Editorial: The administrative workforce in higher education

Abstract

Although the core practice at higher education institutions is academic, the success of academic practice relies on possessing effective, professionalized back-office workers and professionals, who undertake various administrative functions at universities. In many country contexts, back-office workers of the universities are categorized as administrative personnel and they are differentiated from faculty staff members or academic personnel. However, the effectiveness of these staff members depends on several different characteristics which are located both at system and institutional levels. Investigating the role of these factors in facilitating the work of administrative staff members is necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education organizations. This issue of HEGP presents articles that either focus on the administrative staff members or indicate the role of these staff members anecdotally in other academic or administrative processes. In this issue of HEGP, we present four articles that are based on studies conducted in different countries.