The Changing Role of Deans in Higher Education - From Leader to Manager

During the latter decades new perspectives on academic leadership have emerged along with new ways of organizing the decision making structure. The image of academic leader as manager has slowly but steadily been diffused internationally. In addition to the structural changes in the system of higher education the idea of new public management has changed the way academic work is supposed to be managed, in favour of enhanced managerial control and high demands on academic staff. It is reasonable to assume that these changes within the higher educational institutions, along with changes in the relationship between the government and the higher educational institutions, has led to changes in the role of the leaders, both referring to the tasks leaders are supposed to solve and which responsibility and authority they have. In this paper I study how the role of deans in teacher education is influenced by those changes.