The Peter and Dilbert Principles applied to academe

…individuals can be placed in managerial positions for which they are not competent. Thus, Peter (1969) and Peter and Hull (2011) refer to the Peter Principle, which asserts that within a firm's hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence, which may be an outcome of this process… 

A restatement of this principle asserts that company employees are ultimately promoted out of jobs for which they are capable of doing more or less what is expected of them, a hierarchical position referred to in Peter and Hull (2011) as the “level of competence,” and into positions which are situated in the company hierarchy at what is referred to in Peter and Hull (2011) as the “level of incompetence,” where they are incapable of doing what is expected of them. 

Another possible outcome of the promotion system… occurs when a company’s “most ineffective” workers are promoted to management, an outcome that Adams (1996) refers to as the Dilbert Principle. Put differently, the Dilbert Principle asserts that a company’s least effective employees are ultimately promoted directly to (middle) management without ever passing through what Peter and Hull (2011) describe as the temporary competence stages of the company hierarchy…

...university administrators sometimes engage in a variety of other productivity-stifling behaviors. For example, Faria et al. (2012) provide an economic analysis of “downward mobbing” in academe, describing a university administration’s bullying of productive faculty. This type of productivity-stifling activity may be motivated by professional jealousy, budget concerns, or retaliation for whistle-blowing activity on the part of the faculty, among others… 

These types of systems and their consequences explain why, as Cardoso et al. (2016) point out, academics tend to blame a lack of quality in higher education on the design and functioning of institutional governance and management systems… 

 …more than one-third of all appointments to the highest administrative position in U.S. business colleges and schools—that of dean—come from internal promotions. Given that the professoriate is made up mainly of risk-averse actors, using internal promotion as an incentive system may promote more faculty than is efficient, an example of the Peter Principle. Such a result may also be consistent with productivity-stifling governance systems in academe that lead to misaligned incentive structures and workplace mobbing. Additionally, we find evidence that the tenure of a typical “outside” dean exceeds that of a typical “inside” dean, suggesting that the Dilbert Principle is also an essential feature of management in higher education…

Faria, J. R., & Mixon Jr, F. G. (2020). The Peter and Dilbert Principles applied to academe. Economics of Governance, 21(2), 115-132.

Universities with the highest number of non-disclosure agreements

The universities with the highest number of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) issued between 2014 and 2019 include:

• London Metropolitan University: 473 NDAs.

• University of Central Lancashire: 431 NDAs.

• London South Bank University: 413 NDAs.

• University of Sheffield: 335 NDAs.

• University of Oxford: 256 NDAs.

• Cardiff University: 220 NDAs

These figures highlight universities' extensive use of NDAs, particularly in staff disputes or grievances.

Some universities refuse to provide data on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) due to concerns over confidentiality, legal implications, and institutional reputation. NDAs are often used to protect sensitive information, and disclosing details about their use could violate the terms of these agreements or expose the university to legal risks. 

Additionally, universities may fear that releasing such data could lead to negative publicity or scrutiny, especially if NDAs are perceived as being used to cover up misconduct or suppress complaints. This reluctance is further compounded by the lack of a standardised reporting framework, making it challenging for institutions to share this information transparently.

Source: Perplexity.AI

The cost of non-disclosure agreements in Higher Education

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in higher education have significant financial and reputational costs. Between 2014 and 2019, UK universities issued nearly 11,000 NDAs, with 2,600 signed in 2017-18 alone. These agreements are often used to silence misconduct allegations, such as bullying or harassment, raising concerns about their impact on transparency and accountability.

NDAs can be costly. Some agreements cost as much as £500,000, and institutions like the NHS have spent millions on similar confidentiality clauses. Additionally, negotiating NDAs can lead to costly settlements, with colleges potentially paying between £20,000 and £200,000 in cases involving discrimination claims.

The reputational costs are also significant. NDAs can prevent institutions from addressing systemic issues, as they limit public disclosure of misconduct. This can hinder efforts to improve policies and practices, ultimately affecting the quality of education and the well-being of staff and students.

Recent legislative changes, such as the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, aim to curb the misuse of NDAs by banning their use in cases of sexual misconduct or harassment. These reforms seek to protect victims and promote transparency, though their long-term impact remains to be seen.

