Introduction

Universities are places where scholarship is organized in most higher education systems. However, “the” university as an overall organization cannot do research. Rather, there are subunits in which research takes place. In higher education research, either the university as an organization or as individual scholars have been analyzed. In terms of organizational theory, we thus turn our attention to a hitherto neglected level of higher education and organizational research. We will focus our analyses on the team level, where several scientists do their research together. Previous studies have either looked only at the organizational level of universities; the macro-level for our analyses, especially the organizational theory of universities (Hüther & Krücken, 2012; Kleimann, 2019; Musselin, 2007); or only at the micro-level of individual actions of members of the university, such as in the studies that examine the benefits of attending scientific conferences for young scientists (Hauss, 2021) or dropping out of Ph.D. training (Jaksztat et al., 2021). However, the consideration of the meso-level of team production is a neglected gap in research. We call this the meso-level because the collective action of the team in this case is organized in a special subunit of the university and follows certain rules, as we show below. We will demonstrate that this subunit mediates between the formal goals of the university (research) and the individual goals of the researchers (being promoted, doing research). Thus, the professorship forms its own organizational unit (Enders, 2001), which is located between the macro-level of the university as an organization and the micro-level of the individual researchers. The professorship plays an important role in the German higher education system, and therefore, this meso-level is very relevant for scientific work. The professorship and not the university is the place where research is collaboratively conducted, scientific publications are written, and new applications for third-party funding are developed as proposals. This team production needs to be managed and coordinated. The organization of this team’s performance has not yet been taken into account in university research, and will therefore be theoretically substantiated and empirically illustrated here.

As a theoretical underpinning, we use Ahrne and Brunsson’s (2011) five criteria of an organization (i.e., membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanction) and apply them to professorships. These five criteria are, at first glance, only abstract structural features. They must be generated, maintained, and reproduced in organizational practice through the actions of the members. The place where these actions take place is the professorship. Collective action must be organized (i.e., coordinated, negotiated, and reinforced). In this article, we want to analyze the process of organizing this common action at the professorship level. “We define organization as a decided order in which people use elements that are constitutive of formal organizations. We see decision as the most fundamental aspect of organization […] In formal organizations there are decision-makers who make decisions about and on behalf of other organization members” (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, p. 85).

Two important factors influence whether this middle level is really an important level of coordination, and thus, a theoretically important level of organization—the higher education system and the discipline. In the German, Austrian, and higher education system of Switzerland, the organization of a chair (in this article we call it a professorship) is a normal and important organizational unit of the university. Almost every professor has their own scientific staff and their own research team that works only for them. Thus, each professor is not a scientific lone wolf but the manager of a scientific team. The empirical basis for illustrating our theoretical considerations comes from the German higher education system (Hüther & Krücken, 2018). Most scientific employees are assigned to a professorship. Teaching, research, and the acquisition of external funding take place within a professorship. The professor decides on the hiring and contract renewal of employees and is the supervisor of doctorate candidates, who in the German higher education system are mostly employed as research assistants. Academic careers begin at the professorship or are thwarted there. Discipline is also an influencing factor. For example, natural sciences and engineering tend to focus on large research projects that can only be carried out in teams. In contrast, humanities, such as philosophy, may not be so team-oriented, and it may still be the case that a lone thinker writes down their philosophical reflections. For the empirical illustrations, we have therefore chosen the four disciplines of mechanical engineering, biology, sociology (only in the survey), and business administration. The latter two are still disciplines where academics can also publish alone, as in humanities, while the first two disciplines represent ways of working that require teamwork. However, here we are taking an abstract view and looking at professorship in general from a higher perspective and do not intend to compare disciplines.

Therefore, our research question asks: How are membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions used by German professorships to organize research?

In this article, we will focus on the level between the university organization and the individual scholarly action (i.e., the level of the professorship). It is at this level that the actual production of science, based on the division of labor, takes place. Insights at this level are central to understanding the organization of science, taking the university as a higher-level organization into account. We argue that considerations from modern organizational theory, in this case from decision and behavioral organizational research, can be used to explain this because the professorship is a place where the organization of scientific work takes place.

Specifics of the German higher education system and its professorships

In contrast to other higher education systems, the universities in Germany, Austria, Italy, and parts of Switzerland are organized below the faculties as a chair system (Enders, 2001; Enders & Teichler, 1995; Höhle, 2015; Hüther & Krücken, 2018).

