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Why Zombie Leadership?

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The Toxic University

Part of the book series: Palgrave Critical University Studies ((PCU))

Abstract

This chapter looks at how universities have been seduced into enacting ‘zombie’ forms of leadership by taking on a set of dead economic ideas that have been thoroughly discredited, abandoned, disavowed, and even jettisoned by the sources from whence they came (a topic revisited in Chap. 9 in light of the most explosive and damning evidence yet to emerge). The question asked is why a set of dead, debunked, and discredited ideas around the fanciful notion that universities can be constructed as marketplaces has gained such traction, along with its ensemble of weird rituals and practices that accompany it, and why this has been sustained and tolerated for so long. The answer given is that this bizarre behaviour is akin to a version of witchcraft and the occult.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK

    John Smyth

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  1. John Smyth
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Correspondence to John Smyth .

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Smyth, J. (2017). Why Zombie Leadership?. In: The Toxic University. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54968-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54968-6_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54976-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54968-6

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