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Ballooning bureaucracy? Stylized facts of growing administration in Swedish higher education
Örebro University, Örebro University School of Business. Statistics Sweden (SCB), Örebro, Sweden.
Örebro University, Örebro University School of Business. Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8857-6116
Örebro University, Örebro University School of Business. Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9173-8347
2024 (English)In: Constitutional Political Economy, ISSN 1043-4062, E-ISSN 1572-9966, Vol. 35, p. 303-326Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

All organizations need to allocate labor to production and administration. In many cases—particularly within the public sector—the optimal allocation is far from obvious. Indeed, vocal concerns have been raised about the administrative burden in several public services, not least in education. We investigate this issue using detailed registry data on all employees at Swedish universities and colleges from 2005 to 2019 and document three stylized facts. First, the group of highly educated administrators has grown rapidly, almost by a factor of seven compared with teachers and researchers. Second, the number of less-educated administrators has stayed flat. Third, the time that teachers and researchers spend on administrative tasks has been roughly constant over time. This indicates that resources have been diverted from teaching and research and raises fears of excessive administrative growth in Swedish higher education.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2024. Vol. 35, p. 303-326
Keywords [en]
Organizational theory, Bureaucracy, Sclerosis, Higher education, Productivity growth
National Category
Economics
Research subject
Economics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-106713DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09408-xISI: 001012946300001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85162878951OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-106713DiVA, id: diva2:1777775
Funder
Örebro UniversityThe Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation, P2018-0162Available from: 2023-06-30 Created: 2023-06-30 Last updated: 2024-05-27Bibliographically approved

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Andersson, Fredrik W.Jordahl, HenrikKärnä, Anders

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