In the German higher education system, the “Lehrstuhl” (chair) dates to the “Ordinarienuniversität” (university controlled only by chair holders), which was legally abolished when the Federal Higher Education Framework Act of 1976 came into force (Bartz, 2007). However, the chair still exists today as a social institution and in the salary system. Many more professors were appointed to “Lehrstühle” (chairs) (even though they were no longer called that, but were characterized by the salary grade category C4, which is now W3) in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Consequently, not just one but many professors in this category were and are active in each faculty (Enders, 2001). The professorship, as the operational core of universities, remained and has even expanded (Bartz, 2007). All professors continue to be appointed as tenured civil servants (Teichler & Höhle, 2013). However, the way to get there is difficult; according to the law (“Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz”, German Act on Temporary Scientific Contracts), most of the positions below the professorship are temporary (at most, each person may be employed at a university for 6 years before and after the PhD). The law codifies a long tradition in the German university system, which aims to ensure that junior researchers are employed on a temporary basis on their way to a professorship and that there is a complete turnover of academic staff when a chairholder changes. Moreover, no professor may be appointed at the university where they have habilitated (German qualification for a professorship) (Hüther & Krücken, 2018) or obtained a PhD if they have obtained the academic qualification for a professorship via a successfully evaluated junior professorship (Fumasoli et al., 2015; Kreckel, 2016).

The importance of the professorship is still expressed today by the fact that each professor has their own budget, which is used to hire academic and non-academic staff. In addition, applications for research projects are submitted to fund research projects and staff. Management and coordination of research projects are usually, at least formally, the responsibility of the professors (Seckelmann et al., 2021).

The structured doctoral programs and graduate schools that are the rule in Anglo-American universities are the exception in the German university system (De Vogel, 2020). Thus, doctoral students are hired as temporary research assistants and learn their profession, knowledge, and skills through active engagement in research and teaching.

Empirical underpinning

This article illustrates theoretical considerations with empirical results. Therefore, we used empirical data based on two sources; first, two qualitative studies, a qualitative interview study conducted between February and July 2021, and group discussions with academic staff; and second, a survey conducted between March and May 2022. In both studies, we selected academic staff from the following disciplines (Biglan, 1973): mechanical engineering for the applied hard disciplines, biology for the pure hard disciplines, and business administration for the applied soft disciplines (and in the survey additionally sociology). In the pure soft disciplines, there are usually only very small professorships with comparatively little or no external funding, which is why they were excluded.

For the first qualitative interview study, we conducted problem-centered interviews (Witzel & Reiter, 2012) with 20 professors, lasting 45 to 90 min per interview. They were selected according to discipline, university, gender, and group size. The 10 male and 10 female professors are distributed between four women and two men each in business administration and mechanical engineering, and two women and six men in biology. They come from 11 universities across the country. In the second qualitative study, we conducted group discussions with the academic staff of the previously interviewed professors. In this way, we were able to conduct a total of 15 group discussions between July and October 2021. All interviews and discussions are available as complete transcripts and were evaluated for content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2022) by conducting a structuring and summary analysis using MAXQDA. Almost all of the interviews and discussions were conducted in German. Therefore, the quotations from the data material were translated into English.

The quantitative survey was conducted among German professors and academic staff in business administration, biology, mechanical engineering, and sociology. In these four disciplines, the email addresses of all professors and their academic staff were searched via the Internet between April and September 2021. In total, 2280 professors in the four disciplines were contacted and 233 completed questionnaires were received. Of these, 27.0% are female and 73.0% are male. The mean age is 52.3 years. In addition, 19,520 email addresses of academic staff were contacted. In both cases, a complete survey of the population was conducted. The response rate was 10% (n = 1969). In the sample, 58.3% are male, 41.3% are female, and 0.4% are diverse. The mean age is 35.1 years. A total of 59.3% are still writing their dissertation, 37.1% have completed their PhD, and 3.7% are not pursuing a PhD. For 33.5% of the respondents, the position was funded by the university’s budget. Meanwhile, 43.0% were funded by external sources, and 19.1% of all respondents had both budget and external funding. In 2.4% of cases, there were other sources of funding.

