Page 77 - Journal of Management Inquiry, July 2018

Abreu Pederzini 331

Table 1. Summary of Data Structure.
First-order codes Second-order themes Aggregate dimension
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding price as proxy for quality. Fantasy of the prestige Liberation
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding the importance of prestige and
reputation in higher education.
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding an essence, or an untouched Fantasy of the independent
kernel in universities not affected by policies. agenda
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding things on which university
leaders’ could act independently regardless of external conditions.
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding no other alternatives. Fantasy of inevitability
Statements that conveyed beliefs regarding the impossibility to prevent
these policy changes.

changes generated various roadblocks for these leaders, who price differentiation (i.e., some universities would charge the
saw themselves as partly impotent against them. For exam- cap of £9,000, while others lower or much lower fees).
ple, the President of UniX expressed the impossibility of, for However, the latter—in the end—did not happen. This
instance, knowing cause–effect relationships precisely in this caused frustration among politicians. The standard argument
complex/changing environment: from universities and their leaders to justify setting their
tuition fees at the cap or near it was that setting a lower fee
Because nobody changed one thing at the same time, there were would have signaled that they were a cheaper second class
always more than one variable being changed which was university. Thus, setting a lower fee was seen as detrimental
frustrating: so we had the fees, we had AAB then we had ABB due to what a former CEO of a Sector Body called the
. . ., then we had change in demographics, 18 year olds, Heathrow Express dynamics:
increasing numbers of 18 year olds. We have changes in visas . .
. So the difficulty is to what do I attribute all of this?
Because when the Heathrow Express [(the express train from
Heathrow to Central London)] was first introduced . . . it was
In short, leaders discussed an experienced symbolic order quite a low price, and people particularly American tourists,
that appeared confusing and subjecting. Nonetheless, their wouldn’t use it because of the low price, they assumed that
paradoxical position emerges when these various factors of therefore it wasn’t any good. And when they increased the prices
impotency for leaders are juxtaposed with the expectations the customer base increased very significantly.
that the symbolic order had of them. The most important
expectation being that different groups inside these universi- Hence, the fee level was seen by some as a proxy for reputa-
ties, assumed that their leaders would be powerful enough as tion. And, therefore, in the reputation-driven higher education
to defend them fully against all the reforms. The latter was sector, being seen as a second class university was inconceiv-
evidenced, for instance, in the countless protests and sit-ins able for some, allegedly pushing most of them to set their fees
by students in universities, where students demanded their near the £9,000 cap (Taylor & McCaig, 2014, p. 18).
university presidents to protect them from the risk of having In sum, the prestige fantasy is about appearing as elite, as
to pay higher fees. One university president even described a the top university, where usually—for better or worse—
letter written to her by students demanding her not to back research intensive universities (Marginson, 2008), particu-
the reforms. Thus, leaders’ appeared, perhaps, entrapped in a larly Oxford and Cambridge, are considered the panacea of
magical realist symbolic order, where the role they were sup- English higher education. Therefore, the prestige can be seen
posed to play was that of the almighty savior, in spite of as a fantasy, because it could enable people to liberate them-
being limited human beings. This, therefore, put leaders pre- selves from a difficult reality and become part of a wish-ful-
cisely in the paradoxical position I was looking for, but gives filling fiction that although will not be materialized, it could
us now further insight as to how that position is experienced. take leaders out of their paradoxical position. Let us analyze
More importantly, the latter evidences that leaders them- the latter. To explain the prestige idea, the President of UniM
selves can acknowledge their own paradoxical position. mentioned the following: “also the point about caps is if you
The data analysis explored how these leaders attempted, set yourself anything other than the cap, it will define your-
through their own magical realist fantasies, to escape their self as a second class institution.” Now, by counterfactual,
paradoxical position. I will explore now the three main magi- the latter would imply that somehow setting your fees at the
cal realist fantasies of leaders that emerged in this research. same level of Oxford and Cambridge would define you as
The first one is the prestige. Some in government were them. As if just because you are charging £9,000 you have
expecting that the introduction of higher fees would lead to become Oxford. This would be an example of what Dews