Abstract New Public Management (NPM) could be considered as a rediscovery of bureaucratic organization, which hit the German university sector in the mid-1990s. More university autonomy came at the cost of budget negotiations, agreements on objectives, accountability, steering by indicators, third-party funding competition, etc. In this article, the positions and roles of higher-education and science professionals are used to show how the NPM regime of bureaucratic organization expanded into academic functions. The discussion paper ‘More autonomy – less regulation. Proposals for the de-bureaucratization of the science system’ by the German Academy of Sciences ( Leopoldina ) is used as a point of departure to discuss increasing external regulation (case: public third-party funding competition) and university-internal bureaucratization (case: professorial hiring). The theory-led discussion is based on the elaboration of bureaucratic organization as a concept defining the social forces of structures, actors and activities. The concept is further detailed by the four sub-concepts official duties , authority relations , employment of qualified personnel and career paths , and individual agency/enterprise , which emphasize that bureaucratic organization provides some leeway for bureaucrats within legal and ethical boundaries. The generic theoretical concept is suitable for all kinds of studies on bureaucratic organization, and is substantiated by core categories/variables.
Christian Schneijderberg (Mon,) studied this question.