Higher Education

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00467-4

Academic capitalism: distinguishing without disjoining

through classification schemes

Tiago Fonseca Albuquerque Cavalcanti Sigahi 1 & Patrícia Saltorato 2

# Springer Nature B.V. 2019

Abstract
Academic capitalism (AC) has become one of the most influential lines of research into
markets in higher education (HE). However, researchers often use AC only as an
umbrella term while key concepts remain superficially explored and intertwined topics
treated disjointed. By means of a systematic literature review, our main contribution is
the proposal of two classification schemes based on (a) analytical levels (macrostructural,
organizational, and individual) and actors, and (b) themes and contributions (Exploration
and reflection; Creation of theoretical framework; Research topics and applications; New
trends). The idea that underlies both proposals is distinguishing without disjoining.
Distinguishing is an operation that researchers can benefit from, while disjoining risks
leading to blindness by not capturing the complexity of AC. Distinguishing analytical
levels and actors provides a clearer view of how actors position themselves in the field,
how they interconnect, and how their actions resonate at other levels. Distinguishing
themes and contributions allows categorizing the wealth of research into smaller units for
deeper analysis. Both contribute to researchers in positioning their theoretical contribu-
tions in the literature. This study may advance research not only on AC, but also in
understanding the several ways the neoliberal restructure has been playing out in HE.

Keywords Academic capitalism . Commoditization of science . Corporatization of higher

education . Knowledge economy . Literature review

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-

00467-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

* Tiago Fonseca Albuquerque Cavalcanti Sigahi

tiagosigahi@usp.br

1
Center for Studies in Economic Sociology, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Almeida Prado, 128,
Cidade Universitária, São Paulo, SP 05508-070, Brazil
2
Center for Studies in Economic Sociology, Federal University of São Carlos, Sorocaba, SP, Brazil
 Higher Education

Introduction

The Bmarket knows best^ ethos that characterizes the twenty-first century university turned the
debate about higher education (HE) into a business-minded subject and science into a
productive force. The emergence of the entrepreneurial university, the rise of managerial
rationales in HE, the worship of performativity, and the obsession with international rankings
are all aspects of a phenomenon called academic capitalism (AC).
At the abstract level, AC reflects the intensive enlargement of capitalism. At a more
concrete level, it refers to the variety of ways that markets, States, and HE institutions (HEI)
are interrelated and the implications of blurring the boundaries between these spheres
(Kauppinen 2013, 4). We understand AC as behaviors, changes, or processes guiding HE
towards a scenario where the rise of the market logic is increasingly clear at all levels—
macrostructural, organizational, and individual1.
AC has been among the most influential lines of research into markets in HE. Nearly 30
years after Edward J. Hackett (1990) coined the term Bacademic capitalism^ to summarize
important structural changes in academic science, researchers have expanded its scope and
analytical interest and refined and updated its core concepts and ideas. Ngram Viewer shows a
drastic increase in the frequency of the term Bacademic capitalism^ in books written in English
published after the 1990s. ISI Web of Science Core Collection has 185 documents2 with this
term in the title, abstract, or keywords, of which 52.4% published in the last 5 years. Similarly,
a search on Scopus results in 203 documents, with 43.4% in the last 5 years. Researchers on
education, social science, organizational studies, and other knowledge domains (see supple-
mentary material BB^) have been applied the theory of academic capitalism (TAC) in studying
a variety of topics that range from HE policies and academic culture to entrepreneurial
education and ethnic, race, and gender issues. Recent works already refer to a variety of
academic capitalisms (Schulze-Cleven and Olson 2017). All this progress and the growing
interest on AC suggest that a systematization of research is timely, much needed, and can
provide significant value as research on this topic continues to develop.
Important and intertwined topics are often treated disjointed. Questions such as how topics
connect with each other and with the whole remain unanswered. Furthermore, researchers
often draw on the general—still narrow—idea of AC. They use AC as an umbrella term to
refer to a wide array of market and market-like activities universities engage in to generate
external revenues from education, research, and service, while applying the TAC framework
superficially. In many cases, the key concepts (i.e., circuits of knowledge, funding streams,
intermediating and interstitial organizations, and extended managerial capacity) are not even
mentioned. This does not mean that it is low-quality research. Nevertheless, we argue that
exploring the full potential of TAC framework will lead researchers to capture the complexity
of AC more effectively. Three research questions guided our study:

(1) How can research on AC be organized and classified in order to guide researchers in
advancing theory?
(2) How TAC has evolved and how it complements other interpretations of transformations
in HE?
(3) What are the applications of TAC and what are the new research trends?

1
See supplementary material BA^ for a list of definitions that reflects different views on AC.
2
Search conducted in September 2018.
Higher Education

By means of a systematic literature review, our main contribution is the proposal of two
classification schemes that reflect the complexity of AC. Both contribute to researchers to
position their theoretical contributions in the literature. The first one regards analytical levels
and actors. It helps researchers in bridging gaps in the network of actors and in investigating
how AC emerges out of their intertwined actions at multiple different levels. The second
classification scheme is based on contributions: (i) Exploration and reflection on AC; (ii)
Creation of the TAC theoretical framework; (iii) Research topics and applications; and (iv)
New trends. It helps to categorize the wealth of research into smaller units for deeper analysis.
Discussions on each category provide insights that researchers can benefit from. For instance,
a critical view of established assumptions of TAC suggest that there is no passive agent; i.e.,
every actor is a potential academic capitalist; the concepts provided by TAC have appropriate
characteristics to explore the complexity of AC, but still remain underexploited; promising
research opportunities involve articulating TAC and other theories, underexplored actors, new
forms of education technologies, and the role of consulting firms.
This paper is structured as follows: We provide a background on AC, highlighting seminal
works and key concepts. We therefore present the method used to select, analyze, and classify
the articles reviewed and describe the parallel and simultaneous processes of reading, synthe-
sizing, and categorizing that allowed the classification schemes to emerge. Hereafter, we
explain the classification schemes and discuss their usefulness and contribution. Finally, we
state the limitations of the study and the implications of our findings that can be relevant not
only for further studies on AC, but also for those who will investigate the several ways in
which the neoliberal restructure has been playing out in HE.