Organizational actorhood, complete organization, and the professorship

In organization theory, universities are characterized as “specific organizations” (Musselin, 2007; see Boulton & Lucas, 2011) because the individual units of the organization are loosely coupled (Weick, 1976), and research and teaching are unclear technologies (Scott, 1981). In addition to the two arguments used by Musselin, Mintzberg’s (1979) concept of professional bureaucracy could also be used to highlight the specifics of the university organization. In the German higher education system, the operational core of the professional bureaucracy is particularly characterized by professorships because this is where the process of academic team production takes place. However, the organizational development of the university has recently been reflected in the concept of “organizational actorhood” (Krücken & Meier, 2006). For example, “By the term ‘organizational actor’ we try to evoke the image of an integrated, goal-oriented entity that is deliberately choosing its own actions and that can thus be held responsible for what it does” (Krücken & Meier, 2006, 241). According to Krücken and Meier (2006), there are four characteristic elements of organizational actorhood as follows: accountability, definition of goals, elaboration of formal structures, and rise of management profession. The element “elaboration of formal structures” describes the development of organizational subdivisions, such as international affairs. However, in the German higher education system, it must also be understood to include professorships because it organizes the joint work of scientists on research projects, writing articles, and writing third-party funding proposals. Therefore, the professorship is elementary for the organization of the research production process. Huisman and Burgoa (2023) and Zapp et al. (2021) extended the perspective on actorhood by including more agentic elements. From a neo-institutional perspective, Huisman and Burgoa (2023) emphasize the organization’s will to survive. Meanwhile, Zapp et al. (2021) distinguish the following elements: sovereignty, intentionality, responsibility, accountability, and formal differentiation. By “formal differentiation”, they do not mean inter-organizational diversity but intra-organizational differentiation, while accountability means the coordination between past and future action. In this case, professorships fulfill the aspect of accountability because they organize the process between the input and the output of research. Empirical studies show how universities are on the journey to complete organizations. Seeber et al. (2015) found that European universities have some characteristics of complete organizations. Kosmützky (2016) shows how German universities are transforming into organizational actors through the development and dissemination of mission statements, while Kleimann (2019) proposes the concept of “multiple hybrid organizations” to explain the structural particularities of German universities. Overall, the research suggests that German universities are not complete organizations in the traditional sense but are influenced by various factors that shape their organizational identity and structure (Hüther & Krücken, 2012).

Organizational actorhood means that universities are more hierarchical, self-governing bodies gain less power, and rectors and deans become powerful decision-makers (Hasse & Krücken, 2013). The New Public Management has strengthened the hierarchy and thus the top of the organization because organizational goals can be better enforced within the organization with the help of the new management tools (Wilkesmann, 2015). This has weakened the previous government system of collegiality (Bieletzki, 2018; Kosmützky & Krücken, 2024). Still, collegiality can change or mitigate far-reaching changes at the top of the organization. However, to become a complete organization, an internal hierarchy is required that implements the organizational goals internally (Wilkesmann, 2015). Professorships represent an important organizational subunit for the university to achieve its goals because it is the professorships, not the top of the organization, that are responsible for conducting research and publishing articles. Although professorships do not implement the content of the rectorate’s guidelines, they do ensure that the formal goals (e.g., research, the acquisition of external funding, and the publication of articles) are achieved. Of course, the top management of the universities cannot prescribe the content of these goals to the professorships or dictate what they should research. They can only formally request that a certain amount of third-party funding is acquired and a certain number of articles are published. However, no university could achieve its goals without professorships.

In addition to research, teaching also takes place at universities. However, teaching is organized by the faculties. No professorship has its own degree program but always contributes modules or individual courses to a degree program. In teaching, the organizational power and autonomy of the professorships is limited by the faculty (Wilkesmann & Schmid, 2012). The faculties and not the professors organize the study programs. The number of courses is prescribed by law. Each professor is required to teach nine semester hours per week and each staff member with a fixed-term contract (at 100% full-time equivalent; different rules apply to the exceptions of unlimited contracts) is required to teach 4 h per week, with one course always equaling 2 h per week (for seminars, not for excursions or laboratory sections). However, the content of teaching (not the amount of the teaching load) that each professorship can be reorganized within the professorship. Still, each professorship must provide its teaching load in total. The question of who takes which course at the professorship can be informally distributed internally. The professor can ask that their employees take over a course from them. Courses can be exchanged between the staff members. However, teaching always takes place under the supervision of the professor. They recruit the staff and also broadly determine the content of the courses. Unlike in other higher education systems, the dean cannot determine the content of teaching. Nevertheless, there is empirical evidence that university or faculty leadership cannot motivate teaching externally through selective incentives among professors (Wilkesmann & Lauer, 2020; Wilkesmann & Schmid, 2012).

To describe the professorship theoretically, we want to apply the five characteristics of the “complete organization” according to Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) to the professorship. At some points, we will enrich Ahrne and Brunsson’s (2011) theory with other theories to better explain certain aspects. For example, we will draw on modes of action regulation to explain the relationship between organizational structure and member behavior (Wilkesmann, 2023), and we will also use Luhmann’s (1999) theory. In addition, we draw on Bass and Avolio’s (1993) full-range leadership model to further explain the interrelationships between leadership and organization. We illustrate our arguments with empirical findings from our research.

