Academics’ Understanding and Experiences of Leadership in Omani Higher Education

Abstract

This research has adopted an exploratory qualitative design to explore how academics (deans, assistant deans, and faculty staff) at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences (UTAS) in Oman understand and experience leadership. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, with an analysis of secondary documents. Senior academics (deans and assistant deans) in the study viewed themselves strongly as ‘leaders’ framed within a wider discourse of leadership whilst those faculty staff positioned at lower levels of the organisational hierarchy viewed senior academics primarily as ‘managers.’ By way of contrast, thematic analysis revealed that the experiences and descriptions of organisational work practices of both groups of research participants were strongly related to bureaucratic-administrative processes widely described as managerial and to the influence of personal networks. As such, this leadership focused research reveals complex, contradictory and tense representations of organisational life. These are viewed as being linked to the coexistence of personal networks within a largely buried bureaucratic model under the strong weight of a leadership discourse adopted by the senior academics and a management discourse understood by other academics as it is antonym.