Reaching the Greek universities’ managerial top: Mission accomplished, and lessons learnt
Format Type
Plenary
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
14-1-2021 4:20 PM
End Date
14-1-2021 4:40 PM
Abstract
Interviewing influential people who occupy the highest positions in a social or professional system (“elites”) poses special difficulties in aspiring social researchers, which makes elite interviewing both a distinct and a significant research method, yet an underdeveloped research technique. In fact, the literature review indicates not only a paucity in methodological writings concerning this research technique, but also that the relevant knowledge accumulated comes from elites pertaining to scientific fields other than management and organization. Still, questions have been raised about whether elites in diverse organizational and industrial contexts differ from each other and if these differences can have an impact on the conduct of interviews. In the light of the above, the main aim of this methodological article is to extend earlier research on elite interviews by adding some findings and reflections on interviewing elites in the special domain of management and organization in higher education. These reflections emanated from the 15 interviews the author conducted with Greek universities’ upper elite, namely former and serving Rectors and Vice-rectors, to enter their managerial world and investigate how they performed both individually and collectively as a Rectorial team their managerial and leadership roles. As, after conducting the interviews, it became apparent that many methodological challenges stressed in the literature about elite research participants did not appear in the interviews with the university administrators, some preliminary answers are added about how university upper elite may differ as research interviews due to their academic identity and academic culture.
Keywords
Qualitative research, elite interviewing, university management team, Rectors, Vice-rectors, management and organization in higher education
Reaching the Greek universities’ managerial top: Mission accomplished, and lessons learnt
Interviewing influential people who occupy the highest positions in a social or professional system (“elites”) poses special difficulties in aspiring social researchers, which makes elite interviewing both a distinct and a significant research method, yet an underdeveloped research technique. In fact, the literature review indicates not only a paucity in methodological writings concerning this research technique, but also that the relevant knowledge accumulated comes from elites pertaining to scientific fields other than management and organization. Still, questions have been raised about whether elites in diverse organizational and industrial contexts differ from each other and if these differences can have an impact on the conduct of interviews. In the light of the above, the main aim of this methodological article is to extend earlier research on elite interviews by adding some findings and reflections on interviewing elites in the special domain of management and organization in higher education. These reflections emanated from the 15 interviews the author conducted with Greek universities’ upper elite, namely former and serving Rectors and Vice-rectors, to enter their managerial world and investigate how they performed both individually and collectively as a Rectorial team their managerial and leadership roles. As, after conducting the interviews, it became apparent that many methodological challenges stressed in the literature about elite research participants did not appear in the interviews with the university administrators, some preliminary answers are added about how university upper elite may differ as research interviews due to their academic identity and academic culture.