Academic capitalism: an evolving line of inquiry and a framework

refined

Several important scholarly works and thoughts have informed the AC line of inquiry.
Fairweather (1988) examined a new reality to which HE institutions had to accommodate:
The need to compensate for diminished government revenues through industry-university
liaisons and commercialization of educational services. Broad patterns of financial change,
which reduced state and federal funding for universities, were described in different contexts
such as the United States (US)(Breneman 1993), United Kingdom (UK)(Williams 1992), and
Canada (Buchbinder and Newson 1990).
Legal and economic changes promoted increased management prerrogatives to shape
academic work and loss of power on the part of the unionized faculty (Rhoades 1997), while
the state accrued power to shape programs, curricula, and faculty work, transferring costs to
students (Gumport and Pusser 1995). HE institutions and faculty increasingly engaged in
market and market-like behavior, particularly the research where entrepreneurial centers were
revealed as attracting greater amounts of external funds (Massy and Zemsky 1990). Clark
(1993) elaborated about innovative European universities characterized by increased entrepre-
neurship, conflict between faculty and administrative values, and diversification of institutional
funding. In this way, universities were placed in the global knowledge economy and in line
with economic production and the managerial revolution that took place (Gibbons et al. 1994).
Other precursory contributions to AC, such as Clark (1998), Gumport (2000), and Giroux
(2002), were fundamental for the line of research to evolve into AC in such a manner that it in
many ways now serves as a Bgrand theory^ of what came before. Hackett (1990) coined the
 Higher Education

term Bacademic capitalism^ to extend Max Weber’s insight from its origins in the German
university system of the early 1900s to the emerging circumstances of academic engineering
and science in the contemporary US (Hackett 2014, 635). Slaughter and Leslie’s (1997)
seminal book, which in turn culminated in the pathbreaking work by Slaughter and Rhoades
(2004), expressly and purposefully developed the theory of academic capitalism.
In the seminal book Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial
University, Slaughter and Leslie (1997) described the politics and policies that shaped the
beginnings of a period of intense marketization for universities in four English-speaking
countries (Australia, Canada, UK, and US). In 2001, they published an article announcing
the development of a theory to make sense of the dramatically shifting boundaries between
public and private sector organizations in HE (Slaughter and Leslie 2001, 156). In 2004, a
second book Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher
Education by Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) offered a systematic interdisciplinary theorization
that demonstrated the ways in which HE related to States, markets, and globalization. It
represented the consolidation of the previous work published in 1997, resulting in the
development of the TAC.
From this point, research grew steadily. Researchers added several new issues to the AC
discussion, expanding both scope and analytical interests. This evolution of AC inspired other
important books such as Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, organized by
Cantwell and Kauppinen (2014), wherein leading researchers refined and updated the TAC
theoretical concepts concerning the intensification of neoliberal tendencies and the process of
globalization, and Academic Capitalism: Universities in the Global Struggle for Excellence by
Münch (2014), which provided a critical analysis of several aspects of AC such as rise of
economic logic and managerial controlling in the academic field and the consequences for the
freedom and academic status of teaching and research.
Considering this conceptual evolution and refinement, the TAC framework consists of five
key concepts (Table 1).

Table 1 Key concepts of TAC

Key concept Examples

New circuits of Research (groups, centers, global postgraduate student body), deployment and testing
knowledge of infrastructure, and development of products, processes, and services for the
knowledge economy
New funding streams Patents, licensing, royalties, publishing, spin-offs, technology parks, university
incubators, consulting services, new forms of education (e.g., massive open online
courses (MOOC)), new student markets (e.g., MBAs, distance courses), and the
usage of university facilities (e.g., parking, recreation, IT services)
Intermediating Professional associations, foundations, events, forums, and think tanks related to a
organizations variety of activities such as patents, copyrights, intellectual property, research,
commercialization of educational and sports products and services
Interstitial Offices dedicated to the management, promotion, and regulation of distance-education
organizations services, technology transfer, public-private partnerships and intellectual property,
and advisory boards with the participation of members from large corporations
Extended managerial Non-university professionals (who usually work in interstitial organizations and
capacity outsourcing), creation of enrollment management offices, transformation of faculty
into managers and chancellors/rectors into CEOs

Source: Elaborated based on Slaughter and Leslie (1997), Slaughter and Rhoades (2004), Slaughter and Cantwell
(2012), and Cantwell and Kauppinen (2014)
Higher Education

New circuits of knowledge reconfigure the boundaries of knowledge. Actors at multiple

levels (macrostructural, organizational, and individual) of the HE system develop these circuits
by linking State agencies, corporations, and universities in order to promote market-oriented,
entrepreneurial research and education. This multi-level network of actors uses (and creates) a
variety new funding streams from both private and public sectors to support these circuits,
resulting in the emergence of new forms of education, knowledge production, student markets,
university-industry relationship (UIR), and use of university infrastructure.
The new circuits of knowledge and funding streams are managed and stabilized by
complex networks of intermediating and interstitial organizations. Intermediating orga-
nizations link public, non-profit, and private sectors and are usually led by business
leaders in strategic positions to influence HE policies and to reproduce market dis-
courses. In its turn, interstitial organizations operate in the interstices of HEIs. They
connect to intermediating organizations, integrating actors inside and outside the univer-
sity, and function as switching devices, channeling energy, effort, and revenue to create
new careers and forms of rewards (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012). They do not emerge
spontaneously, but intentionally created to promote policies, practices, and activities
aligned with AC (Kaidesoja and Kauppinen 2014). This result in the incorporation of
new market-like control and performance metrics into HEIs, submitting universities to a
new quality management system under a regime of economic control (Münch 2014), and
an extended managerial capacity becomes a necessity.
Although not referred to as formal elements of the TAC framework, but nevertheless
important, social technologies (e.g., bibliometrics, rankings, league tables) and narratives
and discourses (e.g., human capital, competitiveness, meritocracy, risk culture, audit culture)
are elaborated and articulated by academic capitalists in order to justify and normalize their
actions.
The utility of TAC can be evinced by the number of researchers who have employed it to
their own work and the diversity of contexts to which it has been applied: Australia (Collyer
2013), Canada (Metcalfe 2010), China (Mok 2001), France (Bouchard 2017), Germany
(Münch and Baier 2012; Münch 2014), Japan (Shibayama 2012), UK (Cantwell and Lee
2010), US (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012; Wieczorek et al. 2017), among others (see supple-
mentary material BC^). Moreover, TAC has been used for analyzing actors in and across
different levels of analysis (macrostructural, organizational, and individual) and as a lens for
discussing a variety of topics, which we will explore in this article.

