A Happy Dean’s Office: But Is There One? The Case of Polish HEIs*

Abstract

The notion of ‘happy dean's office’ (DO) seems to be at best an oxymoron as these units are usually understaffed, overworked and perceived at the very bottom of university hierarchy. Contrary to these beliefs the article aims to identify and analyse DOs which could be labelled as ‘happy’, i.e. units which are good places to work in, according to their staff, and/or are valued high by their students. Happiness is treated symbolically rather than a psychological state of human being and refers to a workplace which provides its employees with satisfaction and well-being, and at the same time is perceived as efficient and effective. Our source material are 16 individual in-depth interviews with managers of DOs at Polish HEIs and 3 focus groups. In most cases we visited the DOs and so could also use some participant observation. These and other DOs at the same HEI share the same legal environment, infrastructure and are situated in the same manner in HEIs structure. What makes them different, and so might influence their level of happiness, are: (1) management style, (2) organisational culture, and (3) students. In our research we focus on the first two aspects, the last one, due to lacking data, is skipped. Basing on our research and practical experience – as one of us has been managing a DO for almost 20 years and the other has been serving as a vice-dean for six years – we want to provide recommendations on how a DO can be turned into a good place to work.