Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the University as We or They?”.
Unsurprisingly given my reference to “higher-ups”, my answer was “They”. But giving the answer reminded me that, not so long ago, it would have been “We”. In its idealized form, a university was a self-governing community, with a well-understood teaching and research mission (which did not require a Mission Statement). All but the most senior management jobs were done by academics taking turns before returning to their real jobs. Administrative staff did essential work, largely independently, but didn’t conceive themselves as part of management.
The reality was inevitably less egalitarian and communitarian than this picture suggests, in all sorts of ways. Senior professors had too much power and inevitably, some of them abused it. And, given the times, lots of bad behaviour was tolerated that would not be now.
For good and ill, this has all been swept away, at least in Australia. Multiple layers of management are filled by people who have either left the academic life behind them or were never part of it. The university in this view, is not a community but a business enterprise, even if its ownership structure is rather opaque.
The reality is that of an ordinary workplace in which, most of the time, the interests of bosses and workers are in conflict (though, as in any workplace, there is a shared interest in the survival of the business). Senior managers see themselves as such and compare themselves to their corporate peers. Administrative job titles are those of the corporate sector (Chief Financial Officer and so on)>
Yet, as the question implies, there is a still a feeling that the university should be a We, and not merely in the sense of workers being willing to sing the company song. My own version of this is to think of the current regime as being temporary occupiers, from whom We will be liberated in due course. But others may take a more positive view – I’d be interested in commetnnts
John Quiggin 
Teaching at the University of Canberra is organised along Command-and-Control lines, a bit like the Russian Army, with unit convenors having little input into matters like how their units are assessed.
Funny how they turn it into their business and then want workers to subscribe to “we are all in this together”.
I could embark on another rant about how neoliberalism is still on the ascent and has not yet finished with destroying our society and our environment. I will resist that urge and content myself with one more sentence.
I fully expect to see inequality continue rising in Australia until our systems, human, social, economic, institutional and environmental, are all driven to collapse.
I believe that size is also an issue.
Small organisations think of themselves as we and are outcome focused. They believe in collaboration and compromise to achieve outcomes that may not be ideal for everybody but all can live with.
When organisations grow they reach a tipping point, generally thought to be around 150 people. At that point the organisation, not outcomes, becomes the main focus, and ‘we’ becomes ‘they’.
It is interesting to note that organisations that are built on trusting relationships perform better than those that are contractual.
Gender balance has proven to be a positive influence.
John Homan
Interesting but I was hoping for analysis of gender ideology.
Anon @4 In comments at Crooked Timber it was suggested that this is a question about respecting the bosses’ preferred pronouns.
On size; the cost of compliance has been one of the major, if not the major, hurdles for small business. All those credit unions, that looked after locals, became unsustainable when compliance became mandatory.
We need regulation but its not cheap and implementation favours the big operators.
Did academics drop the ball at some clearly identifiable point? If so, “we” are to blame JQ. We could have made more noise than we did.