Method

A systematic literature review is characterized by the use of explicit and rigorous criteria
to identify, critically evaluate, and synthesize the literature on a particular topic. This
instrument is constructed around a central issue that represents the core of the investi-
gation and follows a very well-defined and strict sequence of methodological steps. As
suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003), we divided the review process into three stages:
Planning, conducting, and reporting. Figure 1 shows the steps of each stage.
In the planning stage, we identified the objectives and protocol of the study, which included
defining clear criteria and process of selection of papers. The primary sources consisted of the
three books aforementioned: The seminal study by Slaughter and Leslie (1997), the TAC
development by Slaughter and Rhoades (2004), and the refinement/update organized by
 Higher Education

1. Planning 2. Conducting 3. Reporting

1.1 Research questions 3.1 Overview

2.1 Conducting search
1.2 Primary sources and selection 3.2 TAC framework

1.3 Databases 3.3 Categorization

1.4 Research strings 2.2 Organization and 3.4 Classification schemes

categorization
1.5 Inclusion criteria 3.5 Complementary theories

1.6 Qualification criteria 3.6 TAC applications

2.3 Analysis and
1.7 Other settings synthesis of results 3.7 New trends

Fig. 1 Review process, stages, and steps. Source: Authors

Cantwell and Kauppinen (2014) are valuable in defining keywords and identifying the main
authors and relevant articles. We chose Bacademic capitalism^ as keyword in order to make
our search as comprehensive as possible. We defined Scopus and ISI Web of Science as
databases due to the rigor of the evaluation process to which the published articles were
submitted and because they are representative of the state of the art. Inclusion criteria
concerned the type of document (articles, reviews, and editorial material) and language
(English, Spanish, and Portuguese). The qualification criteria imposed that the article must
have applied or discussed concepts related to the TAC as opposed to citation or use of AC only
as context. Other search settings were defined as follows: Title, abstract or keywords must
contain the term Bacademic capitalism^; all years as timespan, considering our aim of
identifying changes and trends related to AC; all knowledge domains, due to the broad scope
and multidisciplinarity of the topic; and specifically regarding ISI Web of Knowledge, we
considered all databases available.
The second stage consisted of the actual review process. Initially, we conducted the search3
and determined the relevance of collected literature for the purpose of this study. The initial
search found 383 documents, of which 282 met the inclusion criteria stated in stage 1. We
reviewed the titles and abstracts and eliminated duplicates (filter 1), resulting in 170 potential
articles. Then, we read introduction and conclusion, and applied qualification criteria (filter 2).
If filters 1 and 2 did not generate sufficient information to determine appropriateness, the
article was fully read. After strictly following all the steps, we selected 157 appropriate articles
that were fully read and are the main source of the information presented here (see supple-
mentary material BF^ for the full list of articles).
Based on this sample, we started an iterative process of organization, categorization,
analysis, and synthesis. First, we listed all the publications and wrote an abstract for each
one. We also extracted year of publication, authors’ name and affiliation, methodological
approach, AC definition, and context/actors/topics addressed. We organized the data in a
spreadsheet and formed the basis for analysis.
The final stage consisted of reporting our findings. We anchored the discussions on two
classification schemes that emerged from the parallel and simultaneous exercise of reading,
synthesizing, categorizing, and sub-categorizing the selected articles. In the next sections, we state
the purpose and ideas that underlie both classification schemes and discuss the articles based on
them.
3
Search conducted in February 2018.
Higher Education

Explicating the classification schemes: logic, structure, and utility

We propose two classification schemes for organizing research on AC: (a) Analytical levels
and actors and (b) themes and contributions. The logic that underlies both proposals is
distinguishing without disjoining. Distinguishing is an operation that researchers on AC can
benefit from, while disjoining risks leading to blindness by not capturing the complexity of
AC. Each classification scheme has its own structure and utility, which we discuss next.

Proposal 1: Analytical levels and actors

The purpose of this classification scheme is to distinguish analytical levels and actors without
losing sight of their interconnectedness. Positioning the actor being analyzed in its analytical
level (distinguish) can enhance understanding of how its actions as academic capitalist
resonate at other levels (interconnectedness).
Table 2 shows the result of an exhaustive process of codification, standardization, catego-
rization, and recategorization that allowed us to identify several actors that hold specificities
that deserve attention in order to understand their role as academic capitalists.
Some studies focused on systemic aspects of HE such as financial changing patterns
and policies (e.g., Slaughter and Leslie 1997), and broad social changes. The articles that
analyzed general aspects of AC regarding the State, the market, and/or the HE system as
a whole and have no specific actor as central issue were classified as macrostructural
level of analysis.
On developing the TAC, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004, 11) expanded their analytical
interest and stated that their analysis orientation became the internal embeddedness of profit-
orientedactivities, and Välimaa (2014, 51) added that AC shows we should be sensitive to the
Bquiet revolutions^ that are taking place below the policy screens of HE. Moreover, Cantwell
and Kauppinen (2014) observed that AC has attended to both structural (neoliberal policy and
governance regime that restructures HE systems and organizations) and behavioral (market
and market-like activities taken by the actors) elements of the phenomenon. This deepening in
analytical orientation led to the organizational level of analysis, which refers to the studies that
have organizations/institutions as objects of interest and individual level of analysis, i.e.,
studies that investigated AC from an individual perspective, where actors play roles inside
and/or outside universities.

Harnessing the TAC framework full potential: capturing the complexity of AC

In line with the understanding of AC proposed in this work, we contend that the central
question becomes how AC emerges out of the actions of the actors at multiple levels? How the
TAC framework help to understand their actions? In other words, how they use the mecha-
nisms proposed by the TAC to engage and promote AC?
Often AC is used as an umbrella term and TAC framework remains superficially explored.
Distinguishing analytical levels and actors facilitates identifying what is the actor’s role as
academic capitalist: Do they build networks between public, non-profit, and private sectors
(intermediating organizations)? Or do they promote AC from within universities (interstitial
organizations)? Can they do both simultaneously? This in turn leads to a better understanding
of how new circuits of knowledge, new funding streams, extended managerial capacity, social
technologies, and narratives and discourses are created and manipulated by them.
 Higher Education