Source: Perplexity.AI

Workplace bullying and harassment in higher education institutions: A scoping review

...Competition, once one element of academic life, now interlaces with every aspect of the work environment as staff compete for funding, titles, recognition, resources, and citations... in the pursuit of the chimera of ‘excellence’. This ignores the fact that, as excellence is relative, most will not attain it, and being gendered, many will find it harder, even impossible, to prevail... Metrification and performativity are seen to have changed the academic labour process. Staff are now heavily dependent on the evaluation of their peers for promotion or academic management roles...which have proliferated in the service of managerialism. 

Such evaluations, claiming meritocratic processes, employ performance criteria that involve ‘subjective, often ambiguous, criteria, as evident in reviews of scholarly/intellectual contributions, department- and college-wide service, continuing growth, and community service. Few institutions have clear standards for judging such contributions and, instead, rely on general guidelines or descriptive criteria... Such judgments often lead to perceptions of distributive injustice, unfair treatment associated with outcomes and procedural injustice, and unfair treatment associated with the decision-making’ 

...The articulation and acceptance of the robust critique of ideas is acknowledged as an essential aspect of academic life, but one where the managerial, monetised environment driven by neoliberal values has raised the stakes considerably for ‘winners’ in the game of metrics and prestige indicators. This was seen to contribute to an increasingly harsh and punitive climate, where person-related belittlement and professional undermining are commonplace... incivility is tacitly accepted, assessment can be weaponised, fear can be employed in a way that can easily segue into bullying, and where ‘demonstrations of power are seen as reasonable and warranted if an individual is to succeed’... 

Indeed, a push against anti-incivility policies was identified in the interests of open criticism and the name of academic freedom... In this view, the critique of staff in the service of excellence and performativity should be permitted, even if uncivil. They observe a deliberate fuzzing of the boundaries between the vigorous criticism of output, intellectual work, or theoretical propositions, and abrasive behaviour, mockery, and humiliation...

Hodgins, M., Kane, R., Itzkovich, Y., & Fahie, D. (2024). Workplace bullying and harassment in higher education institutions: A scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(9), 1173.

Narcissist leaders in higher education

Narcissistic leaders in higher education can significantly impact institutions, often leading to adverse outcomes. Here are some key points regarding narcissistic leaders in this sector:

Characteristics of Narcissistic Leaders

• Grandiosity and Arrogance: Narcissistic leaders often exhibit grandiosity, arrogance, and a sense of entitlement, leading to poor decision-making and an inability to listen to others.

• Lack of Empathy: They typically lack empathy, which can result in exploitative behavior and a lack of concern for the well-being of employees or students.

• Charisma and Confidence: Despite their negative traits, narcissistic leaders may initially be perceived as charismatic and confident, which can help them ascend to leadership positions.

Impact on Institutions

• Performance Decline: Studies have shown that narcissistic leaders can lead to declines in key performance measures, such as student satisfaction and research excellence.

• Defensive Silence: Narcissistic leaders can foster a culture of defensive silence among employees, where individuals are reluctant to express ideas or concerns due to fear of retribution or lack of recognition.

• Empire Building and Risk-Taking: Narcissistic leaders often engage in excessive financial risk-taking and empire-building strategies, which can destabilise institutions financially and strategically.

Challenges and Solutions

• Identification and Hiring Practices: It is suggested that hiring processes should include psychometric tests to identify narcissistic tendencies in candidates.

• Value Congruence: The alignment of values between leaders and followers can moderate the adverse effects of narcissism, but high congruence can also exacerbate defensive silence.

• Hypercompetition: The competitive environment in higher education may incentivise narcissistic behavior as a means of self-promotion and survival.

Overall, narcissistic leaders in higher education can pose significant challenges to institutional performance and employee morale, highlighting the need for careful leadership selection and management practices.

Source: Perplexity.ai

Breaking the silence around academic harassment

 

...The common narrative is that the harasser is advancing science, mentoring future scientists and is simply too good to lose. Ultimately, in the eyes of the institution, the financial interests obtained through the harassers outweigh the harm endured by their targets. This virtually always results in the academic institutions stakeholders defending the bully and not addressing the rights of their targets. The unwillingness of the involved stakeholders to address academic harassment results in the lack of successful, fair and effective responses of the scientific community (and specifically institutions) to academic harassment: many recent reports suggest that sweeping the incidences of academic harassment under the carpet has been the common practice of many institutions to protect their interests...

