Speaker: Uwe Winkelsmann

30 October 2014  14.00-16.00 

Building 8 West , Room  1.32   School of Management University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY

 

 

ABSTRACT 

The introduction of New Public Management in the German system of higher education raises issues of the academics’ motivation to do research and to teach. Evidence-based findings about contextual factors that influence intrinsic and related modes of internalized teaching motivation in German higher education institutions are presented. In accordance with Self-Determination Theory, we empirically test factors which correlate with autonomous motivation to teach. The results support the basic claims of the Self-Determination Theory that intrinsic teaching motivation is facilitated by social relatedness, competence, and partly by autonomy for German professors, too. If teaching is managed by objective agreements intrinsic motivation is significantly decreased. Additionally, the results are discussed by the help of the differentiation between transactional and transformational modes of governance. Transactional governance encompasses all forms of managerial governance, which includes selective incentives and monitoring capacity. Whereas transformational governance covers, on the one hand, the means of restructuring the roles of principals and agents or the interaction situation in the organization, on the other hand, it also addresses all the means of restructuring the relationship between perceived environment and motivation, as can be seen in Self-Determination Theory.

BIOGRAPHY

Uwe   Wilkesmann is Professor and Director of the Center for Higher Education at the TU Dortmund University. He holds a chair of organization studies and management of continuing education. Additionally, he is Adj. Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Before this he was professor of Organisational Sociology at the University of Munich. His research interests include research in higher education, knowledge management, and organization studies.