Table 2 Analytical levels and actors

Analytical level Actor Description

Macrostructural State Governing authorities of a nation and policymakers

HE system Network of agents in the HE field linked within and between multiple
levels
Market Network of economic agents who exchange goods/services for a mon-
etary unit
Organizational University HEI that generates research, education, and professional and scientific
training in a wide range of fields
Department Sector or division of a university formed by faculty of a specific subject
or area of activity
Research center Facility dedicated exclusively to research, usually focusing on a specific
area
Research group Group of researchers dedicated to a specific area or research topic
Educational Company whose core business is the production of knowledge-based
company products and services
Firm/corporation Company that does not have education as core business
Science/technology Facility, often supported by a HEI, where companies involved in
park scientific work and new technology are based
Academic spin-off Enterprise created to transfer technology and knowledge generated in
HEI by launching products/services in the market
Incubator Catalyst tool for developing startup and early-stage companies
Funding Organization whose central purpose is to support research and other
agency/- academic projects through grant programs
foundation
Multilateral Supranational entity that works for the development of the nations that
organization compose it in different areas
Publishing Organization that coordinates the process of editing and publishing
company academic works, especially scientific journals
HEI ranking Organization that defines the rules and measures for comparing and
publisher ranking universities
HEI office Interstitial organizations dedicated to the management, promotion, and
regulation of education products and services
Corporate Training facility designed to instruct personnel employed by a company
university regarding corporate culture and skills
Think tank Organization specialized in policy analysis and policy advocacy
understood as of collective relevance
Hybrid organization Entity that spans the customary public-private boundaries by bringing
together HEI, industries, and government agencies
School/college HEI that offers focused, job-specific study through certificate, diploma,
and degree programs that usually take less than Bachelor’s programs
Institute of HEI that offers from Bachelor’s to advanced degrees focused on the
technology STEM fields
eLearning Online platform that offers distance education through MOOCs and
organization certificate programs
Professional Representative organizations of a particular profession or occupation
association
Forum Events that bring together academic, industry, and/or government actors
for debating and influencing HE
University press and University-based press and library which serves to publish scholarly
library works and to support faculty and students
Individual Leader Professionals that perform leadership roles such as dean, head
department, research group leader, advisory board member, manager,
chancellor, and president
Academic Lecturers, researchers, and professors of various ranks (adjunct, assistant,
personnel associate, full, contingent faculty)
Industry researcher Researcher not employed by an university
Editor Editor or member of editorial board of scientific journals and book series
Higher Education

Table 2 (continued)

Analytical level Actor Description

Graduate student Master, doctoral, and postdoctoral students

Undergraduate University student who has not yet received a bachelor’s or similar
student degree
Technical course School/college students
student
Non-academic Personnel working in managerial and service-oriented areas involved in
professional the production and delivery of HE

Source: Authors

Using TAC framework as a common language can bring together researchers from different
knowledge domains, even if they apply different methodological approaches and investigate
different topics—a more complex understanding of AC may emerge.
We argue that advancing knowledge on AC, as a phenomenon and as a theory, requires a
complexity approach. Complexity theory has been widely used in educational research (see
Kuhn 2008, for a critical reflection on this topic). This involves interpreting AC as a complex
emergent phenomenon generated out of actors’ intertwined actions at multiple levels (macro-
structural, organizational, and individual).
A fundamental idea of the complexity theory is the systemic principle, in opposition to
reductionism: The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The organization of a whole
produces new qualities or properties in relation to the parts considered in isolation. It implies
different analytical levels—a necessary condition for emergent phenomenon (as we define
AC) to occur. In addition to the idea that Bthe whole is more than the sum of the parts,^ Morin
(2016) explained that a system is not always able to enhance the quality of its components, and
therefore, the system may be smaller than the sum of the parts. In the context of AC,
macrostructural aspects, such as financial and social changing patterns, and education and
economic policies, may prune components (organizational and individual actors) qualities.
The hologrammatic principle is based on the notion of the hologram in which each point contains
almost all the information of the object it represents (Morin and Le Moigne 1999, 209). The idea of
the hologram goes beyond reductionism (which only sees the parts) and holism (which only sees the
whole); it introduces the notion of recursivity, in which the products and effects are themselves the
producers and cause of what they produce. For instance, individual actors (e.g., academic and non-
academic personnel, students) form organizations (e.g., university, department) and the organization
is present in each individual through language, culture, and norms. An organization is produced by
the interactions between individuals, but the organization, once produced, retroacts on individuals
and produces them. That is, individuals produce the organization that produces the individuals; both
are products and producers. In the complexity perspective, AC is a recursive, multi-level (macro-
structural-organizational-individual) phenomenon.
Other concepts from complexity theory may generate insights on AC. However, while we
did not find any article that addressed it, it is not our objective to provide an extensive and in-
depth analysis on this topic. Further research is needed to develop complexity-based models to
study AC. Thus, our intention here is to make the point that the proposed classification
scheme—distinguishing analytical levels and actors without disjoining them—allows re-
searchers to incorporate fundamental premises of complexity theory (i.e., interconnectedness,
systems view, emergent behavior, hologrammatic and recursive principles) into the TAC
framework, which is useful for capturing the complexity of AC.
 Higher Education

Proposal 2: Themes and contributions

The second classification scheme refers to the themes and contributions of the articles, which
were classified into four main categories (Table 3).
The articles in category 1 were fundamental for the improvement of the theoretical
framework initially proposed by Slaughter and Leslie (1997) and Slaughter and Rhoades
(2004). For instance, Mars et al. (2008) provided a meaningful contribution by first looking at
students as active agents in promoting AC and developed the concept of Bstate-sponsored
student entrepreneur^ as a result. Other studies discussed the convergences and divergences
between the TAC and other theories used to analyze transformations of HE (e.g., Tuunainen
2005).
Supported by the improvements in the TAC framework of category 1, the articles in
category 2 introduced new topics in the study of AC. They provided critical analysis of the
transformations of HE by broadly exploring the TAC framework and raising new questions
through the lens of education, sociology, political science, organizational studies, and other
areas (see supplementary material BB^).
Categories 3 and 4 focused on specific issues on AC, but they differ by the novelty of the
themes: The former explored established topics on AC, such as academic work and UIR, while
the latter shed light on new research opportunities.
After grouping the articles into the four main categories, the ones classified in the
categories 2, 3, and 4 underwent a deeper analysis in order to ascribe a subcategory (see
supplementary material BD^). We divided category 2 in two subcategories: BTAC refine-
ment and extension^ and Btheoretical comparative studies^. Category 3 was arranged into
four subcategories considering the linkage of the subjects: BGlobalization, international-
ization, and academic culture^; Bacademic work, research funding, and productivism^;
BUIR, technology transfer, and science commercialization^; and Bethnic, race, and gender
issues.^ Finally, all those publications that seemed to bring new questions to the AC
discussion were further classified in category 4 as follows: BArticulating TAC and other
theories^; Bunderexplored AC actors^; and Bnew forms of education and teaching
technologies.^
It is important to note that a strict demarcation between the categories is impossible since
they overlap. Nevertheless, as our goal is to propose a structured way of organizing literature,
we assigned each article into one (sub)category that represented the core of the study by means
of careful and thorough reading. Considering this, we explore each category and subcategory
in the next sections.