...The harassment (and specifically bullying) process in various settings (including industry and academia) is generally divided into two major phases... the subjugation and control phase, where the target is subjected to continuous and relentless attack on their personality via many methods (e.g. constant criticism, exclusion, aggressive and disrespectful communications, surveillance at work and beyond the workplace, lower performance markings and other systematic negative social acts), and (ii) the destruction phase where the orchestration of the demise of the individual takes place. In the destruction phase, unsubstantiated, vague complaints are being fabricated with the intention of attacking the integrity of the researcher/employee and to bully them out of the job via disciplinary sanctions, suspension and dismissal...

...Available guidelines and reporting systems for sexual harassment and bullying are largely ineffective mainly due to a pervasive gap between policy and practice... which contributes to institutions protecting the perpetrators, while silencing and retaliating against reporters. As a consequence, high-profile academic harassers thrive in our science backyards as a rule rather than an exception, accompanied by the inevitable institutional betrayal... and (re)-traumatization of those who report bullying... Ultimately, effective institutional change is prevented and, hence, harassment is enabled and facilitated by different stakeholders through the reluctant acquiescence of silenced targets. This leads to a fear culture among bystanders...

...External legal aid is rarely feasible for targets. Universities have the funds that targets do not have to pay for lawyers to defend them, and perpetrators are supported by public resources... Circulating adverse publicity through the use of organized public relations departments is a process wide open to most hospitals and/or universities... Targets, by contrast, are often forced to comply with the code of silence through non-disclosure agreements...

From: https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1873-3468.14473

Bully University? The Cost of Workplace Bullying and Employee Disengagement in American Higher Education

 

Throughout the organizational strata of higher education, leadership was a common thread either as the actor or the enabler of bullying behavior on campus. When leadership allowed bullying to flourish, employees disengaged from the work tasks, spending hours regrouping from hostile interaction. 

A target looked to leadership for relief after facing a bully. Human resources followed leadership in response to a bully. Furthermore, the bully was often from the ranks of leadership with extensive organizational or expert power. Findings confirmed that leadership can set the tone in cultivating an environment that sustains or eradicates bullying behavior.

With budget cuts and challenges, higher education cannot afford to lose valuable productivity to staff turnover and employee disengagement. Theoretically speaking, turnover related to workplace bullying reflected the number of staff who may be distracted and disengaged while serving staff and students. Leadership can galvanize an organization, or lead it simply to mediocrity and stagnation.

To rise above mediocrity, transformation and innovation are critical elements for any organization, but neither can exist without a trustworthy leader with integrity. “Integrity is a fundamental consistency between one’s values, goals, and actions. At the simplest level, it means standing for something, having a significant commitment, and exemplifying this commitment in your behavior”…

The findings of this and previous studies reported that targets of workplace bullying and witnesses of bullying were motivated to seek relief from the aggression they experienced; in the absence of a supportive leader, employees withdrew and remained distracted. Consistent with other studies, this study corroborated previous findings that workplace bullying often comes from leadership and that human resources seldom advocated for the target, leaving the target toiling in isolation, disengaging from organizational objectives, or leaving the organization…

Consequently, targets and witnesses of workplace bullying disengaged from the job. They withheld their creativity and retreated from the established hostile environment…

Hollis, L. P. (2015). Bully university? The cost of workplace bullying and employee disengagement in American higher education. Sage Open, 5(2), 2158244015589997.

University investigated by police after racism allegations

 

Police are investigating “serious allegations” of racism, bullying and fraud at a university, a Cabinet minister has confirmed. Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, said that police were probing misconduct claims at the University of Greater Manchester, formerly the University of Bolton.

She was responding to claims by Phil Brickell, the Labour MP for Bolton West, who told the Commons that a “significant number of whistleblowers” had contacted him following reports about “racism, financial misconduct and bullying at the University of Greater Manchester”.

Mill Media, an independent news outlet, said that more than a dozen current and former staff at the university made allegations of racism against senior officials. Other allegations of financial misconduct were also made. Ms Powell told MPs on Thursday that the Office for Students, the universities regulator, was “looking into those serious allegations and engaging with the provider, and that the police are involved as well”.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: “We have received the allegations and are liaising with our fraud unit about what next steps are necessary.” The University of Greater Manchester, which is home to around 11,000 students, including nearly 1,700 from outside the UK, said it had appointed an auditing firm to investigate the allegations.

A spokesman said: “The university has commissioned PriceWaterhouseCoopers to conduct an independent investigation into recent allegations reported in the press relating to the conduct and affairs of senior personnel working for or, on behalf of, the university.

