New managerialism, academics' working conditions, teaching input, and research emphasis in the East Asia context

In recent years, HEIs in East Asia have received more autonomy from central government; however, HEIs are requested to be more transparent and accountable. With that, this study explores the transformation of HEIs in Taiwan under the pressure of university rankings and competition-based funding, including (1) trends in institutional governance models (collegiality and managerialism); (2) changes in the working conditions of academics (including teaching and research) and their relevance to managerial transformation; and (3) the problems and challenges of higher education transformation and the suggestions to national policies and universities. There are two sources of international data to be analyzed. One is Taiwan’s participation in the “Academic Profession in Asia (APA)” survey conducted by Hiroshima University, Japan in 2012; the second dataset is the “Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society (APIKS)” international survey collected in 2019. By comparing these two similar datasets in different periods, the authors have examined Taiwan academics’ perspectives on institutional governance and working conditions. Comparing to academics largely engaged in teaching, this study has provided empirical evidence about Taiwan’s research-active academics beginning to attach importance to academic freedom and engagement in university decision making. The results also indicate that the influence of academics in collegial decision making has been reduced, implying that academics remain relatively independent from the university governance.