Table 3 Categories related to themes and contributions of the articles

Category Theme/contribution

1. Creation of the TAC Improvements or modifications to the TAC framework by developing new
theoretical framework concepts and/or presenting comparative analysis with other theories
2. Exploration and reflection on Expansion of the scope and potential of the research on AC grounded on
AC different theoretical lenses
3. Research topics and Application of the TAC framework to explore specific issues related to the
applications of the TAC transformations of HE
4. New research trends on AC Development of new research opportunities on AC regarding any major ways
the neoliberal restructure have been playing out in HE

Source: Authors
Higher Education

Creation of the TAC theoretical framework

Building on the original TAC framework developed by Slaughter and Rhoades (2004), some
researchers tried to refine, modify, and extend it, whereas others compared it with existing
theories commonly used to assess transformations in HE.

TAC refinement and extension Kauppinen’s (2012, 2013, 2015) work was fundamental in
expanding the idea from AC to transnational AC, which is related to our call for a systemic
view of AC. The author claimed that not only AC blurs the boundaries between HE, States,
and markets in a given country, but it also does transnationally. Transnational AC refers to the
integration of the transnational dimension into teaching, research, and service between uni-
versities and globalizing knowledge capitalism, increasing possibilities for academics and
universities to diversify their external funding sources transnationally (Kauppinen 2012,
2015). HE became directly linked to transnational circuits of capital (Kauppinen 2012, 553)
that intensified collaboration between corporations and research universities through
knowledge-intensive transnational economic practices (e.g., transnationalization of R&D,
innovation networks) and knowledge commoditization, allowing it to Bflow like money to
wherever it can create advantage and profit^ (Kauppinen 2015, 340).
Other important refinements of TAC regard the role of actors. Slaughter and Leslie (1997) and
Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) put little attention to students as actors promoting AC. Only a few
articles addressed it indirectly. For example, some studies investigated how AC shapes undergrad-
uate student recruitment (Slaughter and Leslie 2001) or the effects of technology in the instruction
work (Rhoades 2007), which in turn affected students’ education. In these cases, students are passive
agents.
Conversely, a major contribution by Mars et al. (2008) was to challenge initial assumptions
of TAC by reframing students not simply as victims of AC, but as academic capitalists. They
shed light on the State-sponsored student entrepreneur, i.e., students using classrooms and
laboratories as platforms, resources, and subsidies to construct marketable products, processes,
or services (Mars et al. 2008, 644). More recently, McClure (2016) coined the term
Badministrative AC^ to study the roles of university administrators. In the AC context,
administrators are empowered and granted extended managerial control. More specifically,
they act as academic capitalists by facilitating AC through building infrastructures, creating
new programs, attracting and cultivating donors and raising funds, setting a vision around
entrepreneurship, and changing policies.
Another important refinement of TAC regarded a context issue. Based on new data,
Metcalfe (2010) revisited Slaughter and Leslie’s (1997) work and evidenced the emergence
of new policy initiatives focused on marketization in Canada, which certainly made it no
longer an exception to AC as considered by the original authors. In this matter, we mapped 38
countries/regions where researchers found evidences of AC (see supplementary material BC^).
The challenging question is no longer whether AC occurs, but what specificities it manifests in
a given context and what further refinements are needed to explain it.

Theoretical comparative studies Articles in this subcategory provided valuable theoretical

comparisons between TAC and other theories often used to analyze the transformations in HE
(Tuunainen 2005; Slaughter and Cantwell 2012; Filippakou and Williams 2014). We highlight
the following: Entrepreneurial university; Mode 2 knowledge production; triple helix; neo-
institutional theory. Although they investigate different topics on the transformation of HE and
 Higher Education

present points of divergence with the TAC (Table 4), there is room for integrating them with
the TAC framework.
On developing the entrepreneurial university theory, Clark (1998) sought to identify the
typical character of entrepreneurial or innovative universities, i.e., HEIs that implement
strategies and institutional configurations to facilitate the commercialization (e.g., consultancy
and extension activities) and commoditization (e.g., patents and spin-offs) of knowledge and
technology. One of the author’s premises is that of a well-defined triangle of market, State, and
HE. In contrast, TAC challenges this claim and contends that the boundaries between them
have become increasingly blurred (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Cantwell and Kauppinen
2014). The concepts of interstitial organizations and State-sponsored student entrepreneur are
especially adequate to capture this idea as they promote policies, practices, and activities
aligned with AC from within universities, using its structure to construct marketable products
and services (Mars et al. 2008; Kaidesoja and Kauppinen 2014, 179).
Another point of divergence is that Clark advocated that universities are able to incorporate
entrepreneurial activity without harming academic values, but provided little evidence that
faculty voice remained strong (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012). TAC authors have provided
strong evidence that confronts this point, involving performance evaluation systems, control
mechanisms, and deterioration of work conditions, autonomy, cooperation, and mental health
(we discuss this issue in more depth in the BResearch topics and applications of the TAC^).
Etzkowitz et al. (1998) developed the triple helix theory to explain the mechanisms and
structures to develop entrepreneurial universities. This model considers that the strands are the
entwined relations of university-industry-government, but still treat them as separate and
distinct (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004, 9). While triple helix theory strongly suggests that
the arising of entrepreneurial universities is an inevitable phenomenon (Tuunainen 2005, 284),
the TAC denies this idea—universities, faculty, and students are not victims and passive
agents, but active actors who consciously and intentionally engage in market and market-
like behaviors. Moreover, Slaughter and Cantwell (2012, p. 585–586) criticized triple helix’s
limited view of universities, which are relatively unexamined beyond technology transfer

Table 4 Theories for analysis of transformations in HE

Author(s) Theory Central research topic Key points of divergence with TAC

Clark (1998) Entrepreneurial Typical character and activities of Clear boundaries between
university entrepreneurial universities macrostructural systems
Changing culture does not harm
academic values
Etzkowitz et al. Triple helix Interaction between universities, Entrepreneurialism as inevitable
(1998) firms, and government towards phenomenon
innovation and economic Role of university, government,
development and industry
Gibbons Mode 2 of Changes in the way knowledge Type of the transformation of
et al. (1994) knowledge is produced science/university
production Role of the State and
non-profit sectors
DiMaggio and Neo-institutional Mechanisms through which Constitution of a field of HE
Powell theory organizations within a given field Limited view of subsystems
(1983) become similar

Source: Authors
Higher Education

offices; of government, limited to the provision of funds for research; and of industry, which
needs to be located in specific political economies to be better comprehended.
Similarly, Mode 2 knowledge production theory, which seeks to explain major changes in
the way knowledge is produced (Gibbons et al. 1994), underestimated the role of important
actors: the State, because although it has fallen into disfavor under neoliberalism, it continues
to fund university education, research, faculty, and graduate student positions, at increasing
rates; and non-profit sectors, as they are key actors in intermediating university, State, and
industry relations (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012, 586). In addition, Tuunainen (2005) observed
that Mode 2 knowledge production claims for a radical transformation of HE, giving rise to
entirely new types of science and university (which is achieved by the contrast between Mode
1 and Mode 2), while TAC adopts a moderate view, reasserting the general transition in the
science and technology policy but emphasizing its diversified and controversial effects.
Finally, neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) is useful in enabling re-
searchers to see concretely how networks of agents (academic capitalists) create stability
among organizations. However, by focusing on networks within an organizational field, it
neglects looking inside the organizations (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012, 586). The concepts of
intermediating and interstitial organizations (agents at different levels), associated with circuits
of knowledge and funding streams (that forms the links of the networks), are adequate to
distinguish between macrostructural, organizational, and individual levels of analysis (see
Table 2), allowing researchers to develop a complexity view of how actors inside and outside
the university—including the university itself—engage in AC.