In the following, we use Ahrne and Brunsson’s (2011) five criteria of an organization as a pattern—membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanction—to structure our thinking about the professorship. We will show below that this is a fruitful approach to characterize the specifics of the German professorship.

Membership

Although there are two forms of membership at the university, namely employees (professors, research assistants, and administrative staff) and students (Wilkesmann, 2023), only the first group is relevant in the case under consideration here because they all have an employment contract. German PhD candidates usually have an employment contract. The group of students documents its membership qua enrollment: “Membership brings a certain identity with it, an identity that differs from that of non-members [… ] different behaviour is expected from its members than from others” (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, p. 86). The individual employee’s goals and the organizational goals are usually made congruent by directing the member’s actions toward organizational goals through extrinsic rewards. The employee’s actions are “bought” qua contract (Wilkesmann, 2023). Members as employees work because they have an employment contract, are therefore obliged to work, and are paid for doing so. The decision to become a member is a hard criterion that clearly distinguishes them from non-members: “Membership is based on a clear either/or” (Luhmann, 1999, p. 35; translated by the authors). There are clear membership rules that specify very precisely when a person is a member of the organization and when they are not. This is usually done through an employment contract, which also defines the rights and obligations of the member. Formally, however, the contractual relationship is with the university and not with the professorship. Nevertheless, in the professorship—and this is very important for our theoretical underpinning—this decision is contested and constantly updated. Indeed, the decisions to hire, fire, and renew contracts are made at the professorship level because the professor decides who to hire or who to keep, often in consultation with the professorship team, as our empirical results show. All decisions made by professorship update membership because they affect only members and not non-members. Thus, the professorship is the decision-making unit that litigates actions qua membership. Communication in the professorship always affects only the members of the professorship, and it updates the membership by processing that membership. The professor cannot give instructions to non-members of the professorship. However, the university is the legal entity to which the criterion of membership is formally attributed.

Informal rules regulating the process of becoming a member

On the one hand, there are clear formal and legal rules that determine membership status; on the other hand, there are informal rules that determine how the decision-making process works. Exactly how these rules are implemented (see the rules section below) varies gradually from professorship to professorship, and the professor decides on the exact form.

Some of these rules are established by law and others are established by the university. However, the operational implementation always takes place at the professorship. Nevertheless, the individual professor must find ways to implement and process these rules. One interviewee explains this as follows:

When hiring personnel, we have to make an official announcement, and then people apply for this announcement. After we receive the applications, we do a pre-screening. […] Before we invite people, we usually do a zoom meeting with them. […] If the preliminary discussion was positive, then the person or persons were invited. And then, of course, we have the usual conversation. […] And then there is an institute tour, which is not done by me, but by the employees. And they have the clear task of getting to know the person a little bit, can you imagine that this is someone with whom you would like to work for the next four or five years? […] I always reserve the right of veto in the selection process. (engineering, male, prof)

The professor’s employees are usually also involved in the interview because they are supposed to help decide who is hired. From the professor’s point of view, this is the only way to ensure that newly hired employees are also selected according to the criterion of team orientation. In addition, this ensures acceptance of the new member.

Another professor emphasizes the hierarchy of the professorship:

The group leaders have a particularly large say. However, as a professor, I ultimately make the decision. (bio, male, prof)

As can be seen in Table 1, the professors definitely allow their staff to be involved in the selection of new employees. Although the professor always makes the final decision, the majority of professors also involve the team. However, the way in which membership is decided varies from professorship to professorship. It is not a fixed procedure but changes through negotiation processes and over time.

Table 1 Participation of employees in the selection of new employees
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Hierarchy

“Hierarchy entails a form of organized power. The source of the power is a decision—the decision about who shall decide” (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, p. 86). Hierarchy is formally established within the professorship and is actualized through the professor’s enforcement of decisions. It is both formal and informal (Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011). The professor is at the top of the hierarchy and the employees are subordinate to them. The hierarchy must be updated and developed through social action and communication. Decisions are made from the top down, even though employees are involved and consulted before a decision is made. The professor decides whether or not to involve the staff in the decision. In addition, the professor determines the research topics and the general direction. Even decisions about participation in external funding proposals or the selection of doctoral topics are ultimately decided hierarchically, with more or less intensive involvement by the other levels. Externally, the professor is responsible for all decisions within the professorship and must communicate them accordingly. The extent to which the hierarchy is developed depends on the size of the professorship. The larger the professorship is, the more pronounced the hierarchy will be, given that further levels of hierarchy are built in, such as group leaders or research project leaders, which are staffed by postdocs. If several research projects are being worked on at the same time, then an organizational segmentation is formed. Ideally, each research group works on one project.

