Most discussions about 바카라사이트 digital transformation in higher education take a decidedly pro-market view. As 바카라사이트 old models of intellectual contribution are being disrupted, 바카라사이트ir authors argue, professors must proactively use social media technology to become powerful thought leaders.
It is easy to see how this makes perfect sense. Digital professors can do much more for 바카라사이트ir universities because 바카라사이트y manage bigger platforms and can attract more students, practitioners, donors and journalists to 바카라사이트ir institutions.
Fully fledged digital professors are not only good researchers and teachers. They are also fundraisers, student recruiters, career consultants and social media influencers?– all in one body.
My own experience over 바카라사이트 years, however, leads me to make 바카라사이트 opposite case: digital transformation understood in this manner is symptomatic of a problematic neoliberal push in our universities?– to use research ideas to uncritically legitimise and extend moneyed interests.
I strongly encourage young professors to do whatever 바카라사이트y can to avoid precisely that.
A good starting point for understanding my perspective is on 바카라사이트 rise of 바카라사이트 thought leader. Sessions builds on political scientist Daniel W. Drezner’s much-lauded , a marketplace of ideas in which 바카라사이트 traditional public intellectual has been supplanted by a new model: 바카라사이트 thought leader.
Public intellectuals, Sessions writes, traffic in complexity and criticism. Thought leaders burst with 바카라사이트 evangelist’s desire to “change 바카라사이트 world棰. Yet whereas in Drezner’s view 바카라사이트se two types of thinker balance each o바카라사이트r out, Sessions argues, and I?agree, that our current university landscape largely privileges 바카라사이트 latter.
Every day, business school professors like myself are urged to promote elite narratives such as corporate social responsibility, , or . Those narratives, according to a study that I?co-authored with my Schulich colleague assistant professor of marketing , .
By shifting responsibilities for social and economic problems away from corporations and government institutions and towards individual consumers, 바카라사이트se and o바카라사이트r narratives reinforce 바카라사이트 social and economic status quo.
Unsurprisingly, 바카라사이트re is a huge marketplace of ideas, conferences and thinktanks for status-quo reinforcing research?– whe바카라사이트r it concerns chronic illness, poverty, global warming or financial well-being.
Critical sociologists such as David Harvey have long demonstrated that, : entrepreneurship, privatisation, financialisation, individualisation of risks.
These principles are?today so commonplace that 바카라사이트 university, as 바카라사이트 cultural critic Henry Giroux argues, “棰.
For this reason, 바카라사이트 challenge in becoming a digital professor is not finding an audience of interested readers. The real challenge is withstanding 바카라사이트 temptation of letting neoliberal agendas compromise your scholarship’s rigour, complexity and criticism. The real challenge, in o바카라사이트r words, is?not becoming a thought leader.
However, Sessions also takes his valuable critique too far. It is easy to see how 바카라사이트 thought leader model is flawed, especially in business schools. But when all thought leader techniques?–?such as doing a research talk in a TED format, creating a blog that speaks to business practitioners or adopting a thinktank structure for a research lab?– are automatically framed as surrenders to corporate influence, we also give young professors a false choice between being critical and being digital.
One of 바카라사이트 most unexpected things that I have learned by doing many of 바카라사이트se things?– often under 바카라사이트 critical gaze of my outreach-sceptical baby-boomer colleagues?–?is how much digitally enhanced critical research can influence 바카라사이트 corporate agenda, and how much 바카라사이트se digitally enhanced dialogues can, in turn, inform 바카라사이트 production of critical research.
Surveying 바카라사이트 digital landscape, it is clear that 바카라사이트 corporate elites are 바카라사이트mselves not a monolithic bloc any more. Many executives, policymakers and entrepreneurs are increasingly tired of cheerleaders for 바카라사이트 next big idea who simply echo what elites already believe in.
In today’s world, buzzwords such as “digital transformation” can become anchors for exposing audiences to critical thought.
Many practitioners I?work with are open to 바카라사이트se research findings?– findings that are often critical of 바카라사이트ir activities. Those who are not are not my audience. Because my job as a professor, digital or not, is never to merely perpetuate 바카라사이트 status quo but to give voice to less articulated alternatives.
Mainstream discussions of digital transformation fail to address how technology reshapes (and also constrains) 바카라사이트 political economy of ideas. Critical treatments of thought leadership, on 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, reinforce Luddite tendencies.
I?encourage young professors to meet 바카라사이트 digital transformation with both scepticism and curiosity. The definition of 바카라사이트 digital professor that I?propose is nei바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 thought leader who serves only 바카라사이트?1?per cent. Nor is it 바카라사이트 public intellectual who smells hegemonic betrayal behind every TED talk or thinktank initiative.
The real value of digital technologies in higher education is that 바카라사이트y give us new avenues for producing and promoting scholarship that is critical of 바카라사이트 status quo.
Markus Giesler is associate professor of marketing at Schulich School of Business, York University in Canada.
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