Scripts of the organisational middle: academic theatre, international migrant women and precarious responsibility in UK higher education

Purpose This study examines academic middle management in UK higher education as a structurally demanding governance position where responsibility may exceed formal authority. It focuses on how this condition is experienced by international migrant women, whose authority and legitimacy may also be shaped by informal norms of language, belonging, cultural familiarity and institutional recognition. Design/methodology/approach The study uses academic theatre as a qualitative performative-analytic approach. Drawing on reflexive journals, analytic memos and institutional artefacts, it constructs three composite dialogic acts to analyse recurring governance mechanisms while reducing identifiability in a sensitive organisational context. Findings The analysis shows that academic middle management can operate as a buffering layer between senior strategy and everyday delivery. Middle-management roles often involve translating institutional priorities into workable practice, sustaining relationships, managing uncertainty and absorbing pressure, sometimes without equivalent decision rights or procedural protection. For international migrant women, these pressures may be intensified because authority is also negotiated through informal systems of recognition, including language, timing, cultural familiarity and perceived belonging. Research limitations/implications The study is situated in UK higher education and uses composite analytic construction rather than direct participant testimony. It offers analytically transferable insights into how middle-management work can become precarious through the uneven alignment of responsibility, authority and recognition. Practical implications The findings highlight the need to align middle-management responsibility with decision rights, recognise governance and affective labour, and protect procedural voice, particularly for academics whose authority may be less readily recognised. Originality/value The study contributes to higher education leadership, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), and organisational studies by theorising the academic organisational middle as a site of precarious responsibility. It also develops academic theatre as an ethics-forward method for analysing sensitive institutional processes.