Exploration and reflection on AC

Over time, AC went through several transformations that are still under scrutiny. The articles in
this category drive researchers to move forward on the subject by introducing new ideas,
posing provocative questions, and stimulating the overcoming of established knowledge (see
supplementary material BE^).
The market mantra, the New Public Management and managerialism, the commodification
and corporatization of HE, and the uncritical training of early-stage researchers are some of the
factors that have been producing an increasingly heteronomous university. In order to over-
come these challenges imposed on universities, it is necessary to deepen the debate about its
determinants and consequences, and the articles in this category are essential in guiding future
research.
Some of the central topics that calls for critical reflection are the ways the knowledge
function of the university and academic work are being undermined (Barnett 2000), the role of
actors in strategic positions in the field that remains underexplored (see the BNew research
trends on AC^ section), and the mechanisms through which transformations of symbolic
orders intensify AC (Schulze-Cleven et al. 2017; see also Münch 2014).
In addition, the contributions of this category point to the need that researchers take into
account the simultaneous significance of global, national, and local dimensions and forces
(Marginson and Rhoades 2002; Metcalfe 2010) towards a deeper understanding of the variety
of AC (Schulze-Cleven and Olson 2017; see also Kauppinen 2012, 2015).
A message that emerged from this category is that there are no definitive and unique
answers/solutions for these questions/problems; instead, there are valuable, critical explora-
tions and reflections. Thus, future studies should investigate how the TAC framework can
 Higher Education

effectively contribute to understand the transformations in HE and ultimately to organize

resistance and action. After all, AC is not an inexorable phenomenon, Bit could be resisted, or,
more likely, alternative processes of integration could be developed^ (Slaughter and Rhoades
2004, 1)—and the articles in this category show that TAC offers powerful concepts to
accomplish this.

Research topics and applications of the TAC

Themes (subcategories) emerged from the process of codification, standardization, and cate-
gorization. The articles that fit in more than one subcategory had their central issue considered
as the classification criteria. It is important to emphasize that it is not our intention to discuss
each topic exhaustively, but rather to provide an integrated and concise view of the main
contributions.

Globalization, internationalization, and academic culture HE is Bbecoming global^ to the

extent that universities are developing Bincreasingly integrated systems and relationships
beyond the nation^ (Marginson and Rhoades 2002, 288), and internationalization can be
interpreted as a HE response to globalization (Kauppinen and Cantwell 2014).
Strategies to achieve internationalization include courses for business executives and
government officials; distance education and MOOCs; recruitment and development of a
global postgraduate student body to perform essential research work; enrollment management
offices; short-term study abroad exchanges; branch campuses; among others (Slaughter and
Leslie 2001; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Cantwell and Kauppinen 2014).
As management practices are being increasingly shaped by globalization (Mok 2001),
universities are adopting some characteristics of multinational corporations (Kauppinen and
Cantwell 2014). Academics now use expressions that used to be very popular in the market
environment such as Bdoing more with less,^ Bproductivity gain,^ Bdoing it smarter,^,
Bmanagement-by-objective,^ Bmarket-oriented entrepreneurialism,^ and Bconsumer-oriented
research^ (Mok 2001).
Recursively, globalization and internationalization change the academic culture that is the
discourses, representations, motivations, ethical norms, conceptions, visions, and institutional
practices of university actors. This Bnew^ academic culture is a market-driven culture, also
called as culture of accountability, efficiency, and Bacademic loneliness^ (Jauhiainen et al.
2009) or simply culture of AC.

Academic work, research funding, productivism, and social technologies In the 1970s,
academic media rankings produced primarily by press organizations emerged (Bouchard
2017). In the 1980s, State instruments directing and funding universities became more
performance oriented, and in the late 1990s, we witnessed the proliferation of journals and
publications resulted from a transformation in the economy of universities and academic work,
a transformation embodied in a philosophy of neoliberalism (Hermanowicz 2016). Re-
searchers reported concerns related to changes in the academic work:

& Pressures to increase the number of papers published, citation rates, and external sources of
funding have been damaging methodological pluralism (Collyer 2013), and whereas
increased output may be associated with the advancement of science and scholarship in
Higher Education

some disciplines, it is both a consequence and cause of demise in others (Hermanowicz

2016);
& While scholars at elite departments remain relatively autonomous in practice, scholars at
non-elite departments often tend to tailor their research to specific requirements to receive
funding (Wieczorek et al. 2017; see also Münch 2014); some entrepreneurial activities
have deterred cooperative or open relationships between scientists (Shibayama 2012);
& The shrinkage of permanent instructional staff and an expansion in part-time faculty or
short-term contracts, and the outsourcing of entire academic departments and programs
(Ellis et al. 2014);
& A sense of constant surveillance among faculties, along with few resources, little sleep, and
sometimes at the cost of their personal/family lives to advance in their careers (Gonzales
et al. 2014);
& The rise of social pathologies, such as the lack of scholars’ autonomy, the presence of
individualism, and the disorientation of their education project (Arias 2010);
& The practice of ranking as an act of symbolic violence and a mechanism of social
exclusion (Amsler 2013).

The combination of the market-driven culture, social (control) technologies, and the
flexibilization of work resulted in new models of identity construction by faculty. It triggered
a socio-cultural dynamic that sometimes subtly, sometimes explicitly, hierarchizes researchers,
segregating them among those who are at the margin of the required productivity; those who
have adhered in a still timid manner, but already demonstrate involvement in the demands of
academic productivism; and those who are immersed in the scheme of high productivism and
visible work intensification and degradation.