A mechanical engineering professor describes the hierarchy of the chair as follows:

There is the top management level, the professor with his two deputies. ... The second level is the research group leaders and below that are project leaders and teams. (engineering, female, prof)

In biology, the hierarchy is additionally created by the laboratory. The professor no longer works in the laboratory but delegates supervision in the laboratory to the postdocs, who instruct the PhDs there, who in turn supervise the students.

In business administration, postdocs are also integrated as a second hierarchical level, for example:

With me, it is actually always the case that a postdoc is inserted in between, as a daily supervisor. (business administration, male, prof)

In academia, however, every decision requires special explanations because this is the way in which research works. This is the reason why one professor said that:

I try to talk to people and explain to them why I’m making the decision I’m making. (bio, male, prof)

This was also confirmed in the group discussions with the employees:

If the last word comes from the professor, then I have to subordinate myself to the judgment. (business administration, female, post-doc)

Hierarchy depending on the size of the professorship

The extent to which members of staff are involved depends on the size of the professorship and on the leadership behavior of the professor. The first aspect is described by a professor of mechanical engineering as follows:

The problem is that the higher you are in the hierarchy, the less contact you have with the bottom of the hierarchy. (engineering, female, prof)

The size of the professorship, measured in terms of the number of employees, varies from discipline to discipline (e.g., biology laboratories require additional personnel). In the German higher education system, mechanical engineering professorships operate large machine shops with a variety of machines. On average, professorships are largest in mechanical engineering and smallest in sociology (Table 2).

Table 2 Mean number of employees per professorship per discipline
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The larger the professorship, the less direct the lines of communication between individual members, particularly between the professor and all other staff members. Communication is then mediated through postdocs or research group leaders. Professorships in mechanical engineering are more hierarchical than those in sociology.

Hierarchy as an expression of leadership behavior

Hierarchy is reproduced through the leadership behavior of the professors. The leader can make decisions that the employees must follow. However, leadership behavior can vary greatly. Not every superior leads in the same way. To better characterize leadership behavior as a hierarchical action, we refer to Bass and Avolio’s (1993) full-range leadership model. They distinguished at least two leadership styles: transactional and transformational leadership. Avolio et al. (2009) define transactional as “largely based on the exchange of rewards contingent on performance” (Avolio et al., 2009, p. 427). Transactional leadership behavior describes a superior-subordinate relationship between professors and academic staff in which both have different interests and the professor can only lead the subordinate with rewards and punishments, such as whether a contract is renewed or not.

Transformational leadership behavior is characterized by Bass and Riggio (2006) as follows: “there is a sense of purpose and feeling of family. Commitments are long term. Mutual interests are shared, along with a sense of shared fates and interdependence of leaders and followers. Leaders serve as role models, mentors, and coaches” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 103-104). In the full-range leadership model, transformational leadership is divided into the following four components (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 6-7):

  1. 1.

    Idealized influence: Professors provide an appropriate model for an academic role model. In this sense, professors socialize junior scholars into academia. They lead by example and by “doing” rather than “explaining” and are therefore good role models.

  2. 2.

    Inspirational motivation: In this case, professors articulate a vision for team members. They inspire others with their plans for the future, have a clear vision of where the department is heading in research, or paint an interesting picture of the future.

  3. 3.

    Intellectual stimulation: Professors encourage staff to contribute their own scholarly ideas and to conduct independent research. This promotes the development of self-reflective researchers. They encourage staff to rethink the way they work or to think about familiar scientific problems in new ways.

  4. 4.

    Individualized support: Professors act as coaches and mentors. They are also interested in whether people are doing well emotionally or if they are having personal problems. They are sensitive to people’s personal feelings and take into account their personal needs.

Other versions of the model add two additional components (Podsakoff et al., 1990):

  1. 5.

    Fostering acceptance of group goals: Professors build a research team by fostering collaboration among the staff of the chair, or by encouraging staff to be “team players”.

  2. 6.

    High-performance expectations: In this case, professors have high expectations. They insist on the very best and will not settle for the second best.

