The Commodification of Higher Education: Flexible Delivery and its Implications for the Academic Labour Process

Abstract

This research is a study of the social relations involved in the process of higher education delivered as a service encounter. It examines the implications for the organisation of academic work in particular, and the employment relationship in general, of the student's newly constructed status of 'customer'. It revisits the traditional bipartite model of the employment relationship between employer and employee, and questions whether customer focus represents a major shift in the social relations of the workplace. It questions the current management paradigm of customer focus as a 'win-win' situation, suggesting that management's preoccupation with 'customer relations' has undermined the traditional employment relationship between employing institution and academic.