UIR, technology transfer, and science commercialization The conversion of scientific

knowledge into products, services, and technologies that can be owned and sold is a central
topic in research on AC. The broader context for this discussion is what Slaughter and
Rhoades (2004) called regime shifting: from a public good knowledge regime to an academic
capitalist knowledge regime (see Table 5).
The public good model of research is associated with the Mertonian conception of science,
i.e., open (nonsecret character of science), communistic (noncommercial), disinterested (ob-
jective nonpartisan stance of scientist toward knowledge), and characterized by skeptical habit
of mind for questioning results. In this model, basic science, done in universities and unfettered
by the state or commerce, preceded development, often accomplished in federal laboratories,
followed by application in corporations. On the other hand, in the academic capitalism model
of research, entrepreneurial science is generated from a network where UIR and strategic
alliances link university with startup companies, idea laboratories, and distance learning
corporations, in order to make profit from intellectual property, products, processes, and
services (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004, p. 76–77).
In this context of regime shifting, the way different actors respond to these changes has
been a recurring theme and has generated divergent views. On theoretical grounds, the debate
between entrepreneurial university theory and TAC is representative regarding the boundaries
between public and private, and the harm to academic values (as previously discussed in
section 4.2.1). Empirical data has also revealed divergent views, for instance, PhD students
investigated by Mendoza (2007) did not see negative effects about the financing of their
 Higher Education

Table 5 Characteristics of knowledge regimes

Knowledge regime Public good model of research Academic capitalism model of research

Conception of science Mertonian norms Entrepreneurial science

Values Communism, universality, free
flow of knowledge, organized
skepticism
Circuits of knowledge Linear
Interaction of the actors Autonomy and clear demarcation
between independent activities
Knowledge privatization, profit making,
commitment to knowledge economy
Network
Complex relations and blurred boundaries
between actors

Source: Authors

research by companies, whereas Glenna et al. (2007) concluded that UIRs are becoming
entrenched and that this raises valid concerns about the integrity of public-interest research.
Researchers also found that seemingly unrelated factors could have important influ-
ence on science commercialization. For example, implicit culture is a stronger determi-
nant of balance between academic and market values than explicit rules (Zhu and Hawk
2016), and religion can significantly influence scientists opinion about whether or not
commercialization of science harms the commitment of university to knowledge produc-
tion (Peifer et al. 2017). In general, researchers agree that it is needed to go beyond
positive or negative views once actors see commercial relations in complex and often
conflicting ways: Policies related to UIR, technology transfer, and science commercial-
ization should shield their work from opportunistic behavior and at the same time to be
designed to attract industry partners.
It is important to reinforce the need to better explore the concepts of the TAC
framework. In this sense, an opportunity for research in this subcategory is to improve
understanding of intermediaries in the commercialization of science: university offices
(e.g., technology transfer, licensing) and physical space (e.g., incubators, accelerators,
co-working) as interstitial organizations, and professional service firms (e.g., law, ac-
counting, networking) and finance providers (e.g., venture capital, angel investors, public
funding programs, crowdfunding platforms) as intermediating organizations; both gen-
erating new circuits of knowledge, new funding streams, and extended managerial
capacity.

Ethnic, race, and gender issues Understanding injustice or inequality requires understanding
knowledge (re)production(Cantwell and Lee 2010). Ethnic, race, and gender studies offer
several opportunities for combining theories with TAC, such as neoracism theory (Cantwell
and Lee 2010), feminist studies (Smith-Doerr and Croissant 2011), and science identity
perspective (Szelényi et al. 2016), and for exploring different points of view, as for students
(Szelényi et al. 2016), faculty (Thornton 2013), and organizations (Smith-Doerr and Croissant
2011).
Studies in this subcategory explore issues closely related to previous subcategories, for
instance, access to HE and stereotyping (globalization, internationalization, and academic
culture), work conditions and opportunities (academic work, research funding, productivism,
and social technologies), and research funding (UIR, technology transfer, and science
commercialization).
While we identified a growing number of studies on this subject, many questions remain
open and researchers have found results that require attention related to:
Higher Education

& Ethnicity: Culturally specific stereotypes that negatively affected postdocs’ work oppor-
tunities as they moved toward their professoriate career; particular tasks in which the
postdocs were engaged were connected to culturally specific stereotypes (e.g., BAsians are
quiet people who work hard but who may not have strong amibion for career
advancement^; BAsian postdocs are at least partly motivated by a fear of losing their jobs,
and consequently their visa status^) (Cantwell and Lee 2010).
& Race: Resistance of students to curricular issues dealing with race as a factor thwarting the
counter-hegemonic potential of social justice-oriented courses; loss of access to HE for
economically challenged and historically underrepresented students as colleges and uni-
versities supplement revenues by privileging recruitment of students who are willing and
able to pay more for educational services (Ross 2009); analysis of the implementation of
migration control policies in HEIs reveals the persistence of institutional racism; increase
of temporary work contracts and cheapening of labor in jobs held by a largely feminized
and racialized precariat, working at the bottom of pay grades (Gutierrez-Rodriguez 2016).
& Gender: When compared with their male colleagues, women have fewer ties to industry
when controlling for individual- and discipline-level characteristics, are significantly less
likely to receive industry funding and engage in private industry consulting, and patent less
than half as male scientists (Crowe and Goldberger 2009); support staff (e.g., casual
teachers and research assistants) are overwhelmingly women and peripheral workers
(Thornton 2013); Bmetricization^ and marketization of the university are highly gendered
processes (Thornham 2017).

Based on these findings, there is still much to be done in this subcategory of AC research.
Although ethnic, race, and gender equality seems to stand at the center of the discourse in the
HE field, this has not yet been translated to equal representation in work opportunities and
conditions both in the university (career, performance evaluation system) and industry (con-
sultancy, research), as well as in the academic culture and institutional policy.

New research trends on AC

In line with our call for a complexity approach to AC, the first trend points to the benefit of
articulating TAC and other theories towards a fuller, transdisciplinary understanding of
transformations in HE (see Table 6).
As stated earlier, the central idea of a complex view of AC is one capable of distinguishing
analytical levels and actors, and themes, and contributions, without disjoining them. The same
idea applies here: It is necessary to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge by
distinguishing without disjoining the different disciplinary views. Both classification schemes
can help researchers from different knowledge areas to develop a common language for and
between different scientific audiences interested in studying the transformations of HE,
especially the phenomenon of AC.
In addition to the theories often used to analyze the transformations in HE (as showed in
Table 6 and discussed in the BCreation of the TAC theoretical framework^ section), researchers
have associated other theories with TAC. For instance, Bourdieusian notions (e.g., field,
capital, habitus) to make sense of the influence of AC on faculty work (Mendoza et al.
2012) and to investigate the relationship between the appropriation of research funds, produc-
tivity, and symbolic capital (Münch and Baier 2012); the theory of fields, specifically the
 Higher Education

Table 6 Author’s background and scientific audience of the theories for analysis of transformations in HE

Theory Authors’ background (creators of the Scientific audience (representative

theory) journalsa)