Table 3 shows the means of the professors’ self-assessments by discipline. Each factor is measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). On average, professors see themselves as more transactional leaders and less transformational leaders with the single exception of individualized support. When compared to the mean values of the employees at the professorships, a well-known fact from leadership research stands out—self-perception is always better than external perception. Although these are the mean values across the respective discipline and not a direct comparison of a professorship with its employees, a general trend can be perceived. Employees also tend to see professors as transactional leaders and less as supervisors with transformational leadership behavior with the exception of individualized support (Table 3).

Table 3 Mean values of transactional leadership behavior and transformational forms of leadership behavior (source—our sample)
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The professorship is thus a hierarchically organized subunit of the university, where the employee’s behavior is enforced by transactional factors. The professor provides selective incentives for appropriate employee behavior (i.e., rewards with contract extensions, an academic title, or further career opportunities). Individualized support is also very important.

Rules

According to Ahrne and Brunsson (2011), rules are explicit decisions that are implicitly followed by members. Based on the empirical material, we can show that the criterion of rules exists in professorships. Staff members follow certain rules, such as adherence to author order for journal publications, which states that the professor is the last author and the person with the highest workload is the first author (if the professor is not the author with the highest workload). While these rules often apply to the discipline as a whole (Hundley et al., 2013), they are updated, processed, and practiced at the particular professorship. Here, the professorship performs socialization functions and practices social rules. With this and the next two criteria, actions at the professorship are coordinated and organized. However, unlike institutions, these actions are not emergent but are the result of decisions that are attributable (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, p. 90). But equally, social norms and socializing into those norms play a significant role in the professorship. Motivation is thus ensured through internalized social norms (e.g., conducting excellent research). Hirschman (1970) has already shown that this type of organizing has commonly shared social norms, such as professional norms (Freidson, 2001), which regulate the collective actions of the members. However, the regulation of action will take an internalized form (i.e., internalizations of social norms exist that become action-guiding over a long period of education). Scientists have internalized scientific criteria, and bring all their ideas and perceptions into the scientific work process. The place of this socialization process is the professorship.

An example of the reproduction of a social norm can be found in the intergenerational contract when applying for third-party projects. A professor mentions:

Third party funds at our professorship based on an intergenerational contract. It is not the person who applies needs the job, but the next one who comes will need one. And people know that. (engineering, female, prof)

This view is confirmed by the employees in the group discussion:

I would say that we always talk about something like the intergenerational contract. It is not explicitly expressed in any way, but it is exemplified, so it has become part of the culture of the professorship, that's how I would perhaps describe it. (engineering, female, post-doc)

Rules of author order

Another example of this rule is the order of authorship for journal articles at a professorship, for example:

The first person in the authoring order did 60 percent of the work. Then the person who contributed quite a bit, say 30 percent, is second. And the rest spread out like that and the further in the middle, the less relevant and towards the back are the more senior people, so the more experienced people. The professor is at the very back as the main responsible person. (bio, male, prof)

The same rule applies in engineering and in business administration:

The first author is usually the doctoral student, then comes the post-doctoral student, and at the end there is the head of the institute, that is the professor, that is the rule. (business administration, male, prof)

We also asked the professors about the rules that they use to decide the order of authorship. Table 4 shows the mean values per discipline. The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). The workload criterion is therefore the most important criterion. We asked the same questions of the professorship team members. The workload criterion is rated the same by professors and staff, the only exception being sociology. As expected, the criterion hierarchical order is mentioned more strongly by the employees than by the professors (Table 4).

Table 4 Rules that determine the order of authorship by discipline (mean values)
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Differences between the disciplines can also be seen (Table 4). For example, the workload is weighted lowest by professors in business administration and highest in sociology. Likewise, alphabetical order is used most in sociology and business administration and is least used in biology. Differences in author order across disciplines have been widely researched (Costas & Bordons, 2011; Hundley et al., 2013; Marušić et al., 2011), but we found that contributions to carrying out and writing up research are criteria for authorship across all disciplines (Whetstone & Moulaison-Sandy, 2020). Nevertheless, discipline-related rules are also learned by young researchers at the professorship.

In summary, rules are necessary to coordinate the actions of the staff at the professorship. The professorship is the place where general rules are given validity through monitoring and sanctions (see below).

