Abstract
The Government's White Paper on Higher Education has attracted widespread discussion and controversy. One of the most significant features of the new policy directions is the challenge to institutions to adopt a corporate style of management. Whilst this has been welcomed by many Chief Executive Officers, the barriers to implementation are immense and have been underestimated in government exhortations to institutions to 'shape up'. Arguably, one of the biggest impediments to streamlining higher education management is the prevailing set of conflict ing pressures — participation/access and accountability versus strengthened centralised power; Federal versus State expectations; encour agement for adoption of flexible staffing policies versus industrial award requirements; concepts such as systematic performance appraisals being promoted in a veritable empirical vacuum etc. — which need to be recog nised and overcome before radical changes in management practices have any real chance of success.
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