The investigation will be overseen by the university’s audit committee. “Until we have the outcome of that investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment any further.” Neil O’Brien, the shadow education minister, raised concerns in the Commons last month about “the extremely concerning reports” involving the university...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/university-investigated-police-racism-allegations

Cambridge staff unhappy with response to bullying claims

The University of Cambridge has been accused of allowing bullying and harassment to become “entrenched and normalised” after it was revealed that only a quarter of staff are happy with how the institution handles concerns.

Cambridge surveyed about 3,000 members – around a quarter – of university staff on staff culture – the results of which can be revealed following a Freedom of Information request by Times Higher Education.

Conducted in January and February last year, the survey results show that the vast majority (84 per cent) of staff knew where and how to report discrimination, harassment or abuse.

But only 62 per cent said they would feel comfortable raising concerns if they witnessed or experienced it, and just 27 per cent were satisfied with how bullying and harassment are addressed in their department.

In addition, half of respondents felt that their mental health and well-being were supported, and just 45 per cent feel confident asking for support.

And staff were clearly not hopeful that much will change. Just 27 per cent believed that action would be taken on the results of the survey.

The findings on bullying follow on from a 2020 survey, when 21 per cent of staff members reported experiencing bullying.

Wyn Evans, professor of astrophysics at Cambridge and leader of the 21 Group which sprung up as a result of those findings, said “zero tolerance to bullying means zero bullying”. 

“Instead, there are a number of problematic departments and institutes in which bullying and harassment has become entrenched and normalised,” he said.

“The 21 Group urges the university to put these departments into immediate special measures. This must include removing the failing heads of department or school, as well as reforming the departmental management and human resources structures.”

Evans said there has been some progress – but warned that some departments were still performing “miserably”.

His own research has found that the proportion of staff dissatisfied with how bullying and harassment is dealt with is as high as 40 or 50 per cent in many departments...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cambridge-staff-unhappy-response-bullying-claims

Workplace Bullying Among Higher Education Faculty: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature - Part 2

 

...The structural characteristics of higher education institutions make university settings susceptible to abuses of power that produce ongoing, and frequently escalating, perceptions of injustice... Faculty self-governance processes that include the nomination and election of a Chair from within a department create situations in which department leaders possess limited management experience or training and instead have spent their careers in competitive isolation as they confront the challenges of publication, teaching, service, tenure and promotion... As a result, Chairs may not have the skills or motivation to effectively intervene to stop abusive conduct among faculty. In addition, in many universities, Chairs do not have actual organizational power when making decisions and so when conflicts arise, Chairs must rely on their Dean to enforce an administrative action.

This organizational arrangement creates situations in which Chairs can become targets of their own faculty who may refuse to cooperate in good faith, or who undermine them through the Dean’s authority. Alternatively, a Chair who is themselves a bully can use the lack of accountability that accompanies self-governance processes to carry out abusive conduct in relative isolation...

 

In addition to management structures that are easily corrupted, the retention, tenure and promotion process in university workplaces leads to organizational incentives for untenured faculty or those seeking promotion to remain silent in the presence of abusive conduct, either toward themselves or others. Professors working toward tenure or promotion depend on positive recommendations from their department peers, their Chair, their Dean, college-level and university-level committees, as well as the University Provost and President. Each of these recommendations are typically made in unmonitored and confidential meetings and through the use of often subjective, ambiguous or vague performance evaluation policies.

 

Processes to ensure compliance with existing policies, or mechanisms to promote ethical, unbiased and thorough performance evaluations are not a typical aspect of university institutional structures... It is easy to see the many ways such a structure can be manipulated to arrive at, and then justify a negative recommendation. As a result, the processes surrounding these decisions, as well as the decisions themselves become mechanisms through which abusive conduct is perpetrated...

 

...qualitative study of targeted faculty reported that faculty with previously strong performance reviews found their evaluations suddenly negative, seemingly without warning. Participants describe receiving reviews in which objective accomplishments were ignored, while narrow and minor issues (such as student evaluations from one course), were overemphasized in order to justify a negative performance evaluation decision...  targeted faculty described having guidelines for publication changed during the process to exclude their scholarly achievements from review...  that the threat of negative tenure and promotion decisions was a persistent fear among targeted faculty...

 

Lemon, K., & Barnes, K. (2021). Workplace bullying among higher education faculty: A review of the theoretical and empirical literature. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 21(9), 203-216.