Monitoring

Our empirical data show that it is the group of employees themselves who mostly monitor compliance. While Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) assume formal monitoring through quantitative measurement methods, social monitoring is an important function of organizations. This monitoring function is in turn linked to size (Olson, 1965). Only in segmented organizational forms can reciprocal monitoring occur in the smaller groups because all persons must be present, or at least their behavior must be observable (Luhmann, 1999). The segmentation of the university as an organizational form into professorships is justified precisely by this; since the university cannot supervise scientific work from the top-down, it needs the sub-organizational form of professorships to which supervision is delegated. This is also one of the reasons why large professorships are segmented into smaller working and project groups. Thus, perceived violations of the author’s order can lead to conflict. This is the case, for example, when two individuals believe that they have done the most work on an article, and therefore both claim first authorship.

The professor of biology very rarely goes into the laboratory. Consequently, it is the employees who are more likely to monitor each other in the laboratory:

I have no idea what happens in the lab. We discuss everything in weekly meetings. Everyone from the student assistant to the postdoc participates. But I’m not in the lab looking over their shoulders. (bio, male, prof)

The members of the professorship do the monitoring. The professorial level does not even notice many rule violations. They delegate responsibility to the other hierarchical levels. For example, professors delegate the monitoring of the predocs to the postdocs (business administration, female, prof). If there are problems with a predoc, this is first discussed with the postdoc who supervises them before the professor finds out about it (bio, male, prof). This is also confirmed by the postdocs (engineering, male, postdoc). Here, the size of the group and the characteristics of the hierarchy become relevant again.

The above-mentioned rule of order of authorship must also be monitored, but this monitoring is usually not so simple and leads to problems. Different perspectives see different problems. Of the professors, 15.4% reported that there had been conflicts at the professorship over author order in the last year. Among the employees, 22.7% stated this. These different perceptions are based on different hierarchical positions, and thus on power differences.

The survey included an open-ended question in which the respondents could identify specific problems with author order. The professors described problems where the amount of work done on an article was not really measurable and comparable, making it difficult to determine who contributed the most and who contributed the least to the article. In addition to the actual writing, there is also the collection of data. For example, one professor reported that:

It's about the amount of data that goes into the manuscript. This must be presentable in a reliable way.

Compliance with the rules cannot be measured so easily.

The professors also noted that they and the postdocs sometimes put a lot of work into articles that are published with predocs as first authors, in which case their heavy workload remains invisible. This is the mirror image of the same argument often described by employees in the open response category, where professors are listed as authors of the article even though they did not contribute. Since the viewpoint differs according to hierarchical position, the perception of the higher hierarchical position prevails in the end.

In summary, the monitoring of social rules is ensured within the team and by the hierarchical position of the professor. But even in a small group, the monitoring capacity is sometimes low because the workload cannot be measured in concrete figures. When conflicts arise between the points of view of the professor and the staff member, the hierarchically higher position prevails. Monitoring, like the rules themselves, is a process of negotiation in the professorship, but not all actors have equal power in this negotiation.

Sanctioning

Sanctions are usually directly related to the resolution of previous conflicts within the team. In this way, the rules and norms of the collective in force are activated, reproduced, or adapted. This is how order is maintained. The related decisions and their enforcement are often the responsibility of the top of the hierarchy. At the professorial level, decisions must also be made about when to sanction a deviation from the rules. Not every deviation from a rule will be sanctioned, small deviations that are within acceptable limits are tolerated (Ortmann, 2003). How large the deviation must be for a sanction to be imposed is again a negotiation process that is primarily determined by the professor. Before a harsh sanction is imposed by the professor, the team may also socially sanction rule violators by excluding these individuals from communication or collaborative activities (Elster, 1989; Frank, 2020). It should be noted, however, that this sanction may be informal or may consist of formal procedures such as contract renewal or non-renewal. Again, sanctions can be imposed hierarchically at the level of the professorship: “[Organizations] can decide to give more resources to some members than to others. They can decide to change a member’s status by using promotions, grading systems, awards, diplomas and medals, for example” (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011, p. 86). For example, the professor must mediate in cases of conflict and ensure the application and enforcement of the rule of hierarchical order. As the head of the hierarchy, the professor decides on the future careers of their employees, especially those who are student assistants, research assistants, predocs, and postdocs. However, all social sanctions up to the social isolation of a person take place at the professorship (Heckathorn, 1989). The decision and the action are made at the professorial level. If the decision is made that the sanction should take place at the legal level (dismissal), then it is not the professor who can issue this sanction but only the university organization. However, the professorship’s sanction capacity is limited by the university organization and its other subunits: the works council, which has a say in contract and personnel disputes, or the equal opportunities officer, who may intervene in the event of violations of equal opportunity rules and laws. Of course, a professor is also not allowed to violate laws. In this respect, the freedom and autonomy of the professorship are limited.

