Henrik Wenander

The higher education system has since the 2000s changed fundamentally in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. One reason behind this is so-called managerialism as a part of NPM, which means a shift towards more managerial forms of leadership, business-oriented aspects, and neoliberal university policies. Managerialism in all the Nordic countries conflicts with decades of collegial institutional tradition.

Good labour conditions have been considered as one of the safeguards to academic freedom. Based on the comparative legal studies as method the article analyses how the position of academics has changed and how the legal systems studied have reacted to the current challenges. Is academic freedom at risk because of the changing labour conditions and what is the role of managerialism in this development?

University employees’ status has started to converge to that of private sector employees. However, there is no common framework, and traditions of different legal areas affect the status of academic staff. The development due to the strong emphasis on managerialism has been most rapid in Finland, having the
strongest influence on the status of university employees. In Sweden, political ambitions to increase university institutional autonomy have been accompanied by increased control and bureaucratisation. At the same time, it is remarkable that very recent developments in Norway show a trend toward moving away
from NPM principles in academia.