Academic Faculty Networks and Collegiality: Myth, Mirage, or Model – Are Colleagues Really Collegiate? - Bournemouth University Staff Profile Pages

Academic Faculty Networks and Collegiality: Myth, Mirage, or Model – Are Colleagues Really Collegiate?

Editors: Downey, C., Hall, J.

Conference: University of Southampton

Publication Date: 08/06/2026

DOI: 10.5258/SOTON/T0095

Abstract:

This thesis examines how organisational contraction reshapes collegiality and knowledge flow in a UK university business school following a contested merger and restructuring. Treating collegiality as networked social capital (the value embedded in professional relationships), it investigates how teaching advice, research advice, and co-publication relationships change over time; how an individual’s position in these relationship patterns relates to access to expertise and performance; how academics perceive collegiality and interpret network patterns; and what network-informed actions can strengthen collegiality under metric and budget pressure.

A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was used. Three waves of whole-faculty network census data (pre- and two post-staff reductions) were analysed using social network analysis, complemented by partial least squares structural equation modelling to test pathways between network position, collaboration, and research outputs. Semi-structured interviews then explained how collegiality is defined, enacted, and withheld during social network disruption.

Findings show layered rather than uniform change. Departmental redesign, relocations, and exits broke up established working relationships and increased the effort required to share expertise between groups (i.e., reduced cross-department knowledge sharing). Teaching-related collegiality remained comparatively inclusive but became less efficient as advice had to travel through more intermediaries and coordination costs rose. Co-publication collaboration remained persistently exclusive, with output-linked collegial capital concentrated in core groups, many staff lacking direct channels into collaboration and recognition. Research-advice centrality was the most output-proximate form of social capital, while teaching ties affected outputs mainly indirectly via co-publishing and were constrained by workload. Leadership roles were over-represented among brokers and hubs, creating single-point dependency; where change was experienced as opaque or unjust, trust eroded and pseudo-collegiality emerged, intensifying gatekeeping and withdrawal. Interview data attribute these dynamics to workload intensification, dislocation, misaligned reward and promotion logics, as well as procedural injustice that reduces discretionary cooperation.

This study advances a Layered Collegiality Architecture Model (LCAM), conceptualising collegiality as networked social capital conditioned by workload capacity, stability of working group boundaries, reward alignment, and leadership/coordination quality, shaped by psychological safety, organisational justice, and belonging. It translates findings into actions: mapping informal networks before restructure; protecting and building redundancy in boundary-spanning roles; replacing gatekeeping with coaching; and restoring procedural justice in workload and progression to advance collaboration and outputs.

Source: Manual