The reasons for sanctions are as heterogeneous as the solutions. If a person is not a good fit because of their lack of team orientation, then the contract is not renewed.

There was a PhD student who could not work with a postdoc at all. If it's not a good fit on a personal level, then you just have to part ways. (business administration, male, prof).

If someone makes serious mistakes at work, then they may have “serious problems with [their] further career” (bio, female, prof). Or if they have not proven themselves in the laboratory, then they “are out” (bio, female, prof); that is, they do not get a new contract.

In our survey, we also asked professors how they handle problems with their employees. The vast majority of professors look for a collaborative solution first. A hierarchical solution is chosen significantly more often than no solution (Table 5).

Table 5 How professors handle their conflicts with employees
Full size table

Joint action in an organization can only be ensured by sanctioning deviant behavior. If a rule violation cannot be punished, then the rule will be changed (Opp, 1983). The common sanction is therefore important for the maintenance of a social order with its rules. In the professorship, this is enforced by the professor, but certainly in close coordination with the team.

If we come back to the earlier example of author order, we can also see different ways of looking at problem solutions, depending on the hierarchy level. In the survey, we asked how authorship conflicts were resolved on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). As expected, there are differences between the views of professors and employees. Staff members are less likely to perceive a shared first authorship than professors. In addition, the professor team is much more likely to perceive that the professor determines the order. However, the self-regulated solution is assessed very similarly (Table 6).

Table 6 Perception of solving author order problems of professors and team members (mean values)
Full size table

Discussion

Ahrne and Brunsson’s (2011) model is suitable for analyzing the organizing of academic work in German professorships. However, this does not mean that universities or professorships are complete organizations, but it does mean that universities have organizational actorhood (Huisman & Burgoa, 2023; Krücken & Meier, 2006). Professorships enable universities’ organizational actorhood—on the one hand by contributing to the achievement of the university’s research objectives, and on the other hand, by enforcement of academic rules. The relationship between university senior management and professorships can be described as an interplay of bottom-up and top-down governance (Wilkesmann, 2013, 2015). Although the top of the organization sets goals, the professors also have a certain degree of autonomy in how far they follow these goals. The professorship is the place where rules are applied and enforced, where the actual research process is organized, and where decisions are organized more or less hierarchically. With the help of empirical evidence and the analysis of organizing a professorship, it can be shown in what form and to what extent the five elements show themselves in the professorship. The organization of the professorship in the German higher education system is necessary to keep the university functional as an overall organization. It is also clear that the professorship could not fulfill this form of organizing without the assertiveness of the university. However, the autonomy of the professorships is limited. On the one hand, it is limited by other subunits of the university organization, such as the works council, the equal opportunities officer, and (of course) the rectorate, which is responsible for allocating the budget. On the other hand, the autonomy of the professorship in teaching is limited by the faculty. The legally required teaching load must be performed as part of a degree program coordinated by a faculty. However, decisions can be made within a professorship as to who will take which seminars.

Looking at the five criteria, it can be seen that the practical implementation and interpretation of these rules takes place as an organizational process at the professorships.

The criterion of membership is clear, but how it is obtained is influenced by many informal rules. It is important to note here that these rules are litigated and implemented at the professorship level.

The hierarchy is determined by the fact that the final decision (who decides) lies with the professor, regardless of whether they lead transactionally or transformationally. In this context, the self-perception and the perception by others differ significantly. Professors see themselves, in terms of their leadership behavior, more positively than their staff.

Rules are practiced and implemented in the professorship. Using the example of the author’s order, we were able to show how rules are negotiated and implemented within a professorship. Minor deviations from the rules are allowed, while major deviations must be sanctioned. For sanctions to be possible, monitoring is necessary. Mutual monitoring is possible if the group is not too large or if the rules are clearly interpretable and operationalized.

In the German higher education system, the university organization is divided into subunits, which represent a segmental differentiation. All essential processes take place simultaneously in these subunits. In addition, all relevant processes are controlled and coordinated here. In this respect, this level in the German higher education system is highly relevant for understanding the organization of scientific processes.

German universities can have an overall flat hierarchy precisely because the actual work takes place in the segmented parts of professorships that are organized very hierarchically.

This work has observed several limitations. In particular, the restriction to the German higher education system is a limitation. However, this focus can also illustrate the processes of a particular system in depth. Likewise, longitudinal observations are not able here to show changes over time. In addition, there is no explicit comparison with another higher education system. Finally, the mesa-level analysis of universities would still need to be linked to the macro-level in the future. In particular, how does the governance of the university influence the adaptation of rules at the professorship level? All of this is left to further research.