Työn merkityksellisyyden rakentaminen ja jännitteet muuttuvassa yliopistossa

Abstract

The construction of meaningfulness of work is guided by a moral frame, which helps individuals to choose issues to commit to. This individual moral frame can be linked with an ethos characteristic of the profession. In this study, I focus on the academic profession whose working conditions have been shaped by recent university reforms. I ask how the academics representing education, medicine, bioscience, and linguistics position themselves towards the issues valued by the entrepreneurial university and the demands it makes of the academics. I also ask what kind of tensions these positionings manifest related to the construction of the meaningfulness of work. My data consist of academics’ descriptions of their stances towards their work and the recent changes in universities, which were collected by using a thematic writing methodology. I identified five distinct positionings in the data: 1) resistance to the entrepreneurial university, 2) being overloaded at work and suffering from a lack of resources, 3) general analysis and criticism of the working conditions, 4) satisfaction with the academic work, and 5) independent, powerful agency. The differences in the positionings seemed to originate from the uneven distribution of resources in teaching and research duties, different opportunities for the academics to wield influence, and varying experiences of being valued at work.