share
some sort of uniformity regarding these topics. My narratives point to something else.
From a managerial perspective a rich array of conventional means is employed to
spread out the importance of the subjects. Speeches, best practices, purposive financial
support, small presents, celebrations and extra allowances are introduced to
stimulate the acceptance. Obliging agreements, individual performance appraisals and
hierarchy are there to impose the acceptance of the policy.
The dance between top down and bottom up approaches
Around 2008-2009 as I mentioned in chapter 3 among managers and board there
were discussions and attempts to manage the UAS in a less top down and more
bottom up way. The establishment of advisory boards, the attempt to involve many
members of staff in the wiki and the way the internal branding project was organized
were signs of what was then called a wish for co-creativity. However, shortly after
these projects a blueprint for reshuffling the UAS was presented by the board and
discussed under time pressure. In 2012 in short time the performance agreements
were concluded, which – again under time pressure - were operationalized with the
help of strategy-maps (Kaplan and Norton, 2004), a concept which was unknown in
the organization up till then.
Now I see that the way the UAS is managed has become a mixture of prescriptive and
descriptive strategies (Mintzberg et al., 1998), in which participation is promoted
within the seemingly rock-solid boundaries of what apparently must be done. This is
another point what is missed in the analysis of Mantere and Vaara (2008), as they
suggest that participative development of strategies can go anyway.
I have – metaphorically speaking - learned to see the dance between top down and
bottom up approaches as alternating perspectives on how to involve members of staff
in what has to be done. It is no free dance, going anywhere, but it is a dance within
pre-given managerial responsibilities in which the manager assumes he or she acts as
the choreographer of the performances. Sometimes the choreography aims at participating,
sometimes it aims at implementation.
Managerial choreographers
Conventional managerial responsibilities stretch out on designing organizational
structures, designing systems of information and control, installing and operating
human resource systems, designing culture change programmes and developing
appropriate political behaviour (Stacey, 2007). In the UAS managers (including me)
seemingly have appropriated these responsibilities and are positioned as the ones to
7. <strong>Rumbling</strong> on performativity: a reflexive perspective on advisory work | 183