Administrative burden in higher education institutions: a conceptualisation and a research agenda

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is growing concern about increasing administrative burden within universities around the world. At the same time, the literature explicitly devoted to the issue of administrative burden within universities remains relatively scant. Drawing on various bodies of literature and reflections on the situation at Australian universities, this paper (a) presents a conceptualisation of what constitutes administrative burden, considering its organisational implications for universities, (b) interrogates a range of potential drivers of administrative burden, and (c) outlines avenues for both future research into and for practical responses to the issue. The specific contributions of this paper include, first, showing that administrative burden can impact universities’ core activities not only indirectly but also more directly, and second, illustrating that some of the key changes that were meant to make universities more efficient may have inadvertently increased levels of administrative burden.