Sales-organizing university research and teaching in the age of technological disruption

Recent technological disruptions, especially artificial intelligence, have challenged the ideal of teaching-research nexus and how research and teaching should be organized in universities. In this theoretical paper, the organization of researchers and teachers is discussed in a novel way, adopting insights from sales organizations. By discussing the analogy of ‘researchers as salespeople’, ‘teachers as customer success managers’, and ‘research and teaching enablement’ – similar to a sales enablement function – this paper proposes a sales organization model of university research, teaching, and enablement. The model outlines how specific tasks of researchers and teachers make research and teaching more efficient and impactful, while at the same time acknowledging the benefits of targeted interactions between the roles. The research and teaching enablement function would enhance the productivity of researchers and teachers as well as cross-functional relationships between them. The model contributes to the inconclusive debate on teaching-research nexus and customer orientation in higher education.