Location independent working in academia: Enabling employees or supporting managerial control?

Abstract

In this article, we consider the extent to which the practice of location independent working (LIW) enables academic employees to make choices and have agency in their life-work balance, and the extent to which it may support (or potentially be used as a form of resistance to) increased managerial control. Set within the context of an increasingly performanceled, managerialist public sector landscape, the impact and implications of these working practices are examined through the lens of labour process theory. Drawing on findings from an ongoing in-depth ethnographic study set in a post-1992 university business school in central England, we suggest that the practice of LIW is being used both to enable employees and to support managerial control. BACKGROUND AND FOCUS OF OUR RESEARCH Within Mercia University, our case-study, post-1992 university business school, LIW refers to a formalised contractual arrangement whereby academics forego a dedicated office space on campus and work via hot desks, or remotely off campus. Although such LIW initiatives are often promoted as a tool to encourage flexibility and choice, they may also be necessitated by drives to improve efficiency. In this sense, they might be construed as a managerialist intervention. Alternatively, academics could be opting for a formalised LIW contract in an attempt to escape or resist the managerialist