Academic capitalism Education, sociology Higher Education

Entrepreneurial University
Mode 2 of knowledge
production
Triple helix
Neo-institutional theory
Sociology, education
Sociology, political science,
education
Management, sociology
Sociology, organization,
management
Journal of Higher Education
Studies in Higher Education
Journal of Technology Transfer
Industry and Higher Education
International Journal of Technology
Management
Higher Education
British Journal of Management
Science and Public Policy
Scientometrics
Research Policy
Technological Forecasting and Social
Change
Journal of Business Ethics
Organization Studies
Academy of Management Journal

Source: Authors
a Data collected in the Web of Science database

concept of strategic action fields (Fligstein and McAdam 2012), which served as a lens for the
analysis of how microdynamics of academic production, may contribute to the establishment
and maintenance of AC (Cantwell 2015); and the concepts of liquidity and network society to
explore issues related to the breakdown of human and labor relations in the context of AC
(Sigahi and Saltorato 2018).
Another trend refers to underexplored AC actors. This points to the need to question
established assumptions of TAC regarding passive roles and warn us that every actor has the
potential to be an (active) academic capitalist. For example, Mars et al. (2008) created the
concept of State-sponsored student entrepreneur, which allowed researchers to look at students
in a new way. However, there is still much to investigate about their role as active agents.
Student associations can act as interstitial organizations (Sigahi and Saltorato n.d.), influenced
by intermediating organizations (e.g., think tanks, firms, hybrid, and multilateral organiza-
tions), disseminating market discourses (e.g., human capital, competitiveness, meritocracy, risk
culture, audit culture) within the university.
Other important emerging lines of literature and research opportunities on underexplored
AC actors worth mentioning are the following: the editor of journals and book series as
academic capitalist, an actor who notably has a strategic and privileged position in the
academic field by applying the dominant rules of the game in publishing (Münch 2014, 7);
science/technology park and its relation with incubators, accelerators, and co-working spaces
within universities; university presses and libraries, acting as interstitial organizations creating
new funding streams and extended managerial capacity; and the boundary-spanning role of
management consulting firms, acting as intermediating organizations, enabling consultants to
circulate crisis narratives and diffuse private sector management ideas among public colleges
and universities (McClure 2017).
Lastly, related to the need to broaden and deepen understanding about the actors of AC is
the emergence of new circuits of knowledge and funding streams. This trend refers to new
Higher Education

forms of education and teaching technologies in promoting (transnational) AC. Distance

courses, MOOCs, MBAs, and Bprofessional^ (in contrast with Bacademic^) master and PhD
programs are examples of subjects that deserve attention. These new modalities change the
way universities, faculty, and students relate to each other and to their peers. It is important to
note the lack of studies investigating the role of education companies and investment funds
(e.g., Apollo Group, Whitney International University System, Carlyle, Capital Group, Carte-
sian Group) in the proliferation of new forms and technologies of education, and in the
construction of a global HE market.

Conclusions

AC has become one of the most influential lines of research in the study of the transformations
in HE. Nevertheless, we contend that there is a need to better understand—and to capture—the
complexity of AC, as a phenomenon and as a theory. Important and intertwined topics are
treated disjointed, while AC is often used as an umbrella term and the TAC framework remains
superficially explored.
The first implication of this work for research on AC is the incorporation of theoretical
elements from complexity theory to its interpretation. Understanding AC as a complex
emergent phenomenon generated out of actors’ intertwined actions at multiple levels pave
the way for incorporating the fundamental premises of complexity theory (interconnectedness,
systems view, emergent behavior, hologrammatic and recursive principles) as well as the
guiding idea of a complex view of AC: distinguishing without disjoining.
These ideas underlie both proposals for organizing and classifying the literature on AC.
Distinguishing analytical levels and actors provides a clearer view of how actors (agents or
subsystems) position themselves in the field (system), how they interconnect, and how their
actions resonate at other levels (emergent behavior). Distinguishing themes and contributions
allows categorizing the wealth of research into smaller units for deeper analysis, without losing
sight of the transdisciplinarity nature of AC. Both classification schemes can help researchers
from different knowledge areas to explore the full potential of the TAC framework and to
develop a common language for communicating with different scientific communities where
research on the transformations of HE has been published. In sum, researchers may benefit
from both classification schemes by positioning their theoretical contributions in the literature
and being precise about how their findings contribute to the understanding of a particular actor,
in what level of analysis, and in relation to which research topic.
By discussing each category and subcategory related to themes and contributions, we
provided a comprehensive view of the research on AC. We integrated the main findings,
identified gaps, highlighted new trends, and provided our own voice in arguing that TAC can
be a powerful tool for criticizing the Bmarket knows best^ ethos. A message of the articles in
Bexploration and reflection on AC^ is that there are no definitive and unique answers to the
complex problems posed by AC. These articles challenge established assumptions, provoke
researchers, and stimulate new ones; they may be an excellent starting point for further
research. The articles in BCreation of the TAC theoretical framework^ indicate the need for
a context-based view of AC, in which its effects have no boundaries and every actor is a
potential academic capitalist—key ideas to advance knowledge about AC and to overcome the
superficial use of the TAC framework. The category BResearch topics and applications^ is
useful for researchers interested in deepen analysis of specific, established topics on AC.
 Higher Education

Finally, BNew trends^ shows promising research opportunities and motivates researchers to
open new paths of research on AC.
This work has limitations. The first one regards data selection, as the inclusion and
exclusion criteria, as well as the databases used, may have neglected relevant studies. Second,
there is limitation regarding the rapidly growing number of publications on AC and related
topics, which affects the contributions of the paper. Third, the focus on the comprehensiveness
of the sample along with the limitation imposed by the length of a journal article precludes in-
depth analysis of each topic. Finally, as we put ourselves in a position to offer not only a
synthesis, but also a critical analysis, notwithstanding the desire for scientific impartiality,
research work is susceptible to its author’s worldview and cognitive limitations. Future studies
may update this review, including books, book chapters, and conference papers and expanding
the variety of languages, databases, and selection strategies (e.g., snowball sampling).
We believe that TAC can be more than a way to explain the transformations in HE; it can
also be a source of resistance against the domination of the market logic. As told by Slaughter
(2014), Bunderstanding what is happening will enable us to change it.^ Thus, this study may
increase the effectiveness of future research not only on AC, but also for those who might
investigate the several ways in which the neoliberal restructure has affected HE.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to express their gratitude to Robert Austin, Milena Serafim, Cleyton
Ferrarini, and Laerte Sznelwar for their comments on early versions of the manuscript and to the anonymous
reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Funding information This work is part of the project BNeoliberalism and the Construction of the National
Higher Education Market^ funded by